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For the fourth time, Konica Minolta, a leading services provider for IT and document processes, is going to sponsor the Pioneers Festival as Global Partner in Vienna, Austria, on 28-29 May. With it, the company continues its commitment to support start-ups in business areas relevant to Konica Minolta. Having started with an investment in the Austrian start-up Wikitude – the world’s leading mobile augmented reality (AR) technology provider for smartphones, tablets and digital eyewear – Konica Minolta is now driving its activities for offering AR business solutions as well as acting as a preferred partner for its customers in collaborations. The definition of augmented reality is a scenario where digital content is superimposed on top of the real world.
Enhancing the digitisation to a visual level Augmented reality enhances the ongoing digitisation of the economy to another – a visual – level. The value for enterprises derives from relevant integration in enterprise IT systems and analytic tools. This is an area in which Konica Minolta delivers a huge amount of expertise. Furthermore, with the integration of AR in Managed Content Services (MCS) and Enterprise Content Managements (ECM), new fields of application such as real-time dynamic text translation and intelligent archiving and information mapping processes come into being. But through the integration in MCS/ECM, there are also more automation processes possible, even at workplaces where workstations are not owned, such as at warehouses, hospitals, construction sites and so on. Additionally, Konica Minolta has identified more solutions for vertical markets in which AR has the power to conquer the mass market, such as the healthcare, education, utilities, retail and automotive segments.
"Augmented reality will change our lives in all fields and offer opportunities of which we can't even conceive today. You just have to imagine that, in the future, all promotional materials comprise augmented reality elements – regardless whether it’s an advertising poster, advertising pillar in the pedestrian zone or a company brochure. We at Konica Minolta see huge potential in the market and have set ourselves the goal of being the preferred partner for AR business solutions", says Olaf Lorenz, General Manager International Marketing Division, Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe.
More collaborations with other leading AR companies Last year, Konica Minolta announced its initial investment in the Austrian start-up Wikitude. Through its close collaboration with Wikitude, Konica Minolta has access to the world’s leading mobile AR technology: With tens of thousands of developer accounts and thousands of published AR apps, Wikitude has grown to be the AR platform of choice. By collaborating with one other start-up, namely Anyline, also from Austria, Konica Minolta is further strengthening its AR approach. Anyline is a mobile text recognition technology, which enables smartphones to turn any text in a camera’s vision field into digital output, such as for scanning blood sugar meters, gas and power meters as well as debit and credit cards.
"Augmented reality has the potential to be the 8th mass market" According to mobile industry analyst Tomi Ahonen, augmented reality has the potential to be "the 8th mass market to evolve, following print, recordings, cinema, radio, TV, the Internet and mobile." Predictions are for a market volume ranging up to $150 billion by 2020.
Watch the Konica Minolta/Wikitude MCS video for potential fields of application.
More press material with respect to Pioneers Festival and augmented reality (AR).
About the Pioneers Festival Every year, about 2,500 attendees take part at the Pioneers Festival in Vienna, Austria, one of the most prominent and important technology festivals in Europe. The event educates and brings together European start-ups, established companies and investors. By supporting start-ups, Konica Minolta helps young entrepreneurs put their innovative business ideas into practice.
For further information, please visit http://pioneers.io/festival2015
Product images are available at: www.konicaminolta-images.eu
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