Published by Robert Scoble
I give you a front-row seat on the future. Focusing most of my efforts now on next-generation augmented reality and artificial intelligence, AKA "mixed reality."
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BUY OUR NEW BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/Fourth-Transformation-Robert-Scoble/dp/1539894444 "The Fourth Transformation: How augmented reality and artificial intelligence will change everything."
WATCH MY LATEST SPEECHES:
State of VR with Philip Rosedale (done in VR itself, very cool): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zAA1EVGUZU
At GEOINT, June 2017: http://trajectorymagazine.com/glimpse-new-world/
Augmented World Expo, June 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4xHILvLD8E
At Leade.rs, April 2017: https://youtu.be/52_0JshgjXI
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BIO:
Scoble gives you a front-row seat on the future.
Literally. He had the first ride in the first Tesla. Siri was launched in his house. He's been the first to share all sorts of technologies and companies with you, from Flipboard to Pandora to Instagram.
Today he's focusing on mixed reality, AKA "next-generation augmented reality" which will include a new user interface for EVERYTHING in your life (IoT, Smart Cities, driverless cars, robots, drones, etc).
That's based on his view thanks to his past experience as futurist at Rackspace.
Best place to find Scoble? On his Facebook profile at https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble
He has been a technology blogger since 2000, was one of five people who built Microsoft's Channel 9 video blog/community, worked at Fast Company Magazine running its TV efforts, and has been part of technology media businesses since 1993.
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SPEAKER PITCH:
Apple and Facebook now have revealed their Augmented Reality strategies, which means your business needs one too. Rely on Robert Scoble, the world's top authority on AR, to bring to your conference what businesses should do next.
SPEECH ABSTRACT #1:
TITLE: The Fourth Transformation: What's next in mixed reality (AR and AI) and the future of technology?
Here's an example of this talk at Leade.rs in Paris in April, 2017: https://youtu.be/52_0JshgjXI
Why "the Fourth Transformation?"
Soon we will have phones and glasses that do full on augmented reality. Everything you look at will potentially be augmented. This world is coming in late 2017 with a new iPhone from Apple, amongst other products. Microsoft is betting everything on its HoloLens glasses that do mixed reality and the industry is spending many billions of dollars in R&D and funding new companies like Magic Leap.
This future will be the user interface for IoT, Smart Cities, autonomous cars, robots, drones, and your TV.
This is a big deal and Robert will take you through what mixed reality is and how it will change every business.
Learn more about Robert's speaking style and contact his agent at http://odemanagement.com/robert-scoble/Robert-Scoble.html
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SPEECH ABSTRACT #2:
"The Next Two Clicks of Moore's Law."
Over the next four years, or two clicks of Moore's Law, a ton about our technology world will change. Scoble will bring you the best from his travels visiting R&D labs, startups, and innovators around the world.
He views the world through his rose-colored-mixed-reality glasses, which will be the new user interface for self driving cars, Smart Cities, IoT, and many other things in our world.
He'll send you off with some lessons for companies both large and small.
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SPEECH ABSTRACT #3:
"Personalized Meaning: What is Augmented Reality For?"
As we enter a far more technological world where even cars drive themselves, I predict we'll see a blowback toward the analog, more authentic world.
What role does augmented reality play in both worlds?
Get Scoble's insight into where augmented reality is going, see tons of real-world demos, and understand what he means by 'personalized meaning.'
CONTACT:
If you are looking to contact me, email is best: scobleizer@gmail.com.
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ENDORSEMENTS:
IZEA Top 25 Tech Influencers: https://izea.com/2017/07/07/25-top-tech-influencers/
Time: One of the top 140 Twitterers!
FT: One of the five most influential Twitterers!
Inc. Top 5 on list of Tech Power Players You Need to Know: http://www.inc.com/john-rampton/30-power-players-in-tech-you-need-to-know.html
Next Reality: #4 on top 50 AR influencer list: https://next.reality.news/news/nr50-next-realitys-50-people-watch-augmented-mixed-reality-0177454/
View all posts by Robert Scoble
Gotta say, Geoff has hit it on the head. Microsoft HAS to find a better way of controling “loyalty” instead of the usual “lock them out/in with restrictive protocols and interfaces” methods.
