Pixt

01/07/2025

The image of Modi at the AirIndia171 crash sparked backlash — not for what it showed, but how.

must walk a fine line: frame reality, don’t reshape it.

📸 Photo: Central Industrial Security Force/ZUMA

In the aftermath of the Air India crash, a single image of Prime Minister Modi surveying wreckage stirred debate about truth and optics in photojournalism — raising urgent questions about framing, manipulation, and the ethical responsibility to show what happened, not just what fits a narrative.

21/02/2024

It’s live!
We are delighted to share with you a significant development for Pix.T. As of last week, our certificate system has been successfully tested for the first time ever on a customer-facing website. Examples of photographs connected to the blockchain-backed Pix.T platform are now visible on the website of ČTK, the national news agency of the Czech Republic, one of our key photographic partners.

Under the test images on the site, users will now have the possibility to “verify the photograph,” with a button leading to a certificate of authenticity hosted on the Pix.T platform. From the original hash of the blockchain-certificate picture to its credit, all this important information is now accessible to the public.

This is significant development in the ongoing Pix.T project, and is a very promising sign of the technical and market viability of the solution to authenticate professional photographic images online.

Read the press release: https://trust.pixt.co/press-release-2/

Worldcrunch Contrasto Polska Agencja Prasowa NOOR

Pix.T, the European digital platform for the future of professional photography, is proud to announce that the solution has been successfully tested on a customer-facing website.

26/01/2024

“Visual literacy is needed more than ever,” Maria Goirigolzarri

Looking ahead to 2024, the challenges faced by photojournalists have reached unprecedented levels: the rise of AI, the need for local journalism, the escalation of war situations... We asked our partners Maria Goirigolzarri (NOOR) and Francesca Ferretti (Contrasto) share with us their views on the priorities of the year ahead.

“The escalation of war situations, from Ukraine heading into its second anniversary, to the situation in the Middle East are clear signs of a change for the worse where photojournalists are called to work,” Francesca Ferretti

Don't miss out on this thought-provoking read here:

In the always evolving landscape of media and technology, high-quality and independent photojournalism remains an essential tool for storytelling, and for bringing the world's events to our doorstep. However, as 2024 begins, the challenges faced by photojournalists have reached unprecedented levels....

12/01/2024

With the explosion of AI, the question of photo authentication is becoming a priority everywhere in the world! 🌐

The latest news comes from Asia, where Japanese camera manufacturers Nikon, Sony, and Canon announced an important new collaboration, as they are set to release tech allowing photographers to embed digital signatures in images. The article from Digital Camera World covers the details of that deal.

This collaboration comes as U.S.-based Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative continues to address the question as well. All around the world, actors of the photography industry understand that the ever wider use of artificial intelligence will make authentication of images a major priority in 2024 and well beyond.

Pix.T believes that it is necessary for Europe to take a leading role on this challenge, offering both its technological know-how and its strong ethical vision that can help guide the whole world in ensuring a well-informed citizenry.

🌟 Stay tuned for updates as we help usher in a new era of digital photography! 📷

Japanese camera manufacturers are set to release new tech that will embed digital signatures to help authentic images

22/12/2023

🎉✨We’re coming to the end of 2023, a year that’s brought huge changes and challenges to the photographic and digital information industries. It’s also been a pivotal year for Pix.T, which is now better positioned than ever to respond to the future needs of our ecosystems and society as a whole. 🚀

Here’s a quick review of the year in Pix.T:

The impact of generative artificial intelligence cannot be overstated after the launch of opened the eyes to the broader public about AI’s potential benefits and risks. We’ve seen a troubling new practice of using AI-generated images of war from Gaza, perhaps the most extreme example of the risks of this emerging technology.

The Pix.T consortium responded earlier this month with a collective call to action: “Photojournalism and AI: A Call For New Ethical Guidelines For Technology in News Images”

But of course, it’s also been a very busy year on the technical development front, as our partners have been working on creating the best solution possible to certify the authenticity of digital images. In 2023, we stepped up with improvements on our technical market side with the:

📈 Re-creation of the platform based on microservices approach to ensure scalability
🔗 First photo to go through Pix.T system to the Ethereum blockchain
🔌 API development, plugable to most of the news agencies/photo editing distribution system.
⚙ ČTK is the first news agency to have integrated this system in their legacy system (More details on that coming soon 👀)

We also learned this year that we are the only system able to comply with the speed requirements of photo agencies.

And finally, we are also proud to share with you that Pix.T is aiming to scale up in 2024 to nine partners across Europe, responding to DG Connect’s October call for projects.

Here's to a fantastic year gone by, and an even brighter future together for photojournalism! 📸

15/12/2023

In 2023, AI has been the hottest topic of the year in the tech world — and the major focus of new investment.

