Special Lecture (20) “From Print to AR – Smart Media of the Future”

International School of information Management (ISiM) organised a Special Lecture (20) on “From Print to AR – Smart Media of the Future” on 8th March, 2012 at 10:00 am by Dr.Arved Carl Hübler, Chair of the Professorship, Institute for Print and Media Technology, Chemnitz University of Technology for German Government agency DFG.

Brief Report of Special Lecture:

The talk discussed the evolution of Print Media and how it has adapted to advances in technology – from it’s humble origins on papyrus leaves, to the Guttenberg printing press, to Augmented Reality used in devices like smartphones. Dr. Hübler gave insight into the current state of print media and forecasted its future. He described how electronics are helping to change the Print Media landscape – giving examples such as the first mass-printed transistor, integrated circuit on paper, printed loudspeakers, etc. An example particularly relevant to Indian society was the idea of cheaply printing solar cells on the inside of cardboard packaging – so that they can be used to harness solar energy for electricity instead of being discarded.

Dr. Hübler later on explained the coding of Information with reference to moveable type printing and how it has become more efficient through the use of the Phoenician alphabet (as opposed to Chinese script) and Electronic binary code. He went on to explain the restrictions of the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) process, OCR Methodology and how optical coding developments are bringing in AR into unexpected places – from magazines and books, to cereal boxes and toys. Dr. Hübler ended the talk with the memorable example of AR used in onsite language translation of English signs into Spanish.

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