Of all the things hate most about Microsoft’s practices, it is this kind of thing.
I am a big supporter and fan of a lot of the good things Microsoft people are doing for the company. LOTS of excellent stuff coming out of the organisation. However, it is bollocks like this that makes me sad to my stomach.
WHEN WILL THEY LEARN?
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Gotta say, Geoff has hit it on the head. Microsoft HAS to find a better way of controling “loyalty” instead of the usual “lock them out/in with restrictive protocols and interfaces” methods.
Of all the things hate most about Microsoft’s practices, it is this kind of thing.
I am a big supporter and fan of a lot of the good things Microsoft people are doing for the company. LOTS of excellent stuff coming out of the organisation. However, it is bollocks like this that makes me sad to my stomach.
WHEN WILL THEY LEARN?
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BTW, Robert, good going with raising this with the PMs. Way to go, dude 🙂
Was thinking about the specifics of this situation. If the metadata format is ex-SONY or still-SONY, then perhaps Microsoft should stick it to ’em.
However, if it is truely an open format, then Microsoft is doing it again….
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BTW, Robert, good going with raising this with the PMs. Way to go, dude 🙂
Was thinking about the specifics of this situation. If the metadata format is ex-SONY or still-SONY, then perhaps Microsoft should stick it to ’em.
However, if it is truely an open format, then Microsoft is doing it again….
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Does Vista store the metadata in EXIF format instead of IPTC/XMP or in some other format? AFAIK IPTC/XMP is only supported in JPEG and TIFF images, so if you add metadata to any other formats, e.g. BMP, PNG etc. Vista would more than likely have to create a secondary NTFS stream to store the metadata with the image.
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Does Vista store the metadata in EXIF format instead of IPTC/XMP or in some other format? AFAIK IPTC/XMP is only supported in JPEG and TIFF images, so if you add metadata to any other formats, e.g. BMP, PNG etc. Vista would more than likely have to create a secondary NTFS stream to store the metadata with the image.
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Robert, it’s all about getting a better user experience. For example, I shoot some photos, and I tag them with content metadata (description, location, keywords, etc.) I then upload them into Flickr. Because Flickr knows about IPTC/XMP metadata, this info automatically gets tagged – I don’t have to re-enter the metadata again. Similarly for public images tagged with IPTC/XMP that I download onto my desktop – I don’t lose that metadata. And because I have an XMP iFilter plugin in MSN Desktop search, I can search on this metadata in my image library on my desktop.
I also anticipate that Google will add the ability to search on IPTC/XMP metadata in its image search, so that public photos on Flickr, and in other online image libraries using IPTC/XMP, will become far more accessible and discoverable. Will MSN Search do the same?
IPTC metadata has been around for a long time (since 1991), and is heavily used by news organizations, image libraries and professional photographers. It’s also well supported by their software tools. With that installed base of metadata (which is defined by an open, consortium-driven standard) being de facto in that space, it is now moving out into the general consumer space. And while general consumers do not know about IPTC/XMP (and neither should they have to), the fact that it’s there, under the covers, helps to make their user experience simple and transparent.
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Robert, it’s all about getting a better user experience. For example, I shoot some photos, and I tag them with content metadata (description, location, keywords, etc.) I then upload them into Flickr. Because Flickr knows about IPTC/XMP metadata, this info automatically gets tagged – I don’t have to re-enter the metadata again. Similarly for public images tagged with IPTC/XMP that I download onto my desktop – I don’t lose that metadata. And because I have an XMP iFilter plugin in MSN Desktop search, I can search on this metadata in my image library on my desktop.
I also anticipate that Google will add the ability to search on IPTC/XMP metadata in its image search, so that public photos on Flickr, and in other online image libraries using IPTC/XMP, will become far more accessible and discoverable. Will MSN Search do the same?
