With the fast penetration of digital cameras and camcorders worldwide, as well as camera-phones, photography (amateur and professional) is becoming increasingly digital, creating new needs and service opportunities. Canon is ideally positioned to benefit from such services, as a top manufacturer of both digital imaging input devices (digital cameras/camcorders, scanners), output devices (printers), and multifunctional devices.
Canon Research Centre France’s Visual Communication Services (VCS) Unit is researching and developing the technologies that will put Canon in a strong position to profit from new visual communication services, whether they are provided by Canon directly or by new business partners.
VCS’s target applications are :
With the increase in picture resolution, numbers of pictures taken per user and numbers of picture-takers, a distributed digital imaging architecture is the only solution in the medium term for storage and retrieval of digital imaging data.
2) Remote browsing of high-resolution imagery, for both consumer and professional applications
With digital cameras already producing over 6MPixel pictures today, bandwidth-efficient solutions, based on standard image formats and protocols, are required to browse high-resolution images over the Internet.
3) Tracking of copyrighted images over the web, for the professional photographer market
The convenience and ease of selling imagery in digital form requires solutions to detect and prevent the illegal distribution of copyrighted pictures, in order to reach the full potential of business opportunities.
4) Access to web services from light, mobile devices
As lighter and increasingly powerful personal devices become pervasive, consumers will be able to access a very wide range of web services from anywhere. Efficient access to these services will be a key differentiator.
For more information about this technology, please contact business-dev@crf.canon.fr