IPTC is pleased to release a new version of its widely used Photo Metadata Standard, version 2019.1. This version introduces the exciting new feature to mark regions within an image using embedded metadata, directly in the image file. Read more...

At the IPTC Meeting in Ljubljana Slovenia in Autumn 2019, we welcomed several new faces to IPTC working groups, the Board and voted in a new Chair! Read more...

This is part of a series of posts about the IPTC Autumn Meeting 2019. In Ljubljana. See separate posts about Day 1 and Day 2. Read more...

Day 2 of the IPTC Autumn Meeting 2019 was just as busy as Day 1: we heard from the IPTC NewsCodes Working Group, the AI Expert Group, and the News Architecture Working Group including updates on IPTC's work on trust and credibility projects. We also had updates from the Video Metadata Working Group, an update on IPTC's Rights work, and news from the Sports Content Working Group. Phew! Read more...

We are now back after a stimulating and entertaining IPTC Autumn Meeting in beautiful Ljubljana, Slovenia last week! Read more...

A clear majority of professional photo businesses in Europe and North America find IPTC photo metadata highly relevant to their business. That is the message received by IPTC from its 2019 photo industry supplier survey. Read more...

Recently conversations on Twitter and various blogs and news sites have reported on Facebook’s use of IPTC embedded photo metadata fields to “track users”. (Reddit.com: “Facebook is embedding tracking data inside the photos you download”, The Australian: “Facebook pics tracking you”, Forbes: “Facebook Embeds 'Hidden Codes' To Track Who Sees And Shares Your Photos”, Financial Express: "Beware! Facebook embeds tracking data inside photos you download"). Read more...

Is eSport sport?   That is a good question to ask sports fans at a dinner party if you want to get a good discussion going.   Luckily the question we were asked was: “Can SportsML handle eSports”? And that seemed like a more straightforward question to answer.   Here is a short clip that shows how big eSport really is, and also touches on the question at the beginning of this article:     SportsML is an IPTC standard that covers all aspects of sports when it comes to scheduling, tournaments, results, live reporting, standings and statistics. And even if eSports is very different to traditional sports, on this level it is very similar. All eSports consist of games between teams or players, much like football, hockey, tennis or any other event where the competitors meet “head-to-head”. From those games we have results, standings and statistics, which are all supported in SportsML.   But there are some areas of difference to note. Home and away teams In traditional sports that meet in this way, the concept of home and away is often important. For example, the home team can have first choice in colour, starting side, familiar playing ground etc. And in some football tournaments, goals scored away from the team's home location can be worth more if the game is tight. Plus, often the home team have a much bigger crowd to cheer them on.   In eSports, there is really no concept of home or away. Technically, players can be anywhere and play connected through the internet. Players of the same team do not have to sit together. In reality, though, for bigger tournaments the players will usually gather in an arena with big screens and a huge audience watching. If players are in separate locations, the quality of their internet connection will be a factor.   In SportsML we still have to handle one side as home and the other as away using the alignment attribute. Pre-game actions Another difference in eSports is that actions can take place before the official start of the game. For example, teams can choose or reject characters or maps from the game they are playing. This is an important part of the game, since each team's aim is to get characters and/or maps that they are good at into the game, while rejecting the characters and/or maps that their opponent is best at.   It is as if Argentina and Portugal would meet in football and Portugal could reject Messi from the available players for Argentina while managing to have Ronaldo still in their own squad. Or if Arsenal and Tottenham were playing and they could “battle” over which field to play on.   In SportsML we have something called actions that can be used to represent pre-game actions: <actions> <action sequence-number="1" team-idref="team_9572" type="esacttype:remove" comment="Nuke"></action> <action sequence-number="2" team-idref="team_6134" type="esacttype:remove" comment="Inferno"></action> <action sequence-number="3" team-idref="team_9572" type="esacttype:choose" comment="Cache"></action> <action sequence-number="4" team-idref="team_6134" type="esacttype:choose" comment="Train"></action> <action sequence-number="5" team-idref="team_9572" type="esacttype:remove" comment="Overpass"></action> <action sequence-number="6" team-idref="team_6134" type="esacttype:remove" comment="Dust2"></action> <action sequence-number="7" type="esacttype:remaining" comment="Mirage"></action> </actions> Read more...

Last week's 2019 IPTC Photo Metadata Conference was again hosted in association with the CEPIC Congress. This year's conference was held in a slightly rainy Paris but at least that meant that we didn't mind staying indoors in late May. Read more...

At the IPTC Spring Meeting in Lisbon, the IPTC Standards Committee signed off on version 3.1 of SportsML. Read more...