OKI Data Corporation and Dalian University of Technology Join Forces to Drive Development of Ubiquitous Printing
29/07/2009
Tokyo, July 30, 2009
OKI Data Corporation, which markets its products under the OKI Printing Solutions brand, and Dalian University of Technology today announced an agreement to establish a joint research center. The new center, which will be based at the university, will research into ubiquitous printing, enabling simplified printing based on ontology* engineering to take place practically anywhere.
The two organizations will research and develop an automatic printer-connecting system in order to enhance usability in a Wi-Fi equipped office environment. By the end of fiscal year 2011 they plan to have jointly achieved practical implementations capable of determining the locations of PCs and printers with a Peer-to-Peer protocol and connecting them automatically in the environment as well as a generic print user interface for printing.
Dalian University of Technology was established in 1949 and was hailed as a ‘National Elite University’ by the Chinese government in 1960. It is one of the leading universities under the direct leadership of the country’s State Ministry of Education.
School of Electronic and Information Engineering in the university has been researching into ubiquitous computing. In order to further develop its ubiquitous technologies and ultimately put them into practice, it needed to collaborate with a commercial organization.
For its own part, OKI Data Corporation has been independently researching ubiquitous printing systems with a view to enhance the usability of printing solutions and had been looking for a partner to make further progress in this area.
Harushige Sugimoto, President and CEO of OKI Data Corporation says: “We anticipate that all office devices, including printers, will become ubiquitous in the near future. As a result, users will expect enhanced connectivity and manageability between these devices. OKI sees the simplification of the printing configuration process as a critical issue for ubiquitous printing. I am delighted that we will be collaborating with Dalian University of Technology, which is able to offer a powerful combination of technical expertise, highly talented staff and superlative research.”
In a ubiquitous printing environment, connections to printers and MFPs are expected to be established automatically by simply connecting to the network. The whole process of complex configuration that previously needed to be carried out prior to printing can be eliminated and connections to the devices can be easily established as and when required.
The automatic printer-connecting system consists of Automatic Printer Connectors (APC), a piece of client software that is operated in a user’s PC, and a server system. When security requirements to enter the network are satisfied, the system will locate the nearest printer and execute the configuration setting automatically on the PC, enabling the printer to be used. In other words, users will be able to print from the nearest printer only by starting up APC.
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Glossary: Ontology is a modeling technology and a model to represent objects existing around us in terms of their properties and relations. It is being researched in the field of artificial intelligence and it is expected to be applied in the development of The Semantic Web (next generation search engine).
Additional Information for Reference:
Company name: OKI Data Corporation
Address: 4-11-22 Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Representative: Harushige Sugimoto, President and CEO
Established: 1994 Paid-in capital: 17.0 billion yen
Stockholders: Wholly owned subsidiary of OKI Electric Industry Co., Ltd.
Employees: 5,447 (consolidated)
FY2008 sales: 161.6 billion yen (consolidated)
Business activities: Printer and copier businesses across 120 countries worldwide
University name: Dalian University of Technology
Address：DaLian , LiaoNing , China , 116024
Representative：Ou Jinping
Established: April 1949
Number of students：29,602（including 3,410 post-graduate students and 6,829 graduate students）
OKI Data Corporation, which markets its products under the OKI Printing Solutions brand, specializes in designing, developing, manufacturing and marketing business printing solutions which empower organizations to communicate more effectively. OKI Data Corporation has representation in 120 countries worldwide offering innovative and leading edge products and services. Its annual turnover for FY08 is 161.6 billion yen and sales are divided between 54% EMEA, 22% Americas, 18% Asia and Oceania and 6% Others. OKI Data Corporation is a subsidiary of Tokyo-based OKI Electric Industry Co. Ltd., established in 1881 and Japan’s first telecommunications manufacturer.For more information, please visit http://www.okiprintingsolutions.com
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