Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome Web browsers have been updated to offer support for CSS's image-set specification.
The new update enables support displays with higher pixel densities - notably, to Apple's new Retina Macbook Pro. Even though Chrome had already been optimized for Apple's Retina display in July, the new standard will now allow the browser to detect a device's display and select the highest quality images automatically.
The image-set specification also estimates a user's bandwidth to determine whether or not to serve Retina-quality images. However, adoption of the standard is largely dependent on developer support, but it could happen sooner rather than later if Retina-quality displays become more persistent.
Jason Grigsby of Cloud Four has already put together a test page that demonstrates image-set and its syntax. Grigsby pointed out that one of the big advantages of image-set specification is that it does not tell a browser which image to use, but just provides options. The provision of options leaves the door open to situations where a screen may be high resolution, but the browser is smart enough to know when it's on a slow network and, therefore, still opts for the lower-resolution image.
For those interested in knowing more about the image-set specification, additional information is available here