IPTC metadata has been around for a long time (since 1991), and is heavily used by news organizations, image libraries and professional photographers. It’s also well supported by their software tools. With that installed base of metadata (which is defined by an open, consortium-driven standard) being de facto in that space, it is now moving out into the general consumer space. And while general consumers do not know about IPTC/XMP (and neither should they have to), the fact that it’s there, under the covers, helps to make their user experience simple and transparent.
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Geoff’s reply is right on – IPTC tagging is what is being used by all professional picture management routines that I’m aware of (news organizations, but also services like Corbis, etc.). If I want to sell a picture, it has to be IPTC coded. And yes, the OS definitely needs to support that.
And Sean – EXIF and IPTC are complementary to each other. Users should not manipulate EXIF data (it is meant to be reserved for camera and scanner devices). IPTC fields is where end users should store their meta data for pictures.
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Geoff’s reply is right on – IPTC tagging is what is being used by all professional picture management routines that I’m aware of (news organizations, but also services like Corbis, etc.). If I want to sell a picture, it has to be IPTC coded. And yes, the OS definitely needs to support that.
And Sean – EXIF and IPTC are complementary to each other. Users should not manipulate EXIF data (it is meant to be reserved for camera and scanner devices). IPTC fields is where end users should store their meta data for pictures.
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Hubert there is overlap between EXIF and IPTC in terms of metadata relating to keywords, subject etc. EXIF doesn’t only support the technical info like shutter speed etc.
See my comments on Geoff’s blog for more details.
http://spaces.msn.com/members/gcoupe/Blog/cns!1pfnKMM_BORf8-PhonbrwGoA!1703.entry
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Hubert there is overlap between EXIF and IPTC in terms of metadata relating to keywords, subject etc. EXIF doesn’t only support the technical info like shutter speed etc.
See my comments on Geoff’s blog for more details.
http://spaces.msn.com/members/gcoupe/Blog/cns!1pfnKMM_BORf8-PhonbrwGoA!1703.entry
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As a long time computer user of both Windows and Macintosh computers I would highly urge you to consider Geoff’s suggestions. As others have pointed out, The International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) has been at the center of tagging descriptive metadata to images (and other resources) longer than anyone else. This metadata schema (at least the legacy one) is used by more newspapers, publishers, stock photo agencies and others involved in the collection, organization and dissemination of images than most people realize. See http://ControlledVocabulary.com/imagedatabases/iptc_naa.html for details.
Microsoft has (had?) the opportunity here to actually surpass Apple’s “Spotlight” technology by incorporating the indexing of IPTC Core (IPTC4XMP metadata schema) metadata at the OS level (Apple’s “Spotlight” only reads the legacy IPTC metadata). That MS seems to not be aware of the pervasiveness of this metadata schema is quite worrying to me.
I can’t in good conscience encourage people to embrace a new operating system that ignores this more “open” metadata schema (IPTC Core) in lieu of holding that same information in a proprietary way that can’t easily be shared with other operating systems and file formats.
David Riecks
http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/
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As a long time computer user of both Windows and Macintosh computers I would highly urge you to consider Geoff’s suggestions. As others have pointed out, The International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) has been at the center of tagging descriptive metadata to images (and other resources) longer than anyone else. This metadata schema (at least the legacy one) is used by more newspapers, publishers, stock photo agencies and others involved in the collection, organization and dissemination of images than most people realize. See http://ControlledVocabulary.com/imagedatabases/iptc_naa.html for details.
Microsoft has (had?) the opportunity here to actually surpass Apple’s “Spotlight” technology by incorporating the indexing of IPTC Core (IPTC4XMP metadata schema) metadata at the OS level (Apple’s “Spotlight” only reads the legacy IPTC metadata). That MS seems to not be aware of the pervasiveness of this metadata schema is quite worrying to me.
I can’t in good conscience encourage people to embrace a new operating system that ignores this more “open” metadata schema (IPTC Core) in lieu of holding that same information in a proprietary way that can’t easily be shared with other operating systems and file formats.
