Not a news round up, but a couple of graphic design links that caught my eye.

• VectorMagic: This site traces bitmap images, turning them into beautiful vector art. Just upload your image and we will convert it for you. (link via IM from Trevor)
• 100 Awesome High Resolution Photoshop Brushes: Lets [sic] dive today into a sea of brushes. Hundreds of thousands of sets are lying undiscovered like pirate treasures all over the web. Due to this phenomenally vast amount of Photoshop brushes available, directories are becoming very popular lately. (link via digg)

These are my links for 12 Jun:

• Teen: Toilet Water Cleaner Than Fountain, Oregon Student Finds School’s Toilet Water Cleaner Than Fountain Water - Middle School student Kyleray Katherman had a hunch something was amiss with the school’s drinking fountain water. And right he was.
• FREE MySpace Background Color Pattern & Icon Gizmo - Mod-looking, customizable background images for websites
• Squidfingers / Patterns - Pixelated background images.

These are my links for 11 Jun:

• Vitamin Features » Web Design-isms: 7 Surefire Styles that Work - Glossy buttons, ornamental backgrounds, futuristic interfaces. We?ve all been guilty at one time or another of committing the 7 design-isms in this article from Larissa Meek. But that?s okay, she tells us, they?re classics for a reason.
• Ricky Martin to reign at NYC’s Puerto Rican parade | News | Advocate.com - Grammy-winning pop star Ricky Martin, chosen as the king of this weekend’s 50th annual Puerto Rican Day parade in New York City, said he’s excited for the sea of revelers but hopes no one will get out of hand.
• The innocence of the BBC on Flickr - Photo Sharing! - The BBC in part of its “Have your Say” campaign, accidentally published this image along with other members of the publics attempts at an alternative Olympics logo.

These are my links for 29 May:

• Playground Fun - Worse Than Failure - “Either I missed out on a lot as a kid, or the playgrounds here in Belgium are a LOT more fun than the ones back home.”
• Anti-war mom Cindy Sheehan gives up her protest - Sheehan: My son “did indeed die for nothing”
• Real-Life Transforming Optimus Prime Costume - It’s a real costume?there’s actually a man inside?that transforms from robot to truck mode without making the wearer bend his spine in three different directions.
• Apple?s Lesson for Sony?s Stores: Just Connect - New York Times - Retail is supposed to be hard. Apple has made it seem ridiculously easy. And yet it must be harder than it appears, or why hasn?t the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?

• The Secret of Apple Design - Apple, Inc. has made an art of not talking about its products. Fans, journalists, and rumormongers who love it or love to hate it have long had to practice a sort of Kremlinology to gather the merest hints as to what is coming next out of Cupertino.
• Cool business card designs
• Oral sex can cause throat cancer - People who have had more than five oral-sex partners in their lifetime are 250% more likely to have throat cancer than those who do not have oral sex, a new study suggests.