If, like me, you remember the start of 2021 as a time of reserved optimism in thinking that the year ahead couldn’t possibly be as bad as the year just passed, well you and I were only partially correct. 2021 proved to be as unpredictable in terms of mutations and variations of COVID as 2020. But as the following year in headlines show, the holography industry has proven to be incredibly resilient in the face of economic and societal turbulence.
The headlines clearly demonstrate the banknote industry’s hunger for holographic security features remains undiminished. But equally obvious is the rebirth of brand protection and the role that holography, in combination with smartphones, is playing in connecting the physical and virtual worlds to help combat counterfeiting.
Holography has always been a technology with a broad appeal and 2021 was no different. Chocolate, architecture, large telescope lenses, cannabis and submarine warfare are just a few of the improbable but intriguing applications where you will find diffractive optics at play.
IHMA Highlights Role of Holograms in the Battle Against ID Fraud. Dr Paul Dunn, Chairman of the International Hologram Manufacturers Association (IHMA), pointed out that in the fight against counterfeiting and fraud, holography, propelled by advances in materials and applications, was helping to secure data and thwart criminal interference, tampering, alteration, forgery and imitation – most notably of photographs and personal data. Holograms that Make Smartphones Smarter. In the same way that the invention of the laser in the early 1960s paved the way for recording and viewing holograms, so the new generation of smartphones, along with the advent of faster 5G networks, is making ‘heightened reality’ images a commercial reality.
Holograms Help Protect Proof-of-Vaccination Card. Compliance management and infectious disease screening company CastleBranch became one of the first companies in the world to issue Real Vaccination ID Cards, which use holography as a key security feature. Demax Unveils E-LIDOGRAM PC Inlay. Bulgarian company Demax Holograms unveiled a new solution for the protection of polycarbonate documents including national ID cards, driving licences and passport datapages. Branded as E-LIDOGRAM® PC Inlay, it is designed to provide enhanced security of government-issued documents along with maximum DOVID design freedom.
Holograms Good Enough to Eat. We’ve seen holograms used to decorate fingernails, garments, buildings and makeup. But now research conducted at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi suggests that food might be the next area for the commercial use of holograms. NFCHOLO™ Technology to Protect ID Documents. Russian-based producer of holograms and other security elements, Krypten, developed NFCHOLO™ technology for ID document security. NFCHOLO can be used for plastic documents that require authentication and security of the owner’s data.
Apple’s Patent Interest in Holography. A US patent recently granted to tech giant Apple shows how cameras on the augmented reality wearable, Apple Glass, could record the real world around the wearer and then use that information to create holograms. The patent also focuses on ensuring that cameras and holograms would not disrupt the wearer’s view. Is Medical Holography a Market or a Group of Applications? It seems that each month, Holography News™ covers stories about interesting applications for holography in medical imaging. But is this just a set of unconnected research or is there a real market for heightened reality imaging in the fields of surgery, training and diagnosis?
The PicoMaster-H – a New Generation of Direct Write Systems. 4PICO Litho of the Netherlands announced the addition of the PicoMaster-H system to the PicoMaster range of high resolution, single-beam, direct write lithography (SB-DWL) hologram and Fresnel lens mastering systems. IHMA Refines Glossary of Holograms. The IHMA updated the Glossary of Holograms on the website (ihma.org) to reflect advances in the industry and the expanded use of holographic terms in heightened reality displays.
IHMA and a Brief History of Holography. After May’s addition of a Glossary of Holograms, the association added a History of Holography as a resource on the IHMA website. The history sets out a timeline of key events in the 70-year history of commercial holography. Guiding Light is Big Business. Snap Inc, the NYSE-listed software company behind photo messaging app Snapchat, acquired UK-based WaveOptics in a deal reportedly worth more than $500 million.
Latest Holographic Solutions from OpSec Security. OpSec Security launched OpSec® KeyCode, a so-called first-of-its-kind holographic two-factor authentication label that protects brands from counterfeiting and grey market sales. VividQ Raises $15 Million to Turn Normal Screens into Holographic Displays. VividQ, a UK-based start-up, with technology for rendering holograms on flat screens, has raised $15 million to develop its technology for next-generation digital displays and devices.
Krypten Releases House Notes with 3D-GRAM® CONTRUST. Russian secure hologram company, Krypten, introduced the 100/50 Nobelists house note with a brand-new 3D-GRAM® CONTRUST photopolymer security patch for use on paper and plastic banknotes. To mark the 800th birthday of Nizhny Novgorod, Krypten also produced a commemorative hologram with volume colour images. KURZ Group Acquires tesa scribos. A recent announcement from the KURZ Group saw the company joining forces with the scribos brand protection division of the adhesive tape giant, tesa, to work against the growing threat of product and brand piracy.
Intriguing Portrait Sighting on New 10,000 Yen Bill. Printing of the newly designed 10,000 yen note, which is scheduled to be issued in the first half of 2024, has begun. The note contains several anti-counterfeiting devices, not least of which is an intriguing moving portrait of Eiichi Shibusawa displaying the tell-tale motion parallax and stereopsis associated with holographic stereograms. Holograms and Architecture. Holography’s ability to disperse and form light into colours and images that create a heightened visual experience has, for many years, been used in architectural settings to create visually stimulating installations. In this article, HN reviewed some of the world’s major holographic architectural installations and explored some of the holographic pre-visualisation technologies that are helping to design the architectural structures of the future.
The new Costa Rica ₡10,000 Banknote with KINEGRAM REVIEW®. The Banco Central de Costa Rica (BCCR) issued its new 10,000 cólones banknote this month. One of the defining features of the new note is the KINEGRAM REVIEW® registered stripe from KURZ, applied over a transparent see-through window in the polymer substrate. Holographic Nanostructure Research is a Phenomenal Success. PHENOmenon received funding of €4 million, financed entirely from European funds, with the aim of developing a new technology that would allow the use of new materials, laser technology, simulation and design tools to develop customised surface structures to fabricate high quality optics with enhanced properties, such as extreme light focusing and anti-fog properties.
IHMA Awards for Excellence in Holography Continue to Shine in Difficult Times. The winners of the IHMA Awards for Excellence in Holography were announced, amid a shower of virtual confetti, at the closing of The Holography Conference Online (THCO) on 18 November, with a total of six awards up for grabs. Need for Massive Space Telescope Inspires Lightweight Flexible Holographic Lens. Inspired by a concept for discovering exoplanets with a massive space telescope, a team of researchers is developing holographic lenses that render visible and infrared starlight into either a focused image or a spectrum.
First Legal Tender Banknote with a KURZ THREAD. The new Poland ‘Lech Kaczyński – It is Worth Being a Pole’ banknote becomes KURZ THREADS first reference in circulation as legal tender. Avalon Holographics Creates Sonar Display for Hunting Submarines. Kongsberg Geospatial has partnered with Avalon Holographics to develop a holographic sonar display for submarine warfare.
A year in headlines for the holography industry wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the passing of some of the titans of the industry during 2020. It is to be expected, but still painful, that as the technology has become fully mature, its pioneers will be advancing in years. Please join in tribute to U K Gupta, Steve McGrew, Fred Unterseher, Larry Lieberman and Sergey Borisovich Odinokov, whose lives were celebrated in the column inches of HN this year and to the families, colleagues and friends of those that weren’t memorialised in the publication but who contributed to the hologram industry and community.
