By Laurie Riedman, PR Consultant
Throughout the year I work with some of the smartest minds at Xerox – the scientists and researchers hard at work in the labs developing the new services that help simplify the way our customers do business and increasingly how we live – from finding parking on a busy street in L.A. to igniting education by helping teachers transform the way kids learn.
It’s my job to bring those behind the scenes stories to life and reveal the innovation inside our products and services. That isn’t always easy to do, but for the next several days, it’s as easy as a walk down “Jazz Street” in downtown Rochester at the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Fest.
You see, many of the more than 200,000 folks expected to attend the festival could unknowingly be holding state-of- the-art imaging anti-counterfeiting technology developed just a few miles from the festival at the Xerox Research Center Webster.
Several fraud-resistant specialty imaging security technologies – including a new innovation called MicroGloss marks as well as Glossmark and MicroText – are protecting every festival Club and VIP Pass. I think it is so cool that every person that holds a pass will have their own personal sample of these state-of-the-art security features.
To the festival goers, it’s just a great looking ticket, but the technology embedded in the images is the same technology customers from around the world use to secure and authenticate all sorts of documents including coupons, tickets, lottery tickets, certificates and invoices. And because it does not require additional printing steps or incremental costs, the technology can accommodate variable information, like a name, a time-stamp or a code.
The technology doesn’t stop there. JazzFinder is a free smartphone app that allows users to search for show times, artist information, concert directions and even share event photos. Attendees can also try the Be Moved JazzCam — a unique 360-degree photo opportunity that weaves photos taken from a ring of cameras into a single image. The image can be shared via social media or, for a small donation to the Eastman School of Music – Rochester International Jazz Festival Jazz Scholarship Fund, attendees can take home a color print produced on a Xerox Phaser 7800 printer. The cutting edge technology powering the personalized prints is XMPie uDirect® Studio LE, a solution just announced in May that automatically selects the frames it needs from the digital JazzCam experience and automatically creates an attendee’s personalized poster — all in less time than it takes to walk over to the printer.
Yes, with all this technology being put to use at the Jazz Fest, it is hip to be square!
