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Gary Pageau is principal of InfoCircle LLC, continuing his marketing communications career. InfoCircle LLC is a marketing and communications consulting firm, specializing in business-to-business markets. For nearly 25 years, he was with PMA International, serving most recently as Publisher, Content Development and Strategic Initiatives. His primary responsibilities included overseeing the Association’s editorial department, marketing research unit, education and corporate relations department.

Two weeks remain to register for the 2024 SPOA International Conference for School Photography & Yearbooks in Las Vegas Events 

Two weeks remain to register for the 2024 SPOA International Conference for School Photography & Yearbooks in Las Vegas

Registration for the School Photographers of America (SPOA) International Conference on School Photography & Yearbooks, July 8-12, 2024, at the M Resort, Las Vegas, NV, is open now through June 14. This conference and trade show brings together all segments of the school portrait and yearbook industries in the broadest education and networking opportunity in the volume photography industry. Click... Read More
Captions unveils AI Creator, an avatar tool for talking videos and social media New Products 

Captions unveils AI Creator, an avatar tool for talking videos and social media

Captions, an AI-powered creative studio downloaded with more than 10 million users, unveiled AI Creator, a three-dimensional avatar designed for producing talking videos on social media. AI Creator enables users to cast a hyper-realistic avatar as the subject of their video but also customize production elements such as camera angles, lighting, clothing, and background. Designed to enable anyone, anywhere to... Read More
Twelve Labs earns $50 Million Series A Investments 

Twelve Labs earns $50 Million Series A

Video analysis company Twelve Labs announced it raised $50 million in Series A funding to “fuel the ongoing development of its industry-leading foundation models dedicated to all aspects of video.” The round was co-led by new investor New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and NVentures, NVIDIA’s venture capital arm, which recently participated in Twelve Labs’ strategic round in 2023. Previous investors, including Index Ventures, Radical Ventures, WndrCo,... Read More
Advertek completes acquisition of CCI, expands operations and facilities Acquisitions News 

Advertek completes acquisition of CCI, expands operations and facilities

Advertek, one of Canada’s leading print innovators, announced the successful completion of its previously announced acquisition of Custom Colour Imaging (CCI), a Toronto-based photo lab and print-on-demand company. As part of the integration, Advertek’s current Print on Demand, Small and Large Format Printing, and Mailing divisions, formerly based in Brampton, ONT, will now operate out of the existing CCI facilities... Read More
The Photo Managers announce second European meetup Oct. 4 Events News 

The Photo Managers announce second European meetup Oct. 4

The Photo Managers announced the dates for its second European meetup in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The event will feature hands-on education, brainstorming, and networking. Register by Sept. 1. The US$30 cost includes the full-day meeting on Friday, including lunch. The event’s schedule is Thursday, Oct. 3 – Group Dinner – place and details TBD (optional) Friday, Oct. 4 – All... Read More
WaldoPro, Digital Pro Lab partner to deliver AI-powered workflow automation Partnerships 

WaldoPro, Digital Pro Lab partner to deliver AI-powered workflow automation

WaldoPro, a leader in AI-powered photo management and sales solutions, and Digital Pro Lab, a premier photo printing and digital services company, announced a partnership integrating WaldoPro’s AI-powered photo delivery and sales platform with Digital Pro Lab’s high-quality printing services. Through this partnership, Digital Pro Lab customers will benefit from WaldoPro’s advanced AI technology, which leverages facial and numbered jersey... Read More
IMG.LY introduces plugin system for CE.SDK News Updates 

IMG.LY introduces plugin system for CE.SDK

IMG.LY, introduce a brand-new Plugin system for CE.SDK to make feature development much easier, adding one-click features like background removal or vectorizers, smart design tools like QR codes or subtitle generators, and deeply interactive features like generative AI for text and images. The plugins offer three concepts: Customizable Menu Bars The company extended API so it allows easy hooking into... Read More
Fujifilm revamps U.K. House of Photography Events News 

