It was perhaps the largest EFI Connect yet. Upwards of 1,500 customers, dealers, and media types gathered at the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas last week to get caught up on the latest in EFI’s rapidly evolving arsenal of hardware and software.

EFI CEO Guy Gecht kicked things off Tuesday afternoon with a keynote called “The Next Big Thing In Technology is Huge...and Scary.” That next big thing is artificial intelligence (AI), which is evolving at a rapid pace—perhaps alarmingly so. From so simple a beginning as Deep Blue, the chess-playing computer that “learned” how to beat chessmaster Gary Kasparov, to Jeopardy!-winning Watson, to self-driving cars, to a robot being interviewed on CNBC, it’s possible we’re being introduced to our future overlords (this book could be required reading). Thanks to advances in machine learning, we are barreling headlong toward what technologists call “the Singularity,” the point at which technology progresses of its own accord faster than humans will be able to adapt to it.

ISA’s annual Sign Expo will open in Las Vegas this April at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. An additional day of education will precede the show on the 19th, with the exhibitor floor opening the 20th through 22nd.

All seats are filled for SGIA’s upcoming Color Management Boot Camp (March 7–9, 2017). The two-day workshop focuses on color management for wide-format inkjet printing and will be led by a team of color experts: Travis Barcelona, Inkjet Team Leader, Nazdar; Dan Gillespie, Director of Technical Services, Color Management Group; Tony Quinn, Chief Technology Officer, National Sublimation; Jim Raffel, CEO, ColorMetrix Technologies, LLC; and Ray Weiss, Digital Imaging Specialist, SGIA.

Nazdar SourceOne is excited to announce they have been recognized as 2016 Dealer of the Year by EFI. For this, and their dedication to sharing EFI’s portfolio of products with their customers, Nazdar SourceOne was presented the EFI 2016 Award for Sales and Excellence at the recent EFI Connect Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. In addition, 2016 marked 12 years of partnership for the two organizations. 

Make your wraps and fleet graphics last up to 8 years with this high-durability combination from Nazdar Ink Technologies and Mactac. Combining Mactac's IMAGin® B-Free Gruv® wrap film with Nazdar's 3500 and 3539 Premium Overprint Clear will give your next wrap long lasting durabilty - raising the bar over competitors' wraps.

Print shops everywhere are looking to expand their specialty application offerings, so we rounded up seven examples of unique floor graphics, fine art prints, magnetic media applications, and specialty windows. Then, we asked all of our contributors the same question: What would you say to someone who has never produced this specialty application before?