David Riecks
http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/
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I’m the PM for Imaging in the Windows Client Platform, so I’d like to respond to this.
We absolutely aren’t trying to lock anybody into proprietary metadata formats. In fact, we don’t ship any proprietary metadata formats. On the contrary, we provide extensibility to make it possible for any third party to add a metadata handler for any format that doesn’t ship with the platform.
In the current CTP builds, we support XMP and EXIF, but unfortunately, so far, we only support IPTC for TIFF files. There was a snag in offering IPTC support in JPEG because the IPTC block in a JPEG file has to be nested in an App13 block. We had some delays in determining how to implement the App13 metadata handler, but (many thanks to our friends at Adobe) we now have the information required to do that.
We want very much to support IPTC in JPEG in Vista and WinFX, but we’re running out of time and I honestly don’t know if we’ll be able to get this done in time. If not, we definitely plan to ship this in the next version of the OS.
Because this is the first version of our new extensible imaging platform, there’s an awful lot we’re trying to do and, unfortunately, time is limited. There are many features we’re passionate about that we have to put off until the next version. At this time, I don’t yet know whether this will be one of them. I hope this information is helpful. Please feel free to write me if you have any concerns.
Peggi Goodwin
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I’m the PM for Imaging in the Windows Client Platform, so I’d like to respond to this.
We absolutely aren’t trying to lock anybody into proprietary metadata formats. In fact, we don’t ship any proprietary metadata formats. On the contrary, we provide extensibility to make it possible for any third party to add a metadata handler for any format that doesn’t ship with the platform.
In the current CTP builds, we support XMP and EXIF, but unfortunately, so far, we only support IPTC for TIFF files. There was a snag in offering IPTC support in JPEG because the IPTC block in a JPEG file has to be nested in an App13 block. We had some delays in determining how to implement the App13 metadata handler, but (many thanks to our friends at Adobe) we now have the information required to do that.
We want very much to support IPTC in JPEG in Vista and WinFX, but we’re running out of time and I honestly don’t know if we’ll be able to get this done in time. If not, we definitely plan to ship this in the next version of the OS.
Because this is the first version of our new extensible imaging platform, there’s an awful lot we’re trying to do and, unfortunately, time is limited. There are many features we’re passionate about that we have to put off until the next version. At this time, I don’t yet know whether this will be one of them. I hope this information is helpful. Please feel free to write me if you have any concerns.
Peggi Goodwin
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Well Peggi, since you didn’t leave an email, that makes writing you a little tricky.
However, I’m surprised that IPTC support didn’t get a much higher priority, since it’s a commonly used and necessary standard in all the formats that can use it.
Considering that the current version difference between XP and Vista is around 5 years, I hope you really meant, “Next update to the OS”, not “Next version of the OS”. I don’t know a lot of people willing to wait until 2010/2011 for necessary IPTC support.
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Well Peggi, since you didn’t leave an email, that makes writing you a little tricky.
However, I’m surprised that IPTC support didn’t get a much higher priority, since it’s a commonly used and necessary standard in all the formats that can use it.
Considering that the current version difference between XP and Vista is around 5 years, I hope you really meant, “Next update to the OS”, not “Next version of the OS”. I don’t know a lot of people willing to wait until 2010/2011 for necessary IPTC support.
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As well, if you are that limited on time and resources, why create your own metadata system that duplicates IPTC? It seems that time could have been put to better use integrating an existing standard.
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As well, if you are that limited on time and resources, why create your own metadata system that duplicates IPTC? It seems that time could have been put to better use integrating an existing standard.
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Peggi, thanks very much for responding. Good to hear that IPTC support is planned for JPEG in Vista – but, like John, I hope you mean that it will arrive in the next update of Vista, not the next version of the OS after Vista.
