New Release:
Image Power, Inc. reports International
Standards meetings rated success in Vancouver
VANCOUVER, July 21 /CNW-PRN/ - Image Power, Inc. (VSE: IPZ - news), a leading provider of next
generation still image compression technology, reports that the International Organization for Standardization
(ISO) meetings -- jointly hosted last week in Vancouver by Image Power and the University of British Columbia
(UBC) -- closed on Friday evening with resounding success towards the development of new standards.
The opportunity to jointly host the ISO meetings arose from the collaborative development efforts between UBC
and Image Power in next generation black and white and color compression technologies. Under an agreement
reached more than two years ago, Image Power retains an exclusive license to still image compression
technology developed at the University in exchange for royalty payments. Under a more recent agreement,
Image Power exchanged 500,000 shares in the Company in consideration of future royalty payments owed to
UBC.
The ISO SC29 working group meetings are held quarterly on different continents around the world, for the
purpose of developing new still image and moving picture compression standards. At the Vancouver meetings,
delegates - members of national standards bodies from around the world - met on the development of JBIG2,
JPEG2000, MHEG, MPEG-4 and MPEG 7. Accredited delegates included developers and management from
such companies as IBM, Sony, Hewlett Packard, Xerox, Mitsubishi, and AT&T. Aside from Image Power and
UBC, there are only three other Canadian organizations (Telexis, Nortel, and the National Research Council)
involved in the development of these standards.
''We are pleased with the turnout at the meetings - over 420 delegates in all - and at the progress made in
developing the evolving standards,'' said Stephen Swift, President of Image Power. ''Our goal in sponsoring
these meetings was to raise the profile of the standards development process amongst Canadian companies,''
he said, ''while concurrently proving Canada's role in these standards to the ISO working groups.'' Image
Power has maintained its participation in ISO in an effort to stay current with the evolving standards and to
maintain a leadership position in taking the technology to market.
The JPEG2000 and JBIG2 meetings were convened by Dr. Daniel T. Lee of Hewlett-Packard Company. In a
press release issued at the end of the meetings, Dr. Lee commented that ''the technology contributions by
researchers at the University of British Columbia and Image Power helped make JBIG2 a standard that will
serve the needs of users into the Millennium.''
After five days of closed-session meeting, each of the working groups showed progress, including:
JBIG2
JBIG2 has been recommended by its working group to proceed to Final Committee Draft (FCD) status. The
FCD document will be voted on by national standards bodies that participate in ISO, and it is expected that the
standard will be ratified as is. JBIG2, therefore, is technically final, with only editorial changes expected at this
stage. The implications of this are that companies can begin developing JBIG2 products. Image Power already
has a JBIG2 product compliant with the FCD standard, which has already been incorporated into the
company's new FaxPC service.
JPEG2000
JPEG2000 has been divided into two parts. Part 1 is expected to reach Committee Draft (CD) status at the
December 1999 meetings in Maui, Hawaii. At that point, companies can begin to build JPEG2000 compliant
products. UBC's proposed pre-processing technology will be supported in JPEG2000 Part 1. At the same
time, UBC's error resilience technology has been approved for inclusion in Part 2 of JPEG2000. UBC's
JPEG2000 enoder/decoder already conforms to the current Part 1 of the standard.
MPEG
MPEG-4 is almost technically final and the MPEG-7 development process is proceeding according to
schedule. A public seminar organized by the convenors of MPEG was held on Saturday following the ISO
meetings to provide Canadian businesses, software and hardware developers, and meeting delegates with an
overview of the MPEG-4 development status. Over 150 people attended the day-long session.
Image Power and the University of British Columbia were chosen over a year and a half ago to jointly host the
meetings in Vancouver. ''It was a great privilege to have these ISO delegates in Vancouver,'' said Swift, ''in
fact this is only the second time in the history of MPEG, JPEG, JBIG and MHEG that these meetings were held
in Canada.'' In addition to contributions made by Image Power and UBC, IBM sponsored a computer room for
use by the delegates.
For additional information on the standards process, please visit the ISO website at iso.ch. For
updates on MPEG, visit drogo.cselt.stet.it and for JPEG/JBIG, visit jpeg.org.
Image Power, Inc. is a leading provider of next generation standards compliant still image compression
technology and products for the desktop, embedded and Internet imaging markets. Additional information can
be found on the company's web sites at www.imagepower.com or at www.faxpc.com.
On behalf of the Board
IMAGE POWER, INC.
(signed)
_____________
Stephen Swift
President
The Vancouver Stock Exchange neither approves nor disapproves the contents of this Press Release which
was prepared solely at the discretion of management.
SOURCE: Image Power, Inc. |
