I've been messing around with the beta version of M$'s new "Acrylic" vector graphic program. I like what I see thus far. Hopefully this is free like windows paint. It's quite useful if you know Adobe Illustrator well. One thing that I love about it is the tracing option. Illustrator has the option of tracing vector lines over raster graphics, but it's just point, click, hope for the best. Acrylic allows the tracing to be fine-tuned. The image below was created in such a manner. It made a zillion points and lines, so editing the image is near-impossible due to the time it takes to change anything. Still, I like what it does. The beta's free of you can find it on the microsoft site.

The next version of Firefox will support vector graphics. I can't wait to see what will be possible. I imagine a mix of vector shapes and javascript could create some really interesting embedded menus- window interfaces in web pages, scalable graphics, even (dare I suggest it?) zooming interfaces! It's almost too much.