The folks at Canto have gone wild at this week’s Seybold San Francisco seminar with a flurry of Mac-related product announcements, including Cumulus 5 Enterprise Edition for Mac OS X, a new Option for the Cumulus line and Idée’s Espion Visual Search integration.
Cumulus 5 Enterprise Edition
Canto’s flagship product — the enterprise version of its Cumulus media asset management solution — is now shipping for Mac OS X. While the client applications can be used problem-free in the Mac OS X Classic Mode, the newly implemented Server Application is especially optimized for the Unix-based Mac OS X and takes full advantage of all its BSD Kernel benefits according to Canto CEO Jennifer Neumann.
The Cumulus Enterprise Edition had previously been available for Windows, Linux, Solaris and IRIX. It sports both the features of the Workgroup Edition as well as special features that large international corporations require. For example, the Cumulus Enterprise Edition offers AXR cross-referencing features and Oracle SQL connectivity, Neumann said.
The Cumulus 5 Enterprise Server and Cumulus 5 Workgroup Server natively support the power provided by the Unix kernel of Mac OS X. It’s based on the Cumulus 5.0.10 version and will be compatible with the Mac OS X client (10.0.x) as well as with the new Mac OS X server.
The Cumulus client, currently at version 5.0.10, is compatible with Mac OS X (10.0.x) and works in the Classic Mode. Darwin versions of the Cumulus 5 Options are also required when operating with the newly released Mac OS X version of Canto’s Workgroup Server. The first native Mac OS X Cumulus 5 Options now available are the Cumulus 5 Web Publisher and Cumulus 5 Vault. Further Options will follow, Neumann said.
Cumulus 5 products aren’t compatible with the first version of the Mac OS X Server. Cumulus 4 users intending to update to Cumulus 5 should update first to the new Mac OS X Server and then to Cumulus 5.
For owners of a Cumulus 5 Enterprise Edition under Windows an “upgrade/sidegrade” to the Mac OS X version of the Enterprise Edition is free (so there’s no reason not to do it). The Cumulus 5 Enterprise Edition with the Enterprise Server for Mac OS X is available in English, German, French and Japanese language versions.
Cumulus PDF AssetStore
Canto has also released the Cumulus PDF AssetStore module, an add-on Option that extends the feature set of any edition in the Cumulus 5 product line. It’s designed to let users efficiently manage PDF files, Neumann said in announcing the new products.
With the PDF AssetStore Option, users can catalog a PDF file and Cumulus will create a thumbnail of the PDF document and in addition one thumbnail for each page of the entire PDF. A new PDF filter, provided with the PDF AssetStore Option, will also read out the text in the PDF document and place it in the Cumulus Notes field. You can then search the Notes field to find specific text.
You have two choices for reading out the text. The filter can read out a user-specified number of words and store them in the Notes field or it can first sort the text by font size and then read out a user-specified number of words. The PDF AssetStore Option runs on the Mac OS and all versions of Windows.
It’s US$249 per machine and will be available early next month. It will initially be available in English, German and French.
Idée’s Espion Visual Search integration
Want more? Okay. Canto has also announced a strategic partnership with Idée that allows Idée’s Espion Visual Search to be fully integrated within Cumulus 5. The Espion Visual Search Option is a fully integrated-add-on that lets you perform visual searches within a Cumulus catalog. Users of the Espion Option will be able to search for images that are visually similar to another or alternatively for altered originals.
Espion uses proprietary image comparison algorithms that allow users to control how specific the search is and which visual attributes are significant in the search. Espion displays pairs of matched images instantly and details the likelihood of the match as well as the degree of difference between the original image and the match, Idée’s CEO Leila Boujnane, said.
The Espion Visual Search Option will be available for both the Workgroup and Enterprise Editions of Cumulus 5. It will be available before the end of the year for Mac OS X, Solaris, Linux and Windows platforms, and users will be able to purchase a copy from Idée. A beta version will be available for download by Oct. 31 at the Idée Web site.
As icing on the cake, the editors of Seybold Publications awarded Canto and Idée one of 23 Hot Picks prizes. Nearly 200 products were considered for the honor. The Hot Picks, which recognize interesting new products and technologies, was given to Canto and Idée for the integration of Idée’s Espion Visual Search with Canto’s Cumulus 5 media asset management program.