Back in 2005, Picture Business ran an article about image storage and retrieval that featured some very futuristic products and software that would not only help consumers back up their digital images for safekeeping, but also quickly and easily find those images when needed. We’ve decided to revisit this topic to see what progress, if any, has been made.
Tom Napoli, Manager, Advanced Development & Engineering Digital Capture & Imaging Devices, Eastman Kodak, states, “We do recognize and often hear that editing and organizing images is a number one priority for consumers. They realize it’s a more difficult problem than just throwing them into the proverbial shoebox, and that they might as well be lost if you can’t find them on your hard drive.”
Yet for some reason, consumers are still slacking off when it comes to backing up images. On the one hand, the industry has been quite successful in convincing people to switch over to digital imaging and in showing them the wonderful things they can create such as calendars, books and cards. “But,” notes Lisa Walker, President, 13A, “what we haven’t done a very good job at as an industry is telling them how to manage and preserve those images. We’re looking at what’s happening and thinking this is going to be disastrous at some point; we’re not telling consumers the bad news. They’ll have to put more effort into saving images if they want to have those pictures, 5, 10, or 50 years from now.
“We’ve been discussing this problem for a long time and trying to figure out what kind of standards project we could create to help resolve this issue. We finally decided that the biggest problem is lack of education. Consumers are not aware that they need to do something, nor do they know what to do. We (I3A and HP, working together) finally hit on the idea of a Web site (www.savemymemories.org) that will take people through the issues that they’ll run into—if they haven’t already.”
The site, which was launched in March at PMA, will show consumers how to identify specific problems and offer advice on choosing a backup method that will work for their lifestyle, habits, etc. “We compared different back up methods and ended up recommending printing as one of the ways,” explains Walker. “I’m the last person to be holding onto the passing of the print; because it’s going to happen over time. But right now it’s still the easiest and most reliable way to back up images.
“The thing about prints versus all the other back up methods is they’re human-readable and none of the other back up methods are,” she says. But it’s not the only method Walker and her colleagues recommend. They didn’t start out with prints as the answer; they ended up there after a lot of thought, discussion and review of all the different ways people could back up their images, which includes prints, external hard drives, optical media copies, and online storage. “Those are our top four recommendations,” says Walker, “and for a lot of people printing is the easiest method. They don’t have to worry whether the media, software and/or hardware will become obsolete or their online storage company will go out of business.”
The site doesn’t push any one solution but instead provides consumers with information so they can make their own decisions. “It’s just an information source,” explains Walker. “We don’t intend people to come here and store images and we’re not selling anything. We want to be a credible source of information. We don’t promote any particular company’s products—even the companies that sponsor the site are not all that visible. We may add a directory later—a resource guide to point people to where they can buy product.”
HP and I3A continue to update the Web site and will be adding more “wizard-like” features to lead people through the process more easily. And although I3A doesn’t have a mechanism where retailers can join the initiative, they encourage them to leverage the site and provide them with feedback. “We’re definitely encouraging retailers to use the site—to link to it, refer to it, etc.,” concludes Walker.
Questions and Answers
Alexis Gerard, Chair, 6Sight Future of Imaging Conference, believes there’s been enormous progress with “the basics.” “There’s more software available that allows people to do backups easily and/or automatically and there are a large number of companies offering online back up at affordable prices. However, I’m not saying the market penetration for these solutions and the habits of people have fully caught up. But from a technical and economic standpoint, that problem is largely on its way to being solved.”
The real problem for consumers seems to be finding one or two images among the thousands they have on their hard drives, media cards, etc. “That’s what we’re going to be talking about at the conference (The Future of Imaging/November 8-9, 2007),” says Gerard, “because it’s an area where there’s still a lot of work to do.” The conference will explore the transformative impact of current and impending imaging technologies on businesses, homes, and communities.
The way to approach the storage problem, says Gerard, is to look at the questions people ask about pictures and videos when they’re trying to locate them—Who, When, Where and What. The most widespread criteria, especially for consumers, when looking for a photo is “Who.” “They’re looking for a certain person,” notes Gerard, “and then When did this happen? Where did this happen? And, What was the occasion?