Fujifilm revamps U.K. House of Photography

Fujifilm U.K. held a grand reopening of its House of Photography in London on May 31, 2024, also launching the ’Life As You See It’ photo contest with a FUJIFILM X100VI Limited Edition digital camera as the grand prize. The reopened retail space features  an extended gallery, print workshop, updated studio, bookshop and INSTAX Creator Cube. The company said planned... Read More
Sony Electronics announces firmware roadmap for BURANO Digital Cinema Camera Updates 

Sony Electronics announces firmware roadmap for BURANO Digital Cinema Camera

Sony Electronics Inc. announced the next two firmware updates for the BURANO, the newest addition to the CineAlta family of digital cinema cameras. The firmware updates, BURANO Version 1.1 and Version 2.0, are planned to be released over the next year and will include additional recording formats, new de-squeeze options, and monitoring updates as well as other features and requests... Read More
50th anniversary IPC luncheon honors Kirklands, Von Wong and many more Events News 

50th anniversary IPC luncheon honors Kirklands, Von Wong and many more

The International Photographic Council (IPC) held its 50th anniversary luncheon May 15 at the United Nations building in New York City. The revived organization, which was dormant for the COVID-19 pandemic, returned with a program showcasing the finest photography. As always, the IPC held to its “Peace Through Photography, The Universal Language” mission. The event was opened by Melissa Fleming, Under-Secretary-General for... Read More
IDC: Worldwide smartphone shipments forecast to recover with 4.0% growth in 2024 Market research News 

IDC: Worldwide smartphone shipments forecast to recover with 4.0% growth in 2024

Worldwide smartphone shipments are forecast to grow 4.0% year over year in 2024 to 1.21 billion units, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. The growth in 2024 adds momentum to the overall recovery IDC expects throughout the forecast as consumer demand slowly rebounds from the dismal past few years. The recovery will continue in 2025... Read More
Smartphoto group acquires TopFanZ Acquisitions News 

Smartphoto group acquires TopFanZ

Belgian e-commerce company Smartphoto group NV announced the acquisition of TopFanZ, a European merchandiser for the sports and entertainment sector. TopFanZ, based in Halen, Belgium, offers total solutions in merchandising and brand activation for its customers and their fans, the company says. They offer full-service merchandising partnerships, including marketing support, product procurement, and e-commerce support. In the last financial year,... Read More
Sony announces update to Monitor & Control app Updates 

Sony announces update to Monitor & Control app

Sony Electronics announces the release of Monitor & Control (M&C) app version 2.0.0 for iOS and Android, an updated offering for Creators’ Cloud for individuals. The “Monitor & Control” mobile app for visual content creators supports many Cinema Line and Alpha cameras, and enables wireless monitoring, precise exposure adjustment, and intuitive focus control on smartphones and tablets, effectively transforming these... Read More
Retouch4Me debuts Adams UI, plus AI-based tools for video retouching New Products 

Retouch4Me debuts Adams UI, plus AI-based tools for video retouching

Retouch4me, a leading provider of AI-based photo and video editing solutions, unveils the free Retouch4me Adams, an interface for batch retouching with Retouch4me AI-based plugins. With Adams, professional photographers and retouchers can significantly reduce the time spent on large-volume retouching. “Retouch4me Adams bridges the rich history of photo editing with the limitless capabilities of AI,” said Oleg Sharonov, founder and... Read More
Photo Finale releases Print 50 9.9 Release Notes News Updates 

Photo Finale releases Print 50 9.9 Release Notes

Photo Finale recently updated the functionality of Print 50. Release Notes (9.9.0.3) – 05/29/2024 – The search functionality in Print 50 has been fixed when entering a search term other than an order number. Release Notes (9.9.0.1) – 05/13/2024 – Introduced a new “Active” filter option in Print 50, which displays all orders that haven’t been marked as... Read More