An information processing apparatus includes a calculation unit that calculates a hash value of an original image represented by electronic information to which an electronic signature is added in advance, and a storage unit that stores image information representing the original image and the hash value calculated by the calculation unit in association with the electronic information.

Identifiers or references to supplemental information or content regarding images may be steganographically encoded into the images. The identifiers or references may be encoded into least significant bits or less significant bits of pixels within the image that may be selected on any basis. The identifiers or references may include alphanumeric characters, bar codes, symbols or other features. When an image is captured of an image having one or more identifiers or references steganographically encoded therein, the identifiers or references may be interpreted, and the supplemental information or content may be accessed and displayed on a computer display. In some embodiments, the supplemental information or content may identify and relate to a commercial product expressed in an image, and may include a link to one or more pages or functions for purchasing the commercial product.

An image forming apparatus includes an embedding device and an image output device. The embedding device is configured to embed a pair of identical electronic information in a pair of electronic embedment areas outside a print guarantee area and within a printable area of a recording medium. The pair of electronic embedment areas is along a pair of opposite sides of the recording medium. The image output device is configured to print out an image with the pair of identical electronic information embedded on the recording medium.

This invention falls within the scope of steganography, i.e., encoding of information (such as a text) into other information, for example, an image. It is the object of this invention a computational method for generating at least one image with coded information comprising the steps of: i) associating an information to be coded to a plurality of graphic elements, each of the graphic elements consisting of a symbol out of a plurality of symbols, thus generating a pattern of graphic elements and ii) generating at least one image comprising at least one pattern obtained from step i). This method introduces a consistent and highly flexible way of encoding information into an image. Additionally, this invention has also as object a system associated to the said method, images obtained from the said method, as well as a reading method and system thereof.

A first digital image is integrated into a second digital image to generate a third digital image. A first code representing the procedures performed to integrate the first digital image into the second digital image is generated. A second code representing information for retrieving the first digital image is generated. The first code and the second code are embedded as metadata into a file that contains the second digital image.

An image forming apparatus includes circuitry to: receive an instruction for copying an image of a document from a user; acquire biometric information of the user; and embed user information in the image, the user information including one of the biometric information of the user and information for specifying the biometric information of the user; and an image forming device to print the image having the user information embedded, on a recording medium to output a copied image.

A first digital image is integrated into a second digital image to generate a third digital image. A first code representing the procedures performed to integrate the first digital image into the second digital image is generated. A second code representing information for retrieving the first digital image is generated. The first code and the second code are embedded as metadata into a file that contains the second digital image.

An image processing apparatus includes a reading unit configured to read an image of a document and generate image data, a first binarization unit configured to generate binary image data by performing halftone processing on the image data generated by the reading unit, a smoothing unit configured to perform smoothing processing on a character region of the binary image data, a second binarization unit configured to perform binarization processing on the character region having been subjected to the smoothing processing by the smoothing unit, and a character recognition unit configured to perform character recognition processing on the character region having been subjected to the binarization processing by the second binarization unit.

The disclosure relates to processing content with watermarks to generate watermarked versions. In some aspects, each version may be different. Groups of fragments may be combined to generate a unique stream by pulling fragments from two or more of the groups of fragments. Further, fragmenting may be performed before watermarking, and fragments may be pulled and watermarked upon request.

A portable device uses a microphone to listen to ambient audio, ascertains a corresponding identifier, and uses the identifier to enable one or more further functions. One of these can be internet search. Such functionality can also be based on digital datawithout requiring a microphone-equipped device.