How Microsoft, Google Android P and Apple iOS HEIC supports Photographers with Blockchain

As Microsoft gets ready to launch a new versions of Windows 10 and Microsoft Office 2019 in June 2018 as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “How Microsoft Office 2019 can use Cloud Registration to stop Piracy”, compression may be the flavour of the year.

The tech in question is the use of HEIF (High Efficiency Image Format) as reported in “Windows embraces new space-squeezing photo format”, published March 16 2018 by Stephen Shankland, CNET News.

Based on HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) used in video compressions, HEIF, which when using HEVC is called HEIC (High Efficiency Image Compression), reduces files sizes of a typical JPEG (Joint Pictures Expert Group) image by as much as 50% without loss in quality!!!

Microsoft and HEIC - Photographer to benefit from included Blockchain support

Even more stunning, it can act as a compression format, enableing smaller versions of the following photo effects:

1.      Live photos

2.      Bursts of photos

3.      3D scene data useful for special effects

4.      Audio

Still complex requirements for patent royalty payments may prevent this from becoming widely adopted, even though it's already baked into Apple's iOS from 2017 and Google's Android P launched just this month. What makes HEIC attractive to photographers is that it makes image sharing difficult, due to its use of blockchain.

This makes images harder to steal and renders images uneditable and unviewable once it can be confirmed that you did not give permission for it to be used. Any tech that’ll make data plans last longer is always welcome. But I suspect this may find use among photographers seeking to profit from their images.