News in Brief

De La Rue Authentication on Track

De La Rue has announced that its Authentication division is on track to exceed £100 million in revenue for fiscal year 2024, demonstrating good growth versus 2023 results, and making it the fastest growing division in the company.

The Authentication division provides physical and digital solutions to governments and commercial organisations for protecting revenues and brand reputations. The division also manufactures security components including holograms and other optical devices.

De La Rue reported total revenue for FY23 of £349.7 million (down from £375.1 million for FY22). While revenue from its Currency division was 9.4% lower, at £254.6 million (following an industry-wide downturn in activity in this sector), Authentication achieved a modest increase of 1.6%, to reach £91.7 million.

Over the past five years, the company’s authentication and traceability business has increased by almost 200%, driven by robust government revenue and brand protection growth, as well as by several strategic investments to expand its portfolio of physical and digital security solutions.

The acquisition of DuPont Authentication brought Lippman hologram technology into De La Rue’s portfolio, which it provides in the identity and product authentication sectors.

One of these accounts, the distinguished British hairbrush brand, Mason Pearson, has announced a three-year extension to its partnership with De La Rue. The programme has leveraged De La Rue’s Lippmann hologram, IZON® – with its distinctive 3D effect viewable in full parallax – with the latest iteration of De La Rue’s track and trace software, Traceology® 3.0, as part of its comprehensive brand protection strategy.

META Predicts the Future is Holographic

META’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg has revealed five common household items that will soon be replaced by holograms.

Speaking at the company’s annual product summit, Meta Connect, Mr Zuckerberg said that the real and digital worlds will become increasingly mixed, and part of that means swapping out some physical objects with virtual holograms.

‘I always find it funny when people say that the digital world and all the apps and stuff isn’t the real world,’ he said. ‘Because I think increasingly in our modern time, the real world is really this combination of the physical world that we inhabit and this digital world that we’re building.’ 

Zuckerberg said that right now, the digital world is very separate from reality.

‘In the future, I think not too far from now, you’re gonna walk into a room and there are gonna be as many holograms of digital things for you to interact with as there are physical objects.’

According to Zuckerberg, we could replace any screen, such as a TV or computer monitor for instance, with holograms allowing you to see a virtual version in the real world as a hologram.

In addition to replacing screens and monitors, Zuckerberg also named four other items that could be replaced by holograms: paper, media and games, art, and your workstation.

ETRI Unveils Hyper- Realistic 3D Displays

Korean government-funded research laboratory, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), presented a variety of innovative technologies capable of realising realistic 3D scenes at The Korea Display Industry Association’s ‘K-Display 2023’ exhibition in Seoul.

In the area of stereoscopic image generation and services, ETRI showed plenoptic content acquisition, generation and visualisation technology that supports binocular and motion parallax, as well as focus adjustment. It also introduced hologram camera and processor technology that can produce real image acquisition holograms and computer- generated holograms in real time.

A plenoptic, or light-field, camera is one that captures information about the light field emanating from a scene. The camera system captures the intensity of light from each point in the scene, as well as the precise direction that the light rays are travelling in space.

In the field of shape inspection equipment, ETRI displayed 3D stereoscopic shape examination technology that can precisely obtain 3D shape information of fine features in semiconductor chips or display panels through hologram technology and accurately inspect defects.

It also introduced plenoptic microscope technology that can inspect the 3D shape of a device in process in real time by attaching a lens, similar in structure to an insect’s eye, to a regular camera.

Two New Sample Kits from KURZ

During the Intergraf Currency+Identity event (18-20 October, Bilbao) KURZ presented two new brochures with sample banknotes containing optically variable devices.

The first sample note in the ‘KINEGRAM® Around the World – Edition 2024’ brochure showcases a registered KURZ THREAD as well as a registered stripe, both equipped with KINEGRAM COLORS® technology. The second sample note demonstrates the combination of a patch and a KURZ THREAD, both of which are realized with KINEGRAM COSMIC colour shifting technology.

KINEGRAM® Around the World – Edition 2024.

 

The new sample banknotes were created in collaboration with the security print industry veteran PWPW. They combine unique KINEGRAM features applied to the surface and incorporated into the paper with state-of-the-art security features and printing techniques.

The KINEGRAM DYNAMIC® ‘Underwater World’ Series 1 brochure presents two new KINEGRAM DYNAMIC sample banknotes with a registered stripe and eye-catching, highly intuitive visual security effects.

KINEGRAM DYNAMIC® ‘Underwater World’ series 1.

 

With the KINEGRAM DYNAMIC technology, banknotes can be verified at a glance and within seconds. Micro- lenses combined with sophisticated and proprietary production processes create deep-view and dynamic movement effects, which are immediately visible when the banknote is tilted. These are combined with multiple colours as well as partially metallised design areas that contain the signature KINEGRAM effects.