Hologram Industry News

BOBST has launched a version of its VISIONFOIL press, specifically dedicated to security hologram application.

As more and more industries look for solutions to protect the authenticity of their products, holographic materials offer an ideal solution, helping its brand owners make a clear difference between originals and forgeries, protecting their valuable assets, and deterring counterfeiters.

However reproducing holograms, and placing them accurately on the product, require specialized equipment. Until 2010, the reference machine for flat-to-flat hologram application on paper, labels, or board has been the BOBST SP 76-BM Foilmaster, a B2 size press (equivalent to a packaging format of 0b). Now BOBST has introduced the VISIONFOIL 104 H to deliver hologram application of accuracy previously unavailable to the B1 print sector or the format 3B packaging market.

The VISIONFOIL 104 H uses BOBST’s patented, high precision Registron cameras to bring each hologram on the sheet into perfect register, be they 2-D, 2-D/2-D, 3-D, 2-D/3-D, or multiplexed. The same cameras perfectly process diffraction foils, skipping the unusable shim line areas. All current sizes of holograms can be processed using the VISIONFOIL 104 H. In addition the press handles holograms substantially larger or smaller than current industry standards - offering designers and users the opportunity to include special size holograms in their designs or portfolio of products.

The smooth foil path created by the specially designed internal foil unwind module, enables high precision foil handling and better productivity. The cameras are auto-setting, reducing make-ready time. Up to six independently driven advance shafts, increase flexibility and cut down on foil waste. The platen entry easily handles light materials which make up the majority of security print jobs.

Alongside its hologram application capabilities, the VISIONFOIL 104 H is highly flexible, being able to apply conventional as well as holographic foil. The press shares with the rest of the VISIONFOIL 104 range a maximum running speed of 7,500 sheets per hour, along with the ability to run paper and labels down to 80 gsm, carton board to 2000 gsm, and corrugated sheets up to 4 mm in thickness. The maximum sheet size the VISIONFOIL 104 H can handle is 1040×740 mm and the press features 12 individually controllable heating zones.

The VISIONFOIL 104 H is ideal for banknote printers applying holograms and/or metal stripes; software packaging manufacturers applying seals to CD/DVD cases; ticket printers producing concert, event and sporting event tickets, tobacco industry suppliers and other industries trying to protect their products or brands.

For more information please contact Marco Lideo at Bobst, Switzerland: marco.lideo@bobstgroup.com or +41-21 621 49 64 or visit www.bobstgroup.comUK scientists have “tied light in knots”, paving the way for new applications of laser technology. A team of physicists working at the universities of Bristol, Glasgow and Southampton accomplished the seemingly impossible feat using a series of holograms to control the flow of light.

The breakthrough could be used to offer unprecedented levels of precision in sophisticated applications that currently use lasers, such as speed cameras and measurement devices.

The pioneering British team implemented a previously abstract mathematical formula known as “knot theory”, which allowed them to manipulate light into “knots”, providing greater control over the direction and precision of the beam.

The sophisticated hologram design required for the experimental demonstration of the knotted light shows advanced optical control, which undoubtedly can be used in future laser devices.

Speaking on the exciting future of the home grown device, Professor Miles Padgett from Glasgow University, who led the experiments, said: “The sophisticated hologram design required for the experimental demonstration of the knotted light shows advanced optical control, which undoubtedly can be used in future laser devices.”

Source:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7012307/A-team-of-scientists-managed-to-tie-light-in-knots.html

Description A Japanese importer of alcoholic beverages and a cosmetics manufacturer are reviewing Toppan Printing Co. RFID Crystagram label, which combines 2.4 GHz passive RFID tag and a unique holographic image.

The beverage importer is looking to use the Crystagram label to help prevent its products from being counterfeited or diverted into illegal channels and would also like to offer its customers a guarantee that the products are authentic. The label is designed to be attractive and provide both visual authentication for customers, and the electronic trail that RFID provides. The company is still estimating the total cost required for the implementation.

