SEPTEMBER 2017
14
PRINTFLIC BRINGS YOUR
MAGAZINES TO LIFE
Trevor Mason,
Diesel Tech EditorBY TREVOR MASON
WINCHTOHITCH [email protected]Everybody loves a good QR code, am
I right? What’s that? They’re inconsistent
and don’t work half of the time? Tell me
about it. Shouldn’t technology work better
nowadays?
What does this have to do with diesels?
Harris Publishing, our parent company,
has partnered with a new company called
Printflic to bring its augmented reality
technology to all of our readers. The
other magazines under Harris’s umbrella
have begun using it and we are proud to
announce that Diesel Tech is the only diesel
magazine in the industry to use this new
technology.AR thing) it keeps the camera viewfinder
on your phone running in realtime and
displays the video as if it were actually
coming from the page in the magazine. It’s
really cool!
Starting here in the September issue,
you will see certain ads bearing the Printflic
logo; these are ones that we’ve set up to
have video content ready to go as soon as
you receive the issue in-hand. We’re start-
ing small but plan on adding this feature
to as many features in the magazine as
we can. We believe in the vision of what
Printflic is trying to achieve: increasing cur-
rent print media’s ability to speak for the
print image by connecting motivating and
enlarged digital media video directly to
print images. To get in on the ground floor,
simply open the store app on your smart-
phone and search for Printflic by name.
We’re excited to see how far Printflic
can go and we hope that you enjoy the
new direction that we’re taking with the
magazine. We’re constantly looking to
make things better over here, from ourlogo redesign last year to the fresh look
we’ve been putting magazine-wide this
year to Printflic and much, much more.
If you’ve got any questions, comments,
or even complaints (I hope not too many
of those!), drop us a line and we’ll take it
under advisement.
We want to make this magazine the
best possible resource for daily drivers,
and we feel that Printflic is a strong step
in that direction. It’s no secret that print
media is having a hard time keeping pace
with what the internet can offer, so we’re
excited to try our hand at melding the
two of them to bring a better product. See
you in the future! DT“Printflic displays the
video as if it were
actually coming from the
page in the magazine.
It’s really cool!”
Printflic works in a way that is largely
similar to QR codes or other barcode-type
scanners, but in a more comprehensive
and less rigid way. You see, a QR code
works by encoding information into small
grid that then gets interpreted by your
smartphone into some other from of data,
usually a link to a website, though there
are other uses. What sets Printflic apart
is that it doesn’t require a code to work.
Once you download the app (both iOS and
Android versions are available), you log
in through Facebook or a standard email
address. Then you simply point your device
at any piece of content in the magazine
and touch the “Tap to Scan” button on your
screen. The Printflic app scans the page for
visual information, searches its database,
and serves up a video that supplements
the content you’re currently reading. One
of the neatest parts of it all is that it really
leans in to the “augmented reality” side of
things. Instead of simply opening up the
video in a new window (though it can still
totally do that, if you’re not into the whole