[Processing] It only took 162 attempts, but Processing 1.0 is here!

[announce at processing.org]

We've just posted Processing 1.0 at http://processing.org/download.  
We're so excited about it, we even took time to write a press release.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and LOS ANGELES, Calif. - November 24, 2008 - The  
Processing project today announced the immediate availability of the  
Processing 1.0 product family, the highly anticipated release of  
industry-leading design and development software for virtually every  
creative workflow. Delivering radical breakthroughs in workflow  
efficiency - and packed with hundreds of innovative, time-saving  
features - the new Processing 1.0 product line advances the creative  
process across print, Web, interactive, film, video and mobile.

Whups! That's not the right one. Here we go:

Today, on November 24, 2008, we launch the 1.0 version of the  
Processing software. Processing is a programming language, development  
environment, and online community that since 2001 has promoted  
software literacy within the visual arts. Initially created to serve  
as a software sketchbook and to teach fundamentals of computer  
programming within a visual context, Processing quickly developed into  
a tool for creating finished professional work as well.

Processing is a free, open source alternative to proprietary software  
tools with expensive licenses, making it accessible to schools and  
individual students. Its open source status encourages the community  
participation and collaboration that is vital to Processing's growth.  
Contributors share programs, contribute code, answer questions in the  
discussion forum, and build libraries to extend the possibilities of  
the software. The Processing community has written over seventy  
libraries to facilitate computer vision, data visualization, music,  
networking, and electronics.

Students at hundreds of schools around the world use Processing for  
classes ranging from middle school math education to undergraduate  
programming courses to graduate fine arts studios.

+ At New York University's graduate ITP program, Processing is taught  
alongside its sister project Arduino and PHP as part of the foundation  
course for 100 incoming students each year.

+ At UCLA, undergraduates in the Design | Media Arts program use  
Processing to learn the concepts and skills needed to imagine the next  
generation of web sites and video games.

+ At Lincoln Public Schools in Nebraska and the Phoenix Country Day  
School in Arizona, middle school teachers are experimenting with  
Processing to supplement traditional algebra and geometry classes.

Tens of thousands of companies, artists, designers, architects, and  
researchers use Processing to create an incredibly diverse range of  
projects.

+ Design firms such as Motion Theory provide motion graphics created  
with Processing for the TV commercials of companies like Nike,  
Budweiser, and Hewlett-Packard.

+ Bands such as R.E.M., Radiohead, and Modest Mouse have featured  
animation created with Processing in their music videos.

+ Publications such as the journal Nature, the New York Times, Seed,  
and Communications of the ACM have commissioned information graphics  
created with Processing.

+ The artist group HeHe used Processing to produce their award-winning  
Nuage Vert installation, a large-scale public visualization of  
pollution levels in Helsinki.

+ The University of Washington's Applied Physics Lab used Processing  
to create a visualization of a coastal marine ecosystem as a part of  
the NSF RISE project.

+ The Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies at Miami  
University uses Processing to build visualization tools and analyze  
text for digital humanities research.

The Processing software runs on the Mac, Windows, and GNU/Linux  
platforms. With the click of a button, it exports applets for the Web  
or standalone applications for Mac, Windows, and GNU/Linux. Graphics  
from Processing programs may also be exported as PDF, DXF, or TIFF  
files and many other file formats. Future Processing releases will  
focus on faster 3D graphics, better video playback and capture, and  
enhancing the development environment. Some experimental versions of  
Processing have been adapted to other languages such as JavaScript,  
ActionScript, Ruby, Python, and Scala; other adaptations bring  
Processing to platforms like the OpenMoko, iPhone, and OLPC XO-1.

Processing was founded by Ben Fry and Casey Reas in 2001 while both  
were John Maeda's students at the MIT Media Lab. Further development  
has taken place at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, Carnegie  
Mellon University, and the UCLA, where Reas is chair of the Department  
of Design | Media Arts. Miami University, Oblong Industries, and the  
Rockefeller Foundation have generously contributed funding to the  
project.

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum (a Smithsonian Institution)  
included Processing in its National Design Triennial. Works created  
with Processing were featured prominently in the Design and the  
Elastic Mind show at the Museum of Modern Art. Numerous design  
magazines, including Print, Eye, and Creativity, have highlighted the  
software.

For their work on Processing, Fry and Reas received the 2008 Muriel  
Cooper Prize from the Design Management Institute. The Processing  
community was awarded the 2005 Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica award  
and the 2005 Interactive Design Prize from the Tokyo Type Director's  
Club.

The Processing website (www.processing.org) includes tutorials,  
exhibitions, interviews, a complete reference, and hundreds of  
software examples. The Discourse forum hosts continuous community  
discussions and dialog with the developers.