New paper-based multimedia conversion software for Japanese newspaper industry

25 April 2000 -- Fujitsu Limited has developed authoring and viewing software utilizing INTACTA.CODE, the latest technology for enabling sound, image and other multimedia data to be printed as dot patterns on paper.

The Yomiuri Shimbun will be the first newspaper to adopt Fujitsu's INTACTA.CODE authoring program.

The INTACTA.CODE authoring software will is being marketed to newspaper companies in Japan from April 17, and the viewer program is distributed free of charge to the general public over the Internet beginning on April 19. These products were made possible as the result of a tie-in with INTACTA Technologies Inc. of Atlanta, Georgia.

Newspaper pages are ordinarily made up only of characters, photographs and drawings. However, the impact of television and the spread of multimedia have led to demands from readers for newspaper pages with greater representational power. Multimedia capability, it is thought, would enable newspaper publishers to offer more appealing news coverage and advertisements.

Fujitsu's new INTACTA.CODE authoring program allows publishers to convert music and audio data, office applications, game programs, animation and other data into INTACTA.CODE format, which can then be printed as dot patterns on newsprint.

Readers, after installing the viewing program on a Windows computer, can capture the data with any commercially available, general-use scanner with a resolution of at least 300 dpi and then reproduce it in its original multimedia form.

This technology could be used, for example, to reproduce music samples, obtain stock prices and other numerical data in spreadsheet form, and retrieve game programs. The technology is also expected to facilitate the use of paper as an alternative "memory" format.

It is anticipated that the use of these programs will help the newspaper industry introduce a multimedia dimension to newspaper pages, making possible the attachment of detailed information with advertisements and otherwise broadly increasing the appeal of printed media.

About INTACTA.CODE
Developed by INTACTA Labs Limited, ITI's research arm in Israel, INTACTA.CODE is a proprietary and patented technique for creating a graphic form representing binary information. In this graphic representation, each byte of information is represented by a small pattern of black and white or color dots. INTACTA.CODE can either be stored in either its digital form or printed form. ITI licenses its INTACTA.CODE to developers and system integrators, either as a stand-alone module or as an SDK for seamless and transparent integration within any application.