Watermarked business cards and methods
AssigneeDigimarc Corporation
InventorsTony F. Rodriguez, Geoffrey B. Rhoads, Bruce L. Davis, J. Scott Carr
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A person's business card is steganographically encoded with plural-bit data. When presented to a computer system with an optical sensor, the plural-bit data is decoded and used to trigger various functionality. For example, the system can link to a remote data store containing updated contact information for the person—contact information that is updated during the day as the person's activities make different contact information appropriate at different times. A great variety of other arrangements, some employing other steganographically encoded objects, are also detailed.
Claims5
A communications method comprising:
- presenting a business card to an optical sensor, the optical sensor producing image data, the business card corresponding to a person;
- discerning from the image data plural-bit digital information;
- using said discerned digital information to access a remote data store;
- obtaining from the data store updated contact information for the person;
- and
- establishing communication with the person using said updated contact information;
- wherein the contact information at the remote data store is updated during the day as the person's activities make different contact information appropriate at different times.
A method comprising:
- presenting a physical object within the field of view of an optical sensor associated with a first computer, the optical sensor providing image data;
- decoding plural-bit digital data from the representation of the physical object within said image data;
- using a first part of said plural-bit digital data to establish a link between the first computer and a remote computer;
- presenting a second part of said plural-bit digital data to the remote computer;
- and
- providing information from the remote computer to the first computer, said information corresponding to said physical object.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.