Association Insights: The Future of Printing

One significant player in the image-recognition market is the Swiss developer kooaba, which recently redesigned and renamed its smartphone app. This app, now called Shortcut, directs users who photograph pages from supported newspapers and magazines to the corresponding digital versions of those pages. For selected articles, readers also can access additional content like videos or image galleries. Today, Shortcut supports more than 1,000 publications and is used by two Swiss media leaders, APG|SGA and Publicitas.

Keeping up with these rapidly advancing technologies and applications in the printing industry can be quite a challenge. That’s why, in 2011, Printing Industries of America hosted the Integrated Print Forum, a unique event that focused on emerging print and marketing technologies and their business implications. Because of the event’s popularity, it will be held again at Printing Industries of America headquarters in Sewickley, PA, on October 29–30, 2012. More information about the Integrated Print Forum can be found at www.integratedprintforum.org.

Sam Shea is the coordinator of the Digital Printing Council at Printing Industries of America. Sam manages and contributes articles to the Digital Printing Council’s website (dpc.printing.org) and edits the Digital Printing Report, a newsletter that is included in Printing Industries of America: The Magazine. Sam also provides assistance to Printing Industries of America’s vice president of Digital Technologies, Julie Shaffer, on special projects and programs such as the web2awards and the Integrated Print Forum. Contact him at 412-259-1747 or sshea@printing.org.