But I don’t think I quite understand by what you mean by “In the current CTP builds, we support XMP and EXIF, but unfortunately, so far, we only support IPTC for TIFF files”. My interpretation of that would be to say that if I use the Windows Explorer to examine file properties of a JPEG, then I would see XMP and EXIF metadata displayed, and if I were to examine a TIFF file, then I would see IPTC (legacy IIM?) metadata displayed.
This doesn’t seem to be the case. If I look at a JPEG file with Windows Explorer – I can see EXIF metadata, but not all XMP metadata (only ‘keywords’, apparently). And if I search on XMP metadata (after adding an XMP iFilter to the indexing engine), I can only seem to search in the ‘keywords’ metadata. Similarly, tagging a TIFF file with IPTC data does not seem to be reflected back in the properties displayed in Explorer or searchable in the index.
I’m clearly missing something in what you mean by “support”. I would be grateful for a pointer to a fuller explanation of what you mean, if that’s possible.
Many thanks, Geoff
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Peggi, thanks very much for responding. Good to hear that IPTC support is planned for JPEG in Vista – but, like John, I hope you mean that it will arrive in the next update of Vista, not the next version of the OS after Vista.
But I don’t think I quite understand by what you mean by “In the current CTP builds, we support XMP and EXIF, but unfortunately, so far, we only support IPTC for TIFF files”. My interpretation of that would be to say that if I use the Windows Explorer to examine file properties of a JPEG, then I would see XMP and EXIF metadata displayed, and if I were to examine a TIFF file, then I would see IPTC (legacy IIM?) metadata displayed.
This doesn’t seem to be the case. If I look at a JPEG file with Windows Explorer – I can see EXIF metadata, but not all XMP metadata (only ‘keywords’, apparently). And if I search on XMP metadata (after adding an XMP iFilter to the indexing engine), I can only seem to search in the ‘keywords’ metadata. Similarly, tagging a TIFF file with IPTC data does not seem to be reflected back in the properties displayed in Explorer or searchable in the index.
I’m clearly missing something in what you mean by “support”. I would be grateful for a pointer to a fuller explanation of what you mean, if that’s possible.
Many thanks, Geoff
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I can see it now, headlines in 2007: Windows Vista susceptible to new hack, exploiting the META-DATA in image files…A recently discovered flaw in the way Windows handles the META-DATA in the way an IPTCJPG stores it info as allowed hackers to entirely compromise Windows Vista….
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I can see it now, headlines in 2007: Windows Vista susceptible to new hack, exploiting the META-DATA in image files…A recently discovered flaw in the way Windows handles the META-DATA in the way an IPTCJPG stores it info as allowed hackers to entirely compromise Windows Vista….
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John, if you check Peggy’s reply (same reply as here) on Geoff’s blog you’ll see her email address listed.
It’s not clear that they have created a propiertary metadata format. They could be storing keyword metadata etc. in standard EXIF format.
And if Vista doesn’t ship with IPTC/XMP support in the OS the platform allows any third party to write a property handler for this type of metadata. The Vista shell will then provide the UI for viewing and editing this metadata and will use the property handler for reading and persisting the metadata.
The metadata will then also be indexed so users can perform queries against the metadata.
So yes it would be useful to have the OS ship with a default IPTC/XMP handler, but you’re not totally out of luck if it doesn’t since they provide an extensibility framework.
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John, if you check Peggy’s reply (same reply as here) on Geoff’s blog you’ll see her email address listed.
It’s not clear that they have created a propiertary metadata format. They could be storing keyword metadata etc. in standard EXIF format.
And if Vista doesn’t ship with IPTC/XMP support in the OS the platform allows any third party to write a property handler for this type of metadata. The Vista shell will then provide the UI for viewing and editing this metadata and will use the property handler for reading and persisting the metadata.
The metadata will then also be indexed so users can perform queries against the metadata.
So yes it would be useful to have the OS ship with a default IPTC/XMP handler, but you’re not totally out of luck if it doesn’t since they provide an extensibility framework.
