Printechnologics, a 3M New Ventures funded company, announced the availability of its groundbreaking “AirCode touch” technology.

“We are excited to be able to change the game of data input. Who really wants to enter URLs or codes if you can instead just put a product on your touch screen or hold your smart phone on a label? The best user experience was the key driver to develop our ‘AirCode touch’ technology,” said Jan Thiele, CTO at Printechnologics.

This new and unique technology is using existing multi-touch smart phone displays to read invisible digital information printed on paper, cardboard or foils. This digital tag can be read by using the touch screen of a broad range of Apple, Android or Windows Phone 7 smart phones on the market today without using a camera, RFID or NFC and no hardware modifications required.

“There is no longer a need for a special reading device. ‘AirCode touch’ works on most devices with a touchscreen like smartphones or tablet computers. This technology step is a breakthrough in the whole printed electronics business,” explained Sascha Voigt, CEO at printechnologics.

“AirCode touch” can be used to for a broad variety of marketing and consumer information applications like loyalty programs, brand protection, lotteries, access to online content and much more. The data tags can be printed on standard offset printing systems allowing very low production cost.

The “AirCode touch” provides a range of functionalities targeted by NFC, but offers a much simpler and more cost efficient way while enabling single item tagging through its low cost production process. The “AirCode touch” is a next generation and extension of the high security identification technology “AirCode pro” also currently available by printechnologics.