Canto has announced Cumulus 8.1, an upgrade to the company’s digital asset management (DAM) software. The update turns the Cumulus Cross Client into a standalone version of Cumulus, letting users create new catalogs on a local computer, open catalogs served by Cumulus Servers, and update metadata and assets between the two. For comparison purposes, visual representation of two selected assets has been added.

The e-mailing system can now send automatic e-mails for messages in event consoles as they occur, and include warnings and error notification levels. Reports created by the Reporting and Statistics add-on can be automatically e-mailed to multiple recipients. Other new reporting options include the introduction of new report types, such as "time spent" records, assets catalogued over time, and asset inventories by format.

Increased protection has also been added for Cumulus Servers running on Windows Server 2008. The update requires Mac OS X 10.4, and is expected to become available in the first week of December.