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By the way, for some background info on the new property handlers API, some examples on their usage and support for ‘Open MetaData’ take a look at the following blog posting by one of the MS developers.
http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/marcmill/archive/2005/11/02/488475.aspx
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By the way, for some background info on the new property handlers API, some examples on their usage and support for ‘Open MetaData’ take a look at the following blog posting by one of the MS developers.
http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/marcmill/archive/2005/11/02/488475.aspx
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… but we’re running out of time and I honestly don’t know if we’ll be able to get this done in time. If not, we definitely plan to ship this in the next version of the OS.
Thats right. The standard thats been in use since 1991, thats been ignored by EVERY SINGLE VERSION OF WINDOWS, will finally be available to you all in Vista + 1, estimated ship date 2011. In the interim, please use a Mac.
-billg
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… but we’re running out of time and I honestly don’t know if we’ll be able to get this done in time. If not, we definitely plan to ship this in the next version of the OS.
Thats right. The standard thats been in use since 1991, thats been ignored by EVERY SINGLE VERSION OF WINDOWS, will finally be available to you all in Vista + 1, estimated ship date 2011. In the interim, please use a Mac.
-billg
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It is beyond cruel to have shown Media Browser technology:
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=14275
and to not include it Vista. It would have pushed Vista way beyond OS X
…I suspect that the engineers at Apple will be releasing Media Browser technology in their next OS!
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It is beyond cruel to have shown Media Browser technology:
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=14275
and to not include it Vista. It would have pushed Vista way beyond OS X
…I suspect that the engineers at Apple will be releasing Media Browser technology in their next OS!
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Sorry for omitting my email address. It’s peggig@microsoft.com.
Since there have been a number of postings since mine, I’ll try to back up and answer each question in turn.
IPTC support is a high priority for us. We do support it for Tiff files. The problem with supporting it in JPEG arose because it has to be embedded in an App13 block. We’re working on an App13 metadata handler, but because feature work is already locked down, we may or may not be able to ship it in the first version of Vista. (I hope we’ll be able to, but I can’t guarantee it.)
Microsoft is moving to a more incremental release schedule for the OS, and the next version is expected to ship one to two years after Vista. That’s the version we’ll ship the App13 handler in if it doesn’t make it into this year’s release.
I had an email exchange with Geoff, and I now realize that he was referring specifically to the fact that IPTC and XMP metadata aren’t exposed through Windows Explorer. (I work in the developer platform group, so I naturally assumed he was referring to developer platform support. Any application built on the new platform can access these types of metadata.) While it’s true that Windows Explorer doesn’t expose IPTC and XMP metadtata, you can access XMP and IPTC (in TIFF files) metadata from the Vista Photo Gallery. Unfortunately, the Photo Gallery isn’t as discoverable as it should be, and I’m hoping we can remedy that before we ship, as well. (It’s under All Programs in the Start menu, but My Pictures still defaults to Windows Explorer.)
To be very clear, we have not created a new metadata format for images. The “Open Metadata” that Marc refers to in http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/marcmill/archive/2005/11/02/488475.aspx is simply a property handler that enables users to apply keywords and sort and search any type of file. Application developers can write their own property handlers if they have a file format with unique metadata but, for most file types, the default properties are the standard file system properties. For image files specifically, we have a property handler that understands multiple image metadata formats, and can search for and rationalize metadata across XMP, EXIF, and IPTC formats. The format used for keywords in the Vista Photo Gallery is XMP.
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Sorry for omitting my email address. It’s peggig@microsoft.com.
Since there have been a number of postings since mine, I’ll try to back up and answer each question in turn.
IPTC support is a high priority for us. We do support it for Tiff files. The problem with supporting it in JPEG arose because it has to be embedded in an App13 block. We’re working on an App13 metadata handler, but because feature work is already locked down, we may or may not be able to ship it in the first version of Vista. (I hope we’ll be able to, but I can’t guarantee it.)
Microsoft is moving to a more incremental release schedule for the OS, and the next version is expected to ship one to two years after Vista. That’s the version we’ll ship the App13 handler in if it doesn’t make it into this year’s release.
