Japanese firm Fujitsu is perfecting a technology that can hide information in plain sight by encoding data into a picture that is invisible to the human eye but can be decoded by a cell phone camera. Fujitsu believes this technology will have important uses in the publishing industry.
"The concept is to be able to link the printed page into the digital domain," said Mike Nelson, general manager for sales operations at Fujitsu Europe.
The technique was first used 2,500 years ago when the Greeks sent warnings of attacks on wooden tablets and then covering them in wax and tattooing messages on shaved heads that were then covered by the regrowth of hair. This technology is called steganography.
Fujitsu's technique works by taking advantage of the sensitivities of the human eye, which struggles to see the colour yellow.
"The key is to take the yellow hue in the picture and we skew that ever so slightly to create a pattern," said Mr Nelson.
"A camera is perfectly sensitive to that yellow hue but the human eye doesn't see it very well.
"Any camera, even those in mobile phones, can decode it very easily."
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In other words, if/when your cell phone is programmed to stop recording & delete when it detects the yellow-encoded 'do not photo/video' message, you'll need to get a cute plastic filter to filter out a certain shade of yellow - which human eyes are not very sensitive to.
Sounds like more snake oil targeting those who are paranoid about their 'intellectual property'.
Maybe the police will start wearing yellow-encoded uniforms that signal cell phone cameras not to photograph their actions . No more Rodney King beating videos!