Innovative offer for journalists during the World Cup in Kaiserslautern: Fraunhofer IESE and Ricoh Co. Ltd. offering a “Virtual Printer” for Journalists – several printing stations planned acros

Kaiserslautern. The Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE) and the Japanese company Ricoh Co. Ltd. in cooperation with the World Cup office of the city of Kaiserslautern will offer a special service to journalists during the World Cup: All registered press people will be able to send documents to a printer online, from their laptops – the system is called “Virtual Printer“. The system will direct the printing requests to a conveniently located printing station. Printing stations will be available across the entire city as well as in hotels. Ricoh Co. Ltd. has provided 15 color laser printers for this purpose. The service will be offered free of charge.

Printing service will be easy to use

The only requirement on the user’s computer is an Internet browser. A wireless network connection, a so-called “WLAN”, will be made available free of charge in downtown Kaiserslautern. The printing service will be available to the journalists via an Internet address, which will make it possible to easily and comfortably upload the document to be printed with the selected printing options (for example, “A4, double-sided”). “The system selects the printer that is located closest to the user. Afterwards, the sender can pick up his printed document from the printing station – completely free of charge“, says the project’s research manager, Dr. Dirk Muthig. Printing stations are planned at several locations in Kaiserslautern: at the World Cup office, at the Tourist Information office, at the World Cup stadium, and in several hotels in the city.

Registration required

All journalists coming to Kaiserslautern for the World Cup 2006 will receive information about the printing service from the World Cup office. Every pressperson who registers for the printing service will receive his or her own user account.

The competence center “Virtual Office of the Future”

The state of Rhineland-Palatinate provides funding for the competence center “Virtual Office of the Future” (VOF), in which the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE) together with the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) performs research into the requirements on a new form of the office: Not paperless, but intelligent, based on the idea that office environments will interact more and more independently. Realizing this idea with technical efficiency primarily requires highly differentiated, flexible software architectures. The printing service is one of the research results of VOF.


Contact Virtual Printing Service:

Dr. Dirk Muthig
Head of the Competence Center “Virtual Office of the Future“
Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE
Fraunhofer-Platz 1
67663 Kaiserslautern
Germany
Phone: + 49 (0) 631 / 6800-1302
Fax: + 49 (0) 631 / 6800-1399
Email: dirk.muthig@iese.fraunhofer.de


Ralf Carbon
Virtual Printer Technical System Specialist
Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE
Fraunhofer-Platz 1
67663 Kaiserslautern
Germany
Phone: + 49 (0) 631 / 6800-2138
Fax: + 49 (0) 631 / 6800-1399
Email: ralf.carbon@iese.fraunhofer.de



The Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE

Fraunhofer IESE in Kaiserslautern currently has 180 employees who perform research in the areas of software development, software quality management, and software competence management. Together with its sister institute in the USA, Fraunhofer IESE offers processes, methods, and techniques for developing software-based systems according to engineering-style principles. In doing so, it follows an empirical approach: Through proven, innovative solutions, products based on software can be brought to the market with a measurably higher degree of efficiency.

The customers of Fraunhofer IESE come from domains where products are dominated by software: automotive and transportation systems, telecommunications, telematics and service providers, medical systems, as well as information systems and applications in the public sector. The
institute provides support to companies of any size – from international corporations to small and medium-sized enterprises. The public sector also plays an important role as a project partner.

Fraunhofer IESE, which was founded in 1996, is directed by Prof. Dieter Rombach and Prof. Peter Liggesmeyer. It is one of 58 institutes of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, which, as the largest applied research organization in Europe, contributes to national and international competitiveness.


Press contact:
Dr. Claudia Duwe
Head of PR/Marketing
Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE
Fraunhofer-Platz 1
67663 Kaiserslautern
Germany
Phone: + 49 (0) 631 / 6800-1605
Fax: + 49 (0) 631 / 6800-1699
Email: ralf.carbon@iese.fraunhofer.de
www.iese.fraunhofer.de

This release was published on openPR.