In many ways, AI has taken the place of the web3-blockchain fervor, after the crash in the NFT and crypto markets. While it is all but certain that AI will still be buzzing in 2024, Goldman Sachs' digital assets chief shared with Reuters that they are forecasting a “significant uptick” in trading volumes of blockchain-based assets within the next one or two years

And it shouldn’t be such a surprise for those inside the world of technology. With its ability to provide a decentralized, transparent, and secure system for transactions and much more, blockchain will be a big part of the future of the internet. The trickier question is which part of the Internet and the rest of the digital economy will implement blockchain solutions.

At Pix.T, we are convinced that professional photography is a clear use case for this technology, and the blockchain will be essential to protect photojournalism’s value: both in economic and civic terms.

Goldman Sachs expects a "significant uptick" in trading volumes of blockchain-based assets within the next one or two years, the bank's global head of digital assets told Reuters.

05/12/2023

📸 The image below depicting barricades on rue Saint-Maur in the outskirts of Paris, France, (1848) is considered the first photo ever used to illustrate a newspaper story.

👉The fundamental questions of photography are resurfacing now, 175 years later, as technology challenges the foundations for image authenticity and risks undermining trust in the media.

🇪🇺As European leaders in news and photojournalism, we stand together against the use of AI-generated images purporting to be photographs to illustrate a news story.

🤝 The conversation must continue, and the members of Pix.T invite you to join us in shaping a future in photojournalism and visual storytelling that embraces technology, but also knows where to draw the line.

https://trust.pixt.co/press-release/

24/11/2023

🌟 Time for a peek at the Pix.T Manifesto! With all the turbulence around A.I. in news and images, we thought it was a good time to use this space to share our vision and principles.

Our manifesto is built on eight key pillars that we believe are fundamental for a better future for professional photography:

1️⃣ Truth & Technology 🕊️
2️⃣ Openness & ownership 🌐
3️⃣ Protocol 📜
4️⃣ Scarcity 💧
5️⃣ Fairness ⚖️
6️⃣ Environment 🌍
7️⃣ Collaboration & Education 🤝
8️⃣ Beauty ✨

Read more live now on the Pix.T website: https://trust.pixt.co/manifesto/

22/11/2023

“The visual chronicle of the war between Israel and Hamas has become its own disturbing case study of the age of disinformation, when photographs, and the act of photojournalism itself, are weaponized by both sides of a highly charged conflict.” — The New York Times

Photojournalism is not just taking photographs. It’s a visual object or document that exists within a larger journalistic endeavor that includes judgment, standards and the public interest.

This New York Times article (link below) explores the challenges faced by news organizations in covering major conflicts, particularly regarding the use of graphic and potentially misleading images on social media. It discusses the complexities of deciding which images to publish, considering factors such as graphic content, potential harm to the audience, and responsibility to victims' families.

After all, if the wrong printed word can undermine the credibility of a news organization, and if a picture is “worth 1,000 words”… Well, you get the idea: a lot is riding on the coverage, production and editorial choices behind the photos that we see.

At Pixt, our aim is to support that mission and those choices, by being able to certify and track the way works of photojournalism exist in digital spaces. And yes, create a new economy to support the professionals — photographers, producers, photo editors — that make it all possible.

Digital disinformation and restrictions on photojournalists have complicated decision-making about the visual chronicle of the Israel-Hamas war.

17/11/2023

17/11/2023

👀 Sneak peek time

Can you guess what the link is between this photograph and Pixt?

Of course it was taken by Giovanni Pulice from Contrasto - one of our partners alongside NOOR, Polska Agencja Prasowa, ČTK and Worldcrunch. But we’re excited to share with you that this photograph went through our blockchain last week as a test in Pix.T’s ongoing development!

While it is still a prototype and it is not available online yet, you can start to get a feel for pix.t’s certificate protocol: a guarantee for secure and verified information. It is clear. It is safe. It is the future of professional photography.

10/11/2023

Adobe is one of the world’s most powerful software developers. Its millions of clients include both news organizations and individual content creators. Like others in Silicon Valley, it is working on the forefront in advances in Artificial Intelligence.

And yet this week, Adobe showed us why now more than ever journalism ethics not only matter to journalists, producing and distributing AI-generated images purporting to be war scenes from Gaza. A clear red line has been crossed.

We hope this is a wake-up call for everyone, starting with Silicon Valley, about how AI tools risk doing serious harm to democracy and the pursuit of keeping citizens well informed. It’s particularly troubling that Adobe also happens to be leading the Content Authority Initiative, which appears aimed at setting the standards for how images are tracked and verified online.

But it is also a reminder for those who work in news and information — and particularly in the field of images, like our team at Pix.T — that we must take the lead in developing coming technologies and setting the standards and ethics for how they should and should not be used.