Holograms and optical devices are often used on labels of high-value items to prevent these forgeries. With the Crystagram, Toppan Printing is providing a label that combines a hologram with a tiny Hitachi RFID chip known as the µ-chip (pronounced mu-chip). The µ-chip, which transmits at 2.45 GHz and complies with ISO 18000-6C standard, is 0.15 millimeters in length and width, and 7.5 micrometers thick. Hitachi Chemical has integrated the µ-chip into a hologram. An aluminum layer on the hologram acts as the RFID antenna, giving the resulting RFID tag a read range of about 20 millimeters. Each chip carries a unique ID number and has a memory capacity of 128 bits, enough for the 38-digit ID number.

Holograms and RFIDs are the similar technologies used by companies as a method for anti-counterfeiting and brand protection. Now the two technologies are coming in a combo pack with double protection to prevent pirates selling counterfeits.

Hitachi with Toppan has launched the world’s first hologram-toting IC tag. The ‘ IC Hologram’ combines the two technologies with a view to making tracking and verifying the authenticity of a product as watertight as possible. Future applications are likely to include using it to secure batches of medicines, but for now it’s going to keep tabs on really important stuff like designer perfumes and handbags.

The hologram element is costly to fake without large-scale facilities, while the RFID data is encrypted and even more difficult to crack. On top of those, the sticker they are rooted to can’t be peeled off a product without breaking into pieces.

Trade in counterfeiting and pirated goods cost global economy $ 650 billion annually. Toppan says this is crucial as “tens of trillions of yen (£100 billion+)” are lost to counterfeiters every year. More importantly, it reckons it can scoop up ¥4 billion (£19 million) in annual sales of the stickers.
Sources: http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/future-tech/worlds-first-holographic-rfid-tag-252668

The use of a projector to power the primary handset display opens up the possibility of holographic displays in the future. Samsung is developing a new technology to use optical projection displays inside mobile phones, instead of LCDs. This may soon enable cellphones with 3D holographic displays. Projection technology has become miniaturized enough to fit inside a handset, and Samsung has developed a “panel type waveguide,” a new refraction technology, that can distribute the light from these tiny optical projectors evenly across a mobile phone’s display.

Projection technology has benefits over LCD or OLED display technologies because the projection display can be scaled to any desired size (presumably by altering how the light is refracted onto the display), whereas an LCD or OLED display needs to be manufactured in a predetermined size.
Sources: http://gadgets.todaynominated.com/2008/02/22/samsung-phone-with-3d-holographic-projection-display/

University of Arizona optical scientists have broken a technological barrier by making three-dimensional holographic displays that can be erased and rewritten in a matter of minutes. A 3-D holographic image that can be updated and viewed without special glasses may soon find its way from a UA optics lab to operating rooms and battlefield command centers.

The holographic displays – which are viewed without special eyewear – are the first updatable three-dimensional displays with memory ever to be developed, making them ideal tools for medical, industrial and military applications that require “situational awareness.”

And what the entertainment and advertising industries could do with a lifelike image apparently appearing in thin air is anyone’s guess.
The unique component in this holographic system — a 4-inch-square glass-and-polymer display surface — is its ability to change, to be updated, rewritten, says Savas Tay, the lead scientist on this invention.
That holographic bird on your credit card can’t turn into something else every few minutes, but Tay’s display can take an image rendered in three dimensions — initially photographed or computer-generated — and display it on the display surface, followed by another and another.
The technology will be said. “Imagine that when you walk into the supermarket or department store, you could see a large, dynamic, three-dimensional product display,” he said. It would be an attention-grabber.
And no one yet knows where the advertising and entertainment industries will go with possible applications, Peyghambarian said. “Imagine that when you walk into the supermarket or department store, you could see a large, dynamic, three-dimensional product display,” he said.

“This is a new type of device, nothing like the tiny hologram of a dove on your credit card,” UA optical sciences professor Nasser Peyghambarian said. “The hologram on your credit card is printed permanently. You cannot erase the image and replace it with an entirely new three-dimensional picture.”

“Holography has been around for decades, but holographic displays are really one of the first practical applications of the technique,” UA optical scientist Savas Tay said.

Dynamic hologram displays could be made into devices that help surgeons track progress during lengthy and complex brain surgeries, show airline or fighter pilots any hazards within their entire surrounding airspace, or give emergency response teams nearly real-time views of fast-changing flood or traffic problems, for example.

