Konica Minolta, Fujifilm, and Kodak announce "Everplay" Standard

Konica Minolta, Fuji Photo Film, and Eastman Kodak have announced the successor to PASS (Picture Archiving and Sharing Standard), called "Everplay." The new standard is designed to ensure compatibility of digital photos and motion images across a broad range of consumer products for future generations. The standard is designed to make it easy to implement and uses XML next-generation language in its specification.

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Konica Minolta, Fujifilm and Kodak establish 'Everplay' standard

Konica Minolta Photo Imaging Inc., Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd. and Eastman Kodak Company, founding members of the former Picture Archiving and Sharing Standard (Pass), today announced the Everplay standard designed to ensure compatibility of digital photos and motion images across a broad range of consumer products for future generations.

Methods to organize and preserve digital images have evolved independently by many different companies and have lost interoperability among the different systems. There are also potential problems as time passes, systems evolve and formats change. The new Everplay standard aims to resolve these issues and respond to consumers' needs to protect images and enjoy widespread interoperability. The standard is designed to make it easy to implement and uses XML next-generation language in its specification.

Konica Minolta, Fujifilm and Kodak will begin a free license program immediately and call for the adoption of the Everplay standard by all consumer digital imaging companies. The goal for products and services is to use images interchangeably and movies ubiquitously while at the same time, acknowledge the value for protecting consumers' images.

By signing the licensing agreement, which is available on the Web site, any company can acquire a royalty-free license to execute the specification, use the trademarks and obtain rights to the patents owned by the Everplay founders.

Further, the following tools will be provided at no cost: Software development kit (SDK) v1.10 and Verifying tool v1.10. Details can be obtained from http://www.Everplay-spec.org.

In concurrence with the completion of the standard, the new name "Everplay" replaces "Pass" and shall be used as an interchangeable name for the specification and related communication. A trademark, "Everplay," and associated logo have been registered to help with future identification of products and services compliant to the standard.