Company News

Geek Bar’s New Holographic Packaging

Disposable vape brand Geek Bar has launched new packaging aimed at combatting counterfeit products. The launch follows a spate of incidents in which non-compliant vapes have been found for sale throughout the UK.

Geek Bar’s new packaging has a hologram and a new top-integrated seal, which will allow consumers to open packs using a tear brace.

Geek Bar’s decision to revamp its packaging is part of an ongoing campaign from the brand to combat the sale of illicit vapes. The brand has also been working with the Chinese authorities to stop counterfeit vapes at the source. According to Geek Bar, its work in China has seen the state close 12 counterfeit factories in recent months, with over 100,000 vapes destined for the UK market seized.

Allen Yang, Chief Executive at Geek Bar, said: ‘as a leading brand of disposable vapes in the UK, it is crucially important to us that we are putting all the measures in place to ensure non-compliant and counterfeit vapes do not bring harm to our customers.

‘We will not accept products that do not meet UK regulations entering the market and we hope that our new packaging will make it easier for people to check the veracity of the products and alert us to any unregulated sales.’

© Geek Bar.

Hungarian Company HoloTech’s Plans to Revitalise Holography

Based out of a facility 32 km north of Budapest, HoloTech has joined forces with researchers from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics to ‘reinvent’ hologram technology.

The scientists at HoloTech are using digital data sources to create superior clarity and colour in their holograms and are considering applications in medical imaging and identity security.

‘Our mission in the medical field of hologram technology is to try to link our developments with the existing healthcare technology tools that deal with imaging,’ said Imre Lakatos, CEO of HoloTech.

It's a welcome new support for medical schools, according to Dr Andras Csokay, a neurosurgeon at the Hungarian Army Medical Centre in Budapest.

‘In anatomy class, for example, it's much easier to understand the location of internal organs if we could see them in spatial view,’ he said.

‘We could see better the irregularities or tumours. If we have a better spatial view, we can better imagine what problems they might cause, or where they might put pressure on certain organs. So, in all respects it would be a wonderful new resource.’

HoloTech has also developed holograms that can assist in the field of security, such as anti-counterfeiting and identity security.

According to HoloTech, police and border services from several countries have approached them for technology for creating holographic images of humans for potential use in passports and identity cards.

Within those images, large quantities of coded data on the individual can be hidden and read by security services.

‘If we had such a holographic image on a passport or ID card, it would practically solve the problem of creating (illegal) copies. This is very significant, which is why we've been approached by several countries. We've made quite a lot of progress on this, and we have all the technology to do that here,’ said Lakatos.

Nextech Launches Human Hologram Creator App

Nextech has announced the launch of ARitize Holograms (formerly known as holoX) – which is an app powered by Artificial Intelligence that lets you create, share and view human holograms with no green screen or technical equipment required. The app will also be offered as a software development kit (SDK) so that any application can licence the technology.

Nextech’s plan is that ARitize Holograms will be integrated directly with Nextech’s Metaverse Studio and ARitize Maps, allowing for human holograms to be dropped into and viewed in the Metaverse.

ARitize Holograms uses machine learning to process video capture into a human hologram in just a few minutes. A user can share holograms with friends using a QR code or across other social platforms such as TikTok, Twitter and Instagram. The holograms can be viewed anywhere, it is claimed, even in outdoor lighting conditions. While the app is currently only available for iOS, Nextech intends to soon release the app for Android.

Human holograms can be used for a variety of different purposes across several industries, including product demonstrations, fitness and training, educational tutorials, music and performances.

Bryan Carter, Director of the University of Arizona Centre for Digital Humanities, had this to say about the product: ‘ARitize Holograms is a game changer with the work I do through the centre for Digital Humanities at the University of Arizona, as well as with my teaching. The centre is deploying a number of holograms with partners in museums, cultural centres and related heritage tour projects. Through my teaching, it is adding to the conversation regarding the ways we interact with students online. I look forward to working with this platform as it evolves.’

OneLearn to Offer Training Through Holographic Tutors

eLearning training provider OneLearn Global will soon offer live courses run by holographic tutors from the company’s headquarters in Limassol, Cyprus, to audiences around the globe.

‘This next-generation technology gives people the means to project themselves as life-size holograms when running live courses for mariners on shore or at sea,’ said Nigel Cleave, senior advisor at OneLearn Global.

The hologram-projection technology is the brainchild of PORTL, a US-based company that spent a year building a tailormade portal for Columbia Shipmanagement (CSM – which OneLearn provides eLearning for).

The ability to conduct remote meetings and training was showcased when Mark O’Neil, CEO and President of CSM, appeared before an audience in Manila – some 5,534 miles away.

Mr O’Neil was in a purpose-built ‘capture’ studio at OneLearn Global’s offices in Limassol. The audience at the Manilabased Nautilus Pacific Training Centre could see him in an eight-foot tall, glass-fronted portal. Mr O’Neil could speak to, see and hear the people attending the event in Manila.