I had an email exchange with Geoff, and I now realize that he was referring specifically to the fact that IPTC and XMP metadata aren’t exposed through Windows Explorer. (I work in the developer platform group, so I naturally assumed he was referring to developer platform support. Any application built on the new platform can access these types of metadata.) While it’s true that Windows Explorer doesn’t expose IPTC and XMP metadtata, you can access XMP and IPTC (in TIFF files) metadata from the Vista Photo Gallery. Unfortunately, the Photo Gallery isn’t as discoverable as it should be, and I’m hoping we can remedy that before we ship, as well. (It’s under All Programs in the Start menu, but My Pictures still defaults to Windows Explorer.)
To be very clear, we have not created a new metadata format for images. The “Open Metadata” that Marc refers to in http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/marcmill/archive/2005/11/02/488475.aspx is simply a property handler that enables users to apply keywords and sort and search any type of file. Application developers can write their own property handlers if they have a file format with unique metadata but, for most file types, the default properties are the standard file system properties. For image files specifically, we have a property handler that understands multiple image metadata formats, and can search for and rationalize metadata across XMP, EXIF, and IPTC formats. The format used for keywords in the Vista Photo Gallery is XMP.
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The other issues with IPTC: as I understand it, IPTC does not support Unicode strings, and many of the most useful fields (ContactName, etc.) are frustratingly limited in length.
The custom EXIF tags used by Explorer (XP and above IIRC) and the latest versions of Microsoft Digital Image Suite, OTOH, *do* support Unicode and have essentially unrestricted length. However, they also have a downfall: the “keywords” field must be overused to store people, location, and general keywords.
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The other issues with IPTC: as I understand it, IPTC does not support Unicode strings, and many of the most useful fields (ContactName, etc.) are frustratingly limited in length.
The custom EXIF tags used by Explorer (XP and above IIRC) and the latest versions of Microsoft Digital Image Suite, OTOH, *do* support Unicode and have essentially unrestricted length. However, they also have a downfall: the “keywords” field must be overused to store people, location, and general keywords.
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Peggi, I’m sorry, but you’re wrong.
The Vista Photo Gallery DOES NOT give the end-user access to XMP and IPTC (in TIFF files) metadata. I’m beginning to feel like someone listening to ancient Greek philosophers arguing about the number of teeth a horse has. Why doesn’t anyone bother to go round to the stable and actually count them?
I tagged a number of test images (both TIFF and JPEG) with XMP and IPTC metadata. The Vista Photo Gallery does not show any of this metadata. All it will show is the metadata that Microsoft uses in its Digital Image Suite products – and this ain’t XMP or IPTC.
Worse, just like the Digital Image Suite editor, if I use the Vista Photo Gallery to “fix” (edit) an image, it promptly strips out any XMP and IPTC data that was originally in the image. This breaks my digital workflow – metadata must be preserved.
And I am “not concerned specifically with Windows Explorer”. I am interested in a consistent platform and set of tools that will give me a good user experience. Vista Photo Gallery does not give me access to EXIF metadata – whereas the Windows Explorer does. The Windows Explorer does, however, expose Microsoft’s image metadata as used in your Digital Image Suite software. So my overall impression is that the tools are neither consistent with each other, nor do they give me full access to what I consider to be the industry standards of image metadata: IPTC, XMP and EXIF.
It would be good to see a “focus on [digital photography] from Microsoft in the future”, but the performance thus far has not been encouraging. But thanks, Peggi, for continuing the conversation. I appreciate that.
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Peggi, I’m sorry, but you’re wrong.
The Vista Photo Gallery DOES NOT give the end-user access to XMP and IPTC (in TIFF files) metadata. I’m beginning to feel like someone listening to ancient Greek philosophers arguing about the number of teeth a horse has. Why doesn’t anyone bother to go round to the stable and actually count them?
I tagged a number of test images (both TIFF and JPEG) with XMP and IPTC metadata. The Vista Photo Gallery does not show any of this metadata. All it will show is the metadata that Microsoft uses in its Digital Image Suite products – and this ain’t XMP or IPTC.
