A few weeks ago I did a customers-only webcast to walk through Digimarc for Images and what's new. It's now available for anyone — customers and curious non-customers alike — to download and view, just go here. A viewing is recommended for anyone new to Digimarc for Images or just wants to learn about what's new and see how it works. Some of the topics covered are:

• What is Digimarc for Images?
• What is a digital watermark and it's benefits?
• What's new with Digimarc for Images 4.0?
• What is Digimarc Search?
• Demonstration of the Adobe Photoshop Digimarc Plug-in
• • A walk-through of embedding a watermark 
  • A walk-through of reading a watermark
• Demonstration of robustness improvements between Classic and Chroma
• • Scaling
  • Cropping
• Demonstration of completely redesigned customer dashboard
• • Message box
  • Digimarc search statistics
  • Account info
  • Promo boxes
• Demonstration of Digimarc Search service
• Demonstration of free Digimarc Reader for Images (for Internet Explorer)

I don't know about you, but I'm always a little cautious of updates and upgrades. I rarely install version 1.0 of some new software and I like knowing if an upgrade is worth it.

Recently Digimarc updated the Digimarc for Images product to 4.0 which includes an upgrade to the watermarking technology.

For those of you who like me want to know "why" you should upgrade I spent an afternoon comparing the new Digimarc for Image upgraded technology "Chroma" to our stalwart technology now known as "Classic".  With the help of our intrepid Digimarc videographer and webmaster there is a new video showing my results with the Digimarc for Image 4.0 update.  We thought the results were compelling enough to even title the video "Beat the Villain".

We can pretend that was a Spoiler Alert...

I've been pretty busy of late with digital watermarking projects. The new release of DFI 4.0 (Digimarc for Images, with the Chroma upgrade) is going really well and I'll post a video comparing the Classic watermarking to the new Chroma upgrade in the near future. Be sure to upgrade your plug-ins if you haven't already, there's even one for Elements users.

Our Mobile technology is keeping me on my toes. It generated a lot of interest at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and with so many inquires that it just may have to spring forth fully grown like Athena from Zeus' forehead. OK, the Athenian reference might have been a bit of a stretch, but our work in the mobile realm really is a gee-whiz experience that seems like magic at times. Hopefully you'll experience it in the near future.

Although I've been preoccupied pushing pixels within images, I have been reading some pretty interesting articles.  There is this piece in the NYTimes that Tina Brown of the Daily Beast recommended. Jason Epstein's article on writing and publishing in our digital age and it got me thinking about copyrights and rewarding the corporation, artist or craftsperson who generates content.  I image that for many of you this is a major reason for you to be watermarking images.