Lara.Burhenn@digimarc.com | +1 503-469-4704
Beaverton, Ore. — May 5, 2011 — Digimarc Corporation (NASDAQ: DMRC) today announced that it has enhanced its Digimarc Discover™ Platform to include music recognition capabilities. Using the Digimarc Discover mobile applications, consumers can access rich media content by using the phone's camera to "see" digital watermarks in printed content. The platform now also uses the microphone to "hear" and can recognize songs using Gracenote®'s proven MusicID® audio recognition technology.
Now users simply launch the Digimarc Discover application and select "look" or "listen" depending on the type of content they want to learn more about. If directed to "listen," the application takes a sampling of the audio to determine the name of the song, artist and album, which is then returned back to the phone. The new versions of the Digimarc Discover applications are now available for demonstration and evaluation from the iTunes and Android Market.
"The addition of music recognition to the Digimarc Discover Platform further demonstrates progress toward our vision for enabling pervasive, intuitive computing. Digimarc Discover is being used to educate the market and demonstrate how the platform enables next-generation visual and audio search to enrich and simplify the lives of consumers," said Jeri Owen, Vice President of Marketing at Digimarc. "The Digimarc Discover platform uses various content identification technologies to quickly identify the content consumers are most interested in and provide them with the best possible experience."
Unique to Digimarc Discover is its ability to use content identification technology as needed, including the company's patented digital watermarking technology. Digital watermarks are easily embedded into all forms of media and are imperceptible to human senses, but quickly detected by computers, networks or other digital devices like mobile phones. Using a watermarking solution, marketers and publishers do not have to give up valuable space in print publications, advertisements or product packaging; nor does it impact the overall layout or aesthetics of the page. In addition digital watermarks can be used to create similar experiences through audio and video, whereas today's popular QR codes and 2D barcodes cannot be used in this fashion.
The Digimarc Discover platform is available for licensing. The music recognition capability is provided by and licensed separately through Gracenote. Companies, publishers or agencies have the following options to create Digimarc Discover-enabled mobile applications:
A component of the Digimarc Discover platform, the Digimarc Discover™ Online Services Portal (OSP) is the only service to enable the embedding of digital watermarks into printed material to deliver enriched content on smartphones. It is currently being used by a variety of magazines, newspapers, packaging companies, advertising agencies, printers and others to link articles and advertisements to enhanced content, interactive ads and other multi-sensory experiences. For a limited time, anyone can access and use basic functions within the portal at no charge during an open beta period, which ends May 31, 2011.
Digimarc continues to invest in mobile research and has a working prototype that is able to recognize all forms of media content — print, audio and video — as demonstrated in this video, showing additional capabilities that we anticipate will become part of the Digimarc Discover platform in the future.
The Digimarc Discover™ Platform will enable smartphones and other mobile devices, to "see and hear" all forms of media content using built-in cameras and microphones. Consumers simply point the phone at content they are interested in and will be presented with a range of associated network services such as purchase a product, learn more, view a video, save for later, download a coupon, or share with a friend, for example. The Digimarc Discover mobile applications are available for licensing as a private label application or feature that can be integrated into existing applications.
Digimarc Corporation (NASDAQ:DMRC), based in Beaverton, Oregon, is a leading innovator and provider of enabling technologies that create digital identities for all forms of media and many everyday objects. The embedded digital IDs are imperceptible to humans, but not to computers, networks and devices like mobile phones, which can now use cameras and microphones as sensory inputs to "see, hear and understand" the world around them within the context of their environment. Digimarc has built an extensive intellectual property portfolio with patents in digital watermarking, content identification and management, media and object discovery to enable ubiquitous computing, and related technologies. Digimarc develops solutions, licenses its intellectual property, and provides development services to business partners across a range of industries. For more information, please visit www.digimarc.com.
With the exception of historical information contained in this release, the matters described in this release contain various "forward-looking statements." These forward-looking statements include statements regarding potential uses of Digimarc Discover™, time and functionality of future releases of Digimarc Discover and other statements identified by terminology such as "will," "should," "expects," "estimates," "predicts" and "continue" or other derivations of these or other comparable terms. These forward-looking statements are statements of management's opinion and are subject to various assumptions, risks, uncertainties and changes in circumstances. Actual results may vary materially from those expressed or implied from the statements in this release as a result of delayed market acceptance, failure to secure commercial partners to help address specific markets or functionality, development delays, or changes in economic, business and/or regulatory factors. More detailed information about risk factors that may affect actual results is set forth in the Company's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010 and in subsequent periodic reports filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which reflect management's opinions only as of the date of this release. Except as required by law, Digimarc undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release.
Gina Giachetti
About Communications
+1 510 858 8111
pr@digimarc.com
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