Printing Industry News Digest July 30, 2010

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 16, the weekly summary of major news stories from the printing, packaging and communication sectors. Published every Friday, PIND incorporates links to the week’s key news stories: every piece of bold, maroon text below can be clicked on to take you to more detail on that particular topic, which will open in a new window.

Xeikon’s recently introduced 3500 digital colour label press has been a live topic on GenesisNews all of this week, and has attracted a lot of attention. The new wider format label press gained quite a lot of interest on its IPEX debut, but if you have yet to see it take a look at the video here.

We made mention last week of PrintWeek’s Power 100 chart. Full details were announced to an assembled crowd at Stationers Hall in London on Wednesday night, are now available on the printweek.com web site, and will be published today, June 30, in print in the latest edition of PrintWeek magazine.

Also in the world of print, we note that Wootton Bassett based print business H&W Print has switched to Fujifilm's Pro-V violet plates following its acquisition of a Screen PlateRite 2055Vi-S platesetter, purchased through UK reseller Apex Digital Graphics. These low chemistry plates are really taking off with printers who are keen to promote their green credentials.

This week’s creativity points go to Arjowiggins Creative Papers for its introduction of a free iPhone game app to promote its Curious Collection of papers. Aimed at designers, the game takes the player on a girl’s journey through different, colourful worlds into imagery by French fashion photographer Grégoire Alexandre, peeling back the scenery to access the application’s central menu. Brought to our attention by the good folk of Digital Printer magazine, this app has to be one of the best bits of iPhone based promotion in the print industry – unless you know different; mail us at PIND.editor@gmail.com with the details!

UK software developer Wave2 has been making waves this week with details of Version 5 of its Wave2 Publishing Platform making the news on printweek.com. Wave2 is best known for its ability to provide web based self-service ad solutions, which can provide copy for a newspaper and/or web site. More information here.

Newly announced to increase the e-reader market, and at a price that has to appeal: for what is rumoured to be just £109 you can get a wi-fi only Kindle, rising to £149 if you want 3G capability built in. That is going to further expand the market for this device, which fans claim to offer a significantly better screen appearance than trying to read books on a phone.

Did you Safari browser update yesterday? That will be version 5.0.1 then, which finally opens the door to the Safari extensions gallery; you will remember about that for sure – we told you back in edition 9 dated June 11. For all its market leadership in phone apps, Apple is now chasing from rear in terms of browser extensions, with the likes of Firefox and Chrome streets ahead. Be interesting to see how Apple gets on with this. Will the approach bring Safari back into the frame in the browser wars?
Google is helping you to get your favourite fancy font on the web! Google Font Directory has been back in the news this week, and those nice chaps over at Mashable have given you implement the system on your web site.

QR codes: never been a great fan. Sometimes they don’t seem to work, often they look big and ugly, and all too frequently one wonders how to best use the technology, even though you can see that it has some potential. Well here is one fine example from the good ol’ US of A, where the concern over the oil that those awful British Petroleum people went and spilt has forced people power into action. It’s a pretty creative use of QR codes for sure.

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Printing Industry News Digest July 23, 2010

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 15, the weekly summary of major news stories from the printing, packaging and communication sectors. Published every Friday, PIND incorporates links to the week’s key news stories: every piece of bold, maroon text below can be clicked on to take you to more detail on that particular topic, which will open in a new window.

PrintWeek would like your votes – but quickly – for its Power 