“That’s the structure of how the issue will be approached at the conference. With respect to Who,” he continues, “there have been a number of announcements where companies have said, ‘We’ve had a breakthrough on facial recognition.’ And indeed, we’ve seen some of that come to market with respect to cameras that identify where the faces are when taking a picture (face detection).” Although the technologies are related, he notes, nothing has come to market yet where consumers can sort through hundreds of pictures—taken under a wide variety of conditions with a variety of equipment—and reliably tag the pictures with the name of the person or persons in them.
“There is some very advanced research going on at universities throughout the world,” says Gerard. “One of our sponsors is FotoNation, which is hosting the ‘Who’ session. They’re bringing in top university researchers to talk about the cutting edge of research in that area.” Of the four “W”s, says Gerard, “When” is the one that is largely answered because pretty much every digital camera has a date and time stamp on it. “Then it’s really a matter of making sure that information is encoded in a way that doesn’t get destroyed when an image gets moved around between storage systems, applications, etc.
“We’re also going to focus on ‘Where,’ which is an interesting topic because there’s a convergence of low-cost, portable, GPS attachments that are coming to market and also an infrastructure of Geo-mapping primarily from Google and Microsoft that will allow us to cross-reference information that’s created at the time of image capture.”
The real question is, How does the industry create automatic mechanisms that answer all four “W”s? “It’s pretty much impossible to think about all the ways someone may later want to use their pictures,” states Gerard. “Only a few obsessive-compulsives label and save images—and they’re usually pros. We have to require vendors to provide the solutions that do the basics automatically (for the average consumer).”
Gerard notes we must also continue to train the consumer, although to some extent, it’s the responsibility of the companies offering back up solutions to reach the consumer. “And as these solutions start to become more and more attractive,” concludes Gerard, “it’s starting to happen.”
A Few New Products and Services
Both Fujifilm and Kodak continue to work on face recognition (computer-realted) products we detailed back in 2005. But as of now, there are no immediate plans to release them to the public. Meanwhile, both companies have introduced other storage products/services.
According to Kodak’s Napoli, people have become more aware of the growing mountain of images on their hard drives and are now getting into backup (also thanks in part to consumers having lost images to disk failure, hard drive crashes, etc.). To address the consumer’s newfound desire to back up, Kodak’s Easy Share Gallery now offers a new Gallery Premiere Service with a Picture Protection Plan. “The plan allows consumers to upload their pictures and have unlimited downloads of their full, high-resolution images,” explains Napoli.
Although storing images on DVD isn’t new, Fujifilm is making it more fun (and professional looking) with its new Labelflash system. The technology was developed as a joint project between Yamaha Corporation and Fujifilm Corporation engineers and is being introduced to the U.S. market via select models of the Toshiba Satellite A205/P205 Notebook computer series.
These special DVD drives, enabled with Labelflash, allow users to create customized, professional-looking DVDs with finely detailed labeling by inscribing high-quality images and text directly into a specialized dye within the disk. The image/text is burned at a depth of 0.6 mm below the disk’s surface, providing a more permanent “label” as opposed to printed labels and/or handwritten labels using a Sharpie. Fujifilm recordable media for Labelflash is available in DVD-R (16x) format and burns images in about 5 minutes in Fast1 mode and 15-20 minutes for the best quality. Toshiba includes a ten-pack with the new laptops (currently, the disks are only available from Fuji).
Of course, most of the population is not going to rush out and buy the Toshiba Notebook just for this product. But according to Craig Andrews, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications, Fujifilm U.S.A., external drives will eventually be available, as they are now in Europe and Asia.
States Andrews, “The Labelflash technology was announced 1.5 years ago, mostly in Asia. Originally, Yamaha developed a technology called Disk Tattoo for the recording side of CDs. There was a unique opportunity to take this etching technology and marry it to our disk dye expertise.
HP has launched its MediaSmart Server to help professionals organize, protect, preserve and access their files with minimum stress and effort.
The server is designed to help the graphic art and photographic industries store all their digital files and photos and access them anytime, anywhere. HP’s MediaSmart Server offers remote access to digital files from any Internet-connected computer; Secure sharing of images via HP’s Photo Webshare, which allows pros to create a photo Web site on their server and decide who does and doesn’t get access to them; Expandable storage capacity to meet growing needs and evolving digital libraries; and automatic backups of multiple PCs on the network and restoration individual files or entire PC hard drive in the event of a hardware or software failure.
Hence, back up solutions abound. Now, if we can only get consumers to understand the importance of backing up their images, we might begin to take some giant steps forward. Stay tuned for the next recap! yy
