History
The company Swecoin AB was founded in 1983, as a successor to the mechanical cash-register company Sweda. Originally the focus was to sell spare parts and similar for these machines.
The company then branched into importing and distributing Point of Sales printers from manufacturers such as Data Techno.
In the very early 1990s the company started developing its own products, kiosk and ticket printers. Shortly after this a US distribution company, Swecoin US Inc, was founded in Rhode Island.
The company grew organically and through acquisitions during the 1990s. Acquisitions included the component distribution company Promakon, the injection moulding company Nya Ovansjö Plast och Verktyg and the Pay and Display Parking machine manufacturer AB Cale Industi.
In 1997 the Swecoin Group was acquired by Metric Gruppen, owned by Rune Andersson.
In late 1999, some of the original owners bought back the core Swecoin printer business from Metric. The business grew significantly from this point with several new product lines being introduced, for example the TTP 2000 series.
In October 2006 Swecoin was acquired by the Zebra Technologies Corporation, and by the end of 2009 it was fully integrated into Zebra Technologies.
In computing, a printer is a peripheral machine which makes a persistent representation of graphics or text, usually on paper. While most output is human-readable, bar code printers are an example of an expanded use for printers. Different types of printers include 3D printers, inkjet printers, laser printers, and thermal printers.
Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a negatively charged cylinder called a "drum" to define a differentially charged image. The drum then selectively collects electrically charged powdered ink (toner), and transfers the image to paper, which is then heated to permanently fuse the text, imagery, or both, to the paper. As with digital photocopiers, laser printers employ a xerographic printing process. Laser printing differs from traditional xerography as implemented in analog photocopiers in that in the latter, the image is formed by reflecting light off an existing document onto the exposed drum.
Inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that recreates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper and plastic substrates. Inkjet printers were the most commonly used type of printer in 2008, and range from small inexpensive consumer models to expensive professional machines. By 2019, laser printers outsold inkjet printers by nearly a 2:1 ratio, 9.6% vs 5.1% of all computer peripherals.
The Eastman Kodak Company is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorporated in New Jersey. It is best known for photographic film products, which it brought to a mass market for the first time.
A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or one-dimensional (1D), can be scanned by special optical scanners, called barcode readers, of which there are several types. Later, two-dimensional (2D) variants were developed, using rectangles, dots, hexagons and other patterns, called matrix codes or 2D barcodes, although they do not use bars as such. 2D barcodes can be read using purpose-built 2D optical scanners, which exist in a few different forms. 2D barcodes can also be read by a digital camera connected to a microcomputer running software that takes a photographic image of the barcode and analyzes the image to deconstruct and decode the 2D barcode. A mobile device with a built-in camera, such as smartphone, can function as the latter type of 2D barcode reader using specialized application software.
Canon Inc. is a Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, specializing in optical, imaging, and industrial products, such as lenses, cameras, medical equipment, scanners, printers, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
Assa Abloy AB is a Swedish conglomerate whose offerings include products and services related to locks, doors, gates, and entrance automation. Related products and services include controlling access and confirming identities with keys, cards, tags, mobile, and bio-metric identity verification systems.
A tape measure or measuring tape is a flexible ruler used to measure length or distance.
Lexmark International, Inc. is a privately held American company that manufactures laser printers and imaging products. The company is headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky. Since 2016 it has been jointly owned by a consortium of three multinational companies: Apex Technology, PAG Asia Capital, and Legend Capital.
A dot matrix printer is an impact printer that prints using a fixed number of pins or wires. Typically the pins or wires are arranged in one or several vertical columns. The pins strike an ink-coated ribbon and force contact between the ribbon and the paper, so that each pin makes a small dot on the paper. The combination of these dots forms a dot matrix image. They were also known as serial dot matrix printers.
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Zebra Technologies Corporation is an American mobile computing company specializing in technology used to sense, analyze, and act in real time. The company manufactures and sells marking, tracking, and computer printing technologies. Its products include mobile computers and tablets, software, thermal barcode label and receipt printers, RFID smart label printers/encoders/fixed & handheld readers/antennas, autonomous mobile robots (AMR’s) & machine vision (MV), and fixed industrial scanning hardware & software.
3D Systems, headquartered in Rock Hill, South Carolina, is a company that engineers, manufactures, and sells 3D printers, 3D printing materials, 3D scanners, and offers a 3D printing service. The company creates product concept models, precision and functional prototypes, master patterns for tooling, as well as production parts for direct digital manufacturing. It uses proprietary processes to fabricate physical objects using input from computer-aided design and manufacturing software, or 3D scanning and 3D sculpting devices.
Avantix Mobile ("AVB") is a portable railway ticket issuing system used across the British railway network from 2001 to 2017.
Global Graphics PLC is known for its digital printing and document technology including the Harlequin and Jaws RIPs and the gDoc digital document software. The Company supplies its software under license to Original Equipment Manufacturers and software vendors who build products around it. Today it is primarily used in the Digital Front Ends of new generation digital and inkjet production presses and in desktop and mobile productivity software products. The Company has a large share of the photobook and newspaper markets. It is listed on the Euronext stock exchange in Brussels under the symbol GLOG.
Checkpoint Systems is an American company that specializes in loss prevention and merchandise visibility for retail companies. It makes products that allow retailers to check inventory, quicken the replenishment cycle, prevent out-of-stocks and reduce theft. Checkpoint offers Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) radio frequency solutions for retail, high-theft and loss-prevention solutions, RFID hardware, software, and labeling capabilities.
Bourns, Inc. is an American electronics company that develops, manufactures and supplies electronic components for a variety of industries including automotive, industrial, instrumentation, medical electronics, consumer equipment and portable electronics.
Cleaning cards are disposable products designed to clean the interior contact points of a device that facilitates an electronic information transaction. In order for the cleaning card to work properly in the device, the card resembles or mimics the material of the transaction media – such as a credit card, check, or currency. As the cleaning card is inserted and passed through the device, it will clean components that would normally come in contact with the transaction media such as readers, lenses, read/write chip and pins, belts, rollers, and paths. Cleaning card products are widely accepted and endorsed by device manufacturers and industry professionals. Many have developed their own cleaning cards to better clean their particular devices.
Electronics for Imaging, Inc. (EFI) is an international company based in Silicon Valley that specializes in digital printing technology. Formerly located in Foster City, California, the company is now based in Fremont. On July 1, 2015, EFI entered the textile printing marketing with the acquisition of Italian digital textile company Reggiani Macchine. On June 16, 2016, EFI acquired Optitex, a 3D digital workflow provider.
A Machine Identification Code (MIC), also known as printer steganography, yellow dots, tracking dots or secret dots, is a digital watermark which certain color laser printers and copiers leave on every printed page, allowing identification of the device which was used to print a document and giving clues to the originator. Developed by Xerox and Canon in the mid-1980s, its existence became public only in 2004. In 2018, scientists developed privacy software to anonymize prints in order to support whistleblowers publishing their work.