Worse, just like the Digital Image Suite editor, if I use the Vista Photo Gallery to “fix” (edit) an image, it promptly strips out any XMP and IPTC data that was originally in the image. This breaks my digital workflow – metadata must be preserved.
And I am “not concerned specifically with Windows Explorer”. I am interested in a consistent platform and set of tools that will give me a good user experience. Vista Photo Gallery does not give me access to EXIF metadata – whereas the Windows Explorer does. The Windows Explorer does, however, expose Microsoft’s image metadata as used in your Digital Image Suite software. So my overall impression is that the tools are neither consistent with each other, nor do they give me full access to what I consider to be the industry standards of image metadata: IPTC, XMP and EXIF.
It would be good to see a “focus on [digital photography] from Microsoft in the future”, but the performance thus far has not been encouraging. But thanks, Peggi, for continuing the conversation. I appreciate that.
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Richard – the legacy standard, IPTC/IIM does not, as you say support Unicode strings. However, XMP does, and therefore the IPTC Core standard for XMP also does.
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Richard – the legacy standard, IPTC/IIM does not, as you say support Unicode strings. However, XMP does, and therefore the IPTC Core standard for XMP also does.
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Geoff, it isn’t quite as easy as going round to the stable to count the horses teeth. The problem is, the horse in my stable has a different number of teeth than the horse in your stable. 🙂 I don’t have the December CTP build on my machine anymore, so I can’t easily check the functionality that was available in that build. We release the CTP builds on a regular basis so we can get feedback from our customers on the features that are currently enabled, as we continue to enable more functionality. These should be considered incremental stages and are still far from representing the full functionality the finished product will provide.
As Dave Albert mentioned to you in an offline email, lot of the Photo Gallery functionality wasn’t enabled yet in the December CTP. The builds that go out as CTP builds have a stabilization period before they get released, so the December CTP is actually a build from early November with a number of bug fixes. The February CTP will actually be a build from December. So, the functionality in the build on my machine is very different from what’s on yours. Even so, not all of the Photo Gallery features are enabled yet even in the build I have, so this is definitely a work in progress.
I personally can’t tell you what user experience features will be enabled in any given CTP (since I don’t work on the user experience team), but each new build will have more features enabled, and I hope you’ll continue to download the CTP releases and give us feedback. We really do appreciate your feedback and the opportunity it provides for us both to improve the product and to address concerns and clarify issues.
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Geoff, it isn’t quite as easy as going round to the stable to count the horses teeth. The problem is, the horse in my stable has a different number of teeth than the horse in your stable. 🙂 I don’t have the December CTP build on my machine anymore, so I can’t easily check the functionality that was available in that build. We release the CTP builds on a regular basis so we can get feedback from our customers on the features that are currently enabled, as we continue to enable more functionality. These should be considered incremental stages and are still far from representing the full functionality the finished product will provide.
As Dave Albert mentioned to you in an offline email, lot of the Photo Gallery functionality wasn’t enabled yet in the December CTP. The builds that go out as CTP builds have a stabilization period before they get released, so the December CTP is actually a build from early November with a number of bug fixes. The February CTP will actually be a build from December. So, the functionality in the build on my machine is very different from what’s on yours. Even so, not all of the Photo Gallery features are enabled yet even in the build I have, so this is definitely a work in progress.
I personally can’t tell you what user experience features will be enabled in any given CTP (since I don’t work on the user experience team), but each new build will have more features enabled, and I hope you’ll continue to download the CTP releases and give us feedback. We really do appreciate your feedback and the opportunity it provides for us both to improve the product and to address concerns and clarify issues.
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We have observed that Windows Vista doesn’t have option to search based on XMP. We would like to know in which field the XMP keyword is stored if Windows vista is using it for searching.
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We have observed that Windows Vista doesn’t have option to search based on XMP. We would like to know in which field the XMP keyword is stored if Windows vista is using it for searching.
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