watermarking
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SilverPush claims its TV monitoring app didn't snoop on you
SilverPush, an Indian firm that made software capable of silently tracking your TV viewing, claims it has no active partnerships with US-based apps. The company found itself under the spotlight last week after the FTC issued warnings to a number of developers apparently using its code. The concern was that if the apps are using this software to monitor TV viewing, and not telling users, the developers would be in violation of FTC regulations. Today, SilverPush issued a statement claiming it no longer uses the "Unique Audio Beacons" (UAB) technology in question, and has no active partnership with any US-based developers anyway. Adding that it considers it "a welcome move the the FTC is taking a stand on user privacy."
Watermark Plus adds watermarks to your photos quickly and easily
Watermark Plus ($19.90) is a nifty app that pros and others wanting to protect their digital image creations will appreciate. You can create watermarks on your own, or use any of several templates provided. The app supports JPEG, TIFF, BMP and PNG formats. You have control of position, font, opacity and colors. Even better, you can apply your watermark to hundreds of photos at once by dragging a folder over a target on the app screen. If the photos are of varying sizes, the app places the watermark in the right place -- a lower corner, top centered, whatever you choose. The app also supports inserting EXIF data into your images in any way you specify including -- of course --the date. I tried the app on a large folder of images and it worked as well as I expected. Not everyone will need watermarks, but as we increasingly send our pictures to photo sharing sites and the web in general, watermarking becomes more and more important. Watermark Plus also allows you to batch resize photos by width, height, percentage, or fit to a particular size. The app will also convert your photos from one format, like TIFF for example, to JPEG or any other supported format. All in all, Watermark Plus is a handy application for both professional photographers and people serious about keeping some control of their work. The app is available by download from the developer's website, not the Mac App Store. It's currently $10.00 off the usual list price of $29.90. Help is included in the app, but it's really not that difficult to run.
Philips spins off watermarking business as Civolution
There's no way that a big company like Philips can keep up with the rag-tag pirates on the interwebs, which might explain why the company has spun off its content watermarking business as Civolution. Not to be confused with TiVolution (which also is showing an increasing desire to watch what you watch), the new company also pulls the Philips/Medialink venture, Teletrax, into the fold to offer up broadcast TV metrics and complete the marketer's tech dream combo. Not great news for bootleggers, but it beats media-crippling DRM by a mile in our book. You didn't really think Philips was going to limit its reach to the hotel PPV circuit, did you?
Philips' VTrack watermarks content recorded with camcorders
Certainly not the first watermarking scheme we've seen of late, Philips has introduced a new method that it hopes will thwart any plan to snag sensitive PPV material and distribute it illegally on the intarnetz. The VTrack solution, set to debut at NAB Show, is aimed at hoteliers who enjoy offering up PPV films well before the DVD release date. The company will be integrating the technology -- which makes content captured via camcorder traceable -- into its 26-, 32-, 37- and 42-inch HDTVs, and if someone does set up their own bootlegging studio and then share it with everyone on the web, content owners can unearth the time, date and location of the deed. In Soviet Russia (and hotels with Philips sets), content watches you.
Canon's eye-based biometric photo watermarking system hits the Patent Office
Image attribution is big business on this tangled web of ours, but embedding digital watermarks into images is a costly and time-consuming procedure for most photographers -- which is why this Canon patent application is so intriguing. The filing describes a "Registration" mode for digital cameras that embeds biometric data captured from your iris in the image automatically as a watermark -- you simply set yourself as one of up to five users, look into the viewfinder for a moment so the camera can scan your eye, and start taking photos. The system embeds the metadata in batches to avoid slowing the camera down while you're out in the field, and it sounds like the system can be modified to simply generate a verification code instead of a true watermark, preserving image quality. Of course, this is just a patent application, so there's no word on when or where we might see this tech pop up, but you know photographers will be all over this when it finally hits.[Via Photography Bay, thanks Eric]
Get rid of iTunes Plus "watermarking"
Our own Erica was one of the first to discover that personal information is encoded in DRM-free iTunes Plus files. If you want to remove that "watermarking," Playlist Magazine has a solution: TUAW favorite audio editor Fission ($32) from Rogue Amoeba "can strip out the identifying information in an iTunes Plus track without changing the file's audio." Basically, you just open the file then resave it as AAC (Original Format, Lossless) and the non-original format identifying information is not saved. Unfortunately, you have to do this for each file individually, but if you don't want your name and Apple ID in the file, this looks like it'll work (though I haven't tried it myself).
Skitch private beta updates with major UI changes, more integration
Skitch became an instant hit around the TUAW offices when we first heard about it at Macworld, and a couple of recent updates to this well-integrated screenshot app have only made it better. As you can see, watermarking has made an appearance for eBay sellers and paranoid bloggers alike, and the overall UI has received quite an overhaul. Taking snapshots of app windows (the Mac OS X equivalent is cmd-shift-4) also now has the ability to place a white or transparent background behind the window, or simply your desktop wallpaper - no matter what you actually have running behind said window when you snap it. The History feature has also received a new coat of polish: not only can you drag and drop images straight out of the History, but you can search any text you have written on top of any picture in your History.Plenty of other innovative new features have made their way into the latest builds, but plasq said something about 'sleeping with the fishes' if we published them, so they'll have to remain under wraps for now. As Skitch's teaser page says, a public beta is on its way, and a price is still forthcoming.Until Skitch goes public, you can see it in action at blip.tv with a video of plasq's own Rachael demoing it at Macworld.
Cinea's SV510 USB key puts movie footage on lockdown
With movie studios sending around an increasing amount of digital footage before a film is even released, there are a growing number of opportunities for pirates to get their hands on that valuable content and do what pirates do best. We've already seen Dolby Laboratories subsidiary Cinea attempt to combat this problem by shipping secure DVDs and players to Academy Awards judges, and now the company has released a portable USB 2.0 video key called the SV510 that brings the same encryption technology to the dailies and rough cuts that need to be distributed throughout the filmmaking process. Once the desired footage has been encoded with Cinea's S-VIEW encryption and watermarking technique, it can be safely sent on a DVD or via the Internet to recipients with an authorized SV510, who must plug the device into their PCs and enter a six to twelve digit code if they wish to view the content. This system ensures that even if a laptop and SV510 are both lost/stolen together, the encrypted video cannot be viewed without a password; and for heightened security, any of the Cinea peripherals can be remotely de-authorized by the content creators. The Windows version of this product is available immediately for $600 -- a Mac edition will be shipping in October -- along with a "management fee" of $20/month for the life of the device.[Via über gizmo]