And no one yet knows where the advertising and entertainment industries will go with possible applications, Peyghambarian

“Three-dimensional imaging techniques are already commonly used in medicine, for example, in MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) or CAT scan (Computerized Axial Tomography) techniques,” Tay said. “However, the huge amount of data that is created in three dimensions is still being displayed on two-dimensional devices, either on a computer screen or on a piece of paper. A great amount of data is lost by displaying it this way. So I think when we develop larger, full-color 3D holograms, every hospital in the world will want one.”

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/uoa-uo020508.php

CONTACTS:
Nasser Peyghambarian (520-621-4649; nnp@u.arizona.edu) Savas Tay (520-245-9722; savas.tay@gmail.com)
It updates 3-D images; may aid doctors
By Dan Sorenson
arizona daily star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 02.11.2008
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Very soon holograms will be made in less than a minute. University of Arizona optical scientists have broken a technological barrier by making three-dimensional holographic displays that can be erased and rewritten in a matter of minutes. The work, which started about two years ago, was done in collaboration with Nitto Denko Technical Corp. and was funded by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

The holographic displays - which are viewed without special eyewear - are the first updatable three-dimensional displays with memory ever to be developed, making them ideal tools for medical, industrial and military applications that require “situational awareness.”

According to the sources the technology will be helpful in medical science. “Three-dimensional imaging techniques are already commonly used in medicine, for example, in MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) or CT scan (computerized tomography) techniques,” Tay said. “However, the huge amount of data that is created in three dimensions is still being displayed on two-dimensional devices, either on a computer screen or on a piece of paper. A great amount of data is lost by displaying it this way. So I think when we develop larger, full-color 3-D holograms, every hospital in the world will want one.”
Sources : http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/uoa-uo020508.php
Contact: Lori Stiles
lstiles@email.arizona.edu
520-626-4402
University of Arizona
hologram.pdf

Bergisch Gladbach, 16.01.2008 - Ten years after the first HoloProTM screen was developed and produced in Bergisch Gladbach, the time has now come for HoloProTM4. Pronova present their latest new HoloProTM4 at the Integrated Systems Europe Fair in Amsterdam. The new generation of holographic projection screens was created in the course of many years of research and development cooperation between pronova and the Cologne Technical College (Fachhochschule Köln). “The reduction of holographic optical elements to a diameter of 0.2 mm brings us into dimensions that are smaller than pixels on a computer monitor”, explains Martin Kischkoweit-Lopin, CEO of G+B pronova GmbH. The impressive result of this miniaturisation is an unprecedented richness of detail and a considerable improvement in colour neutrality, homogeneity and brilliance of projection quality. The number of HOEs was also exponentiated: in HoloProTM4, according to pronova, there are more than 200 times as many HOEs as in previous versions.

HoloPro™ is the patented solution for living projections on glass. HoloPro™ stands for “holographic projection screen“.

Sources: www.pronovagmbh.de

TOKYO, Jan 17, 2008 Dai Nippon Printing Co. (TSE:7912) will market a new hologram label that combines 3-D computer graphic images with microscopic lettering.

Branded products use hologram labels to prove their authenticity, but in recent years the technology of forgery has advanced so far that it is difficult to distinguish real hologram labels from bogus hologram labels just by looking at the 3-D CG image.

To help people identify real labels, Dai Nippon Printing will incorporate the word GENUINE in microscopic lettering into the hologram. The letters are drawn with a line width of only 50 microns and are technically difficult to print, but readily viewable using a magnifying glass.

Dai Nippon Printing will charge 5 yen apiece for orders of 2 million labels and hopes to generate revenue of 3 billion yen (US$28 million) with this business during the next three years.
Sources: http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/997853/

Definition
Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) is an optical disc technology which would hold up to 3.9 terabytes (TB) of information. It employs a technique known as collinear holography, whereby two lasers, one red and one green, are collimated in a single beam. The green laser reads data encoded as laser interference fringes from a holographic layer near the top of the disc while the red laser is used as the reference beam and to read servo information from a regular CD-style aluminum layer near the bottom. Servo information is used to monitor the position of the read head over the disc, similar to the head, track, and sector information on a conventional hard disk drive. On a CD or DVD this servo information is interspersed amongst the data.
source: www.wikipedia.org