Canon Inc, Ricoh Corp and Bell & Howell have signed up to the Twain initiative for a universal standard to facilitate imaging software and hardware interconnection. The prospective standard is based on Imagination Software Inc’s Twain interface, originally designed to connect scanners with image manipulation software such as Adobe Systems Inc’s Photoshop. The Twain working group was formed back in 1992 and the ‘standard’ has currently reached specification 1.7. However, any open standard will face competition from device-specific interfaces such as ISR Group Ltd’s ixla Digital Camera Interface (CI No 3,343) – although the forthcoming 1.8 spec seeks to address the multiple image acquiring requirements of digital cameras. Other members of the Twain working group include Eastman Kodak, Fujitsu and Kofax Image Products.
