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ASHBURN, VA, USA Â August 25, 2006. Cogitum LC, a provider of software for personalcontent management, has released the new version of FotoTagger(http://www.fototag ger.com), a desktop image annotation tool for adding easy-to-hidenotes to pictures.
With FotoTagger users can manage vast libraries of digital images, and specificallydigital photographs, more effectively. Every regular user of a digital camera facesthe problem of forgetting valuable information about people or objects captured onan image. FotoTagger eliminates this problem by allowing users to place on an imagelocation-specific annotation notes that point to people or other elements. Notescould contain names of people, texts with Web links to convey historical or culturalbackground, explanation comments, translations of inscriptions, and more.
An example of annotation notes that can be added to travel photos can be found byfollowing this link: http://www.fototagger.com/prod ucts/desktop/whatannotate.
Fo toTagger is about storing all important textual information together with an imageas a single entity. The product works with JPEG files and stores annotation in themetadata section of a JPEG file. This ability provides the following fouropportunities. First, annotation notes can be edited at any time after the image issaved. Second, it allows a user to hide annotation notes in a click to view anoriginal picture so there is no risk to spoil original images by embeddingannotation that could not be eliminated. Third, this capability lets users searchacross textual notes. Finally, since annotation notes are stored in the same filethey cannot be lost when sharing or moving a picture.
Leonid Malkov, President of Cogitum LC, said, Â Integrating different informationmedias into the one starts as a technological change, but often leads to a culturalrevolution. The best example is adding sound to silent movies that created a totallynew phenomenon in early 20th century. FotoTagger integrates digital image and textgiving users an opportunity to transform photographs from collection of pixels intorecorded impressions.Â
FotoTagger provides effective tools for sharing annotated images, starting fromsending the pictures by email in one click and HTML publishing to using blogs andspecial sharing services, namely Flickr. Currently FotoTagger has specific supportfor:
- Flickr. The latest version of FotoTagger allows a user to upload an imageannotated with FotoTagger to a Flickr account and seamlessly convert FotoTaggerannotation to Flickr notes. Similarly, an image can be downloaded from a Flickraccount back to FotoTagger while all Flickr notes will be preserved and transformedto FotoTagger annotation. This new feature enables bloggers who like to store photosin Flickr to use FotoTagger as a common platform that enables them to annotatepictures on a local computer and then publish them both to a blog and Flickraccount.
- Blogs. With FotoTagger user can publish annotated pictures to Blogger.com andLiveJournal.
- Web. An annotated picture can be converted to an HTML pages for publishing in theWeb. Similarly, it can be merged with annotation notes and sent by email so otherusers will be able to view annotation without having to install FotoTagger.
The previous version of FotoTagger proved to be very useful for tens of thousandsusers, including travel photographers, genealogy researchers, family historians, andart history researchers. They use an ability to integrate image and text in order tomake pictures more informative.
Cogitum LC developed an open XML-based standard for storing and visualizingannotation notes. The standard is based on the existing standards for digitalimages.
The current personal version of FotoTagger supports what could be called  3Fprinciple F1: Free of charge; F2: Free of ads; F3: Free of spyware and privacyintrusion.
FotoTagger can be downloaded from the official product Websitehttp://www.fototagger. com.
About Cogitum LCCogitum is an innovative software developing company with several award-winningpersonal software tools, including Co-Tracker and Co-Citer that gained totalhundreds of thousands downloads.
More information can be obtained by contacting a company representative at1-703-858-2377 or by contacting Leonid Malkov at Lmalkov@cogitum.com.
