While the printing process today may not resemble the one invented by Gutenberg back in the 1400’s, there haven’t been any significant advancements with the printing press since the advent of desktop publishing in the ‘80s -- that is, until now.

Inkling has announced the launch of Inkling Habitat, billed as “a breakthrough software environment” which the company is touting as “the most significant advance in publishing technology” since desktop publishing. With an eye toward the iPad and the internet, Inkling Habitat promises to create without desktop software or the traditional constraints of the printed page.

“To reinvent the book, we had to reinvent the printing press,” explains Matt MacInnis, CEO of Inkling, who unveiled Habitat for the first time today in a keynote at the Tools of Change for Publishing conference in New York. “It’s not about replicating the printed page on a screen. It’s about making a first-class interactive experience on every device you target, and this is the first time publishers can do it reliably and at scale.”

Featuring standards-based content capable of including guided tours, 3-D exhibits, interactive quizzes and even HD video, Inkling Habitat allows professionals to publish and update with a single click, even between platforms. The integrated publishing environment is cloud-based, allowing for teams of authors, editors and production partners to collaborate on projects from anywhere in the world.

Inkling Habitat also features an object-oriented content structure; rather than have creativity stifled by the traditional page-based model, Habitat takes advantage of decades of computer science advances to offer the world’s first strictly semantic publishing platform. Infinite revision management saves every version of a project at all times, so rolling back to a previous version is as simple as it gets.

“When Inkling debuted its first textbooks two years ago, we set the bar for interactive content experiences on iPad,” said MacInnis. “Now we’re setting the bar for how interactive content is built, providing the entire industry with a means to scale interactive publishing into a viable business for the first time.”

While Inkling Habitat is available immediately to select publishing partners, the company is also offering an Early Adopter Program for organizations interested in giving it a spin, with broad availability of the service later this year.

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