TUALATIN, OR - May 22, 2001 - Digimarc and the TWAIN Working Group today announced a developer pre-release version of the industry standard TWAIN interface that enables Mac OS X application developers to acquire images from scanners and digital cameras. The pre-release version of the TWAIN application program interface (API) for the Mac OS X platform is a free download currently available online at www.twain.org. Digimarc is the world leader in digital watermark technology. The TWAIN Working Group is a not-for-profit organization developing standards for the image acquisition industry. The organizations collaborated for the past year to develop the TWAIN Data Source Manager (DSM) for Mac OS X. "Our digital watermark technology development work focuses on bridging the gap between print and digital media," said Bruce Davis, CEO of Digimarc. "Through our partnership with the TWAIN Working Group, we are applying that expertise in an effort to advance digital camera and scanner technology for the benefit of the industry. This standard makes it easier for Mac OS X developers and users to interact with a wide range of image acquisition devices in a transparent way and fosters the growth of digital content." "TWAIN's purpose is to provide and foster a universal public standard which links applications and image acquisition devices. We are pleased to collaborate with Digimarc to enhance our standard on the Mac, which is a very popular platform for creative professionals working with digital content," said Pamela Doyle, chairperson of The TWAIN Working Group and Director, Imaging Market Development, Fujitsu Computer Products of America. "Mac OS X's powerful graphics capabilities and advanced Internet features make it an ideal platform for creating dynamic visual content on the Web," said Ron Okamoto, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. "We're excited that TWAIN and Digimarc have made this useful product available for MAC OS X application developers." The TWAIN DSM is the industry standard cross-platform (Windows and Mac) API for image acquisition. The Macintosh DSM Version 1.9 is PowerPC native and supports Mac OS X via the Carbon APIs. This version is fully compatible with previous TWAIN specifications and provides the same functionality as the TWAIN DSM that is shipped standard with the Windows platform by Microsoft. Using TWAIN, developers can manage interactions between various image acquisition devices (scanners, camera, etc.) in a standard way. For example, when a picture from a digital camera or scanner is acquired by a desktop publishing program, the Macintosh TWAIN DSM acts as a translator between the input device and the desktop publishing program, providing a standard way to acquire the image.