A method of automatically creating trust communities in a fleet of devices. The method includes finding candidate devices in a fleet of devices via one or more candidate discovery techniques and generating device-related data based on the candidate devices that are found, analyzing the device-related data via an analytics engine and creating one or more fleet orchestrator device lists based on the analysis of the device-related data, and automatically creating one or more new trust communities or suggesting joining one or more previously existing trust communities based at least on the one or more fleet orchestrator device lists for the candidate devices, wherein the one or more new trust communities or previously existing trust communities include at least a sub-set of the devices in the fleet, and wherein at least one of the managed devices in the sub-set of devices is configured as a root device to publish files via a file sharing function.

In an example, a method includes, at least one processor, in response to each of a plurality of requests, determining a halftone screen. Determining the halftone screen comprises encoding a signature pattern in the halftone screen, and halftone screens for different requests may be encoded with a different signature pattern. The halftone screen may be arranged such that, when applied to image data to provide a printed output, the pattern is discernible therein to provide a signature for the printed output.

A method for controlling an image forming apparatus can include receiving page description language (PDL) data including print data of a document to be output, attribute data, of the document, and voice data of the document from an external apparatus. The method can include outputting the voice data of the received PDL data via a speaker.

A communication terminal includes a memory and circuitry. The memory stores, for each image type information indicating a type of image data, sizes of a plurality of display areas, each display area being a divided area divided from an entire area displayable by a display, in association with required resolutions of image data to be displayed in the corresponding display areas. The circuitry receives, from a communication management system, specific image type information indicating a type of specific image data transmitted from other communication terminal. The circuitry transmits, to the communication management system, specific required resolution, which is a resolution stored in the memory for the specific image type information in association with the size of one of the display areas in which the specific image data is to be displayed.

An information processing device includes: a processor configured to: when (i) in addition to a first image forming device on which a user is about to use a service, a second image forming device on which the user used the service is present, the second image forming device being different from the first image forming device and (ii) a server in which basic settings of setting items of the service are registered is present, selectively reflect at least one of (a) setting items of the service registered in the second image forming device or (b) the basic settings of the service registered in the server, in the information processing device according to a predetermined condition.

An image capturing apparatus including a mounting part capable of attaching/detaching a device capable of at least storing a captured image is provided. The image capturing apparatus obtains, if a device mounted in the mounting part has a function of executing image analysis processing for a part or a whole of an image captured by the image capturing apparatus, a processing time that is a time from a predetermined timing associated with a start of the image analysis processing to completion of the processing, if the device is caused to start executing the image analysis processing, obtains a result of the image analysis processing by accessing the device after an elapse of the processing time from the predetermined timing associated with the start.

An image capturing device may capture image data for processing to form an image. The image capturing device may perform a hashing procedure on the image data, wherein performing the hashing procedure generates a hash value of the image data. The image capturing device may provide, to an image authentication device, the hash value of the image data, wherein the hash value of the image data is to be used by the image authentication device to validate the image based on a request to authenticate the image received from a receiving device. The image capturing device may process the image data to form the image for display to a user. The image capturing device may provide, after providing the hash value of the image data to the image authentication device, the image for display to the user.

Methods and systems for tracking image senders using client devices are described herein. A computing system may receive an image containing a first watermark vector corresponding to a user account of an image sender. The computing system may convert the image to a frequency domain image that contains the first watermark vector. From the frequency domain image, the computing system may identify the first watermark vector. The computing system may compare the first watermark vector to each of a plurality of stored watermark vectors, each corresponding to a known user account, to determine a probability of a match. The computing system may determine the user account of the sender of the image by determining which of the plurality of stored watermark vectors has a highest probability of a match, and may send, to a workplace administrator platform, an indication of the user account.

A print processing system includes a plurality of image forming apparatuses, a terminal device, and a mobile device. A first controller of the terminal device is capable of writing information necessary for transmitting the print data, in the memory of the mobile device. A second controller of the image forming apparatus executes, upon reading out the necessary information written by the first controller from the memory of the mobile device, via the second wireless communication device, a first process necessary for transmitting the print data. A second controller of the image forming apparatus is capable of writing the necessary information in the memory of the mobile device. The first controller of the terminal device executes, upon reading out the necessary information written by the second controller from the memory of the mobile device, via the first wireless communication device, a second process necessary for transmitting the print data.

An image forming apparatus, detection method, and image forming system are provided. The apparatus includes a communication interface, a detector, and a notification interface. The communication interface communicates with a wireless tag at a connection position where a sheet conveyance path is formed between the apparatus and a retrofit device equipped with the wireless tag. The detector detects a connection state between the retrofit device and the apparatus based on a communication result of the communication interface. The notification interface provides a notification based on the connection state detected by the detector. The detection method includes detecting a connection state between the retrofit device and the apparatus based on a communication result of the communication interface, and providing a notification based on the connection state detected in the detection. The image forming system includes an apparatus and a retrofit device provided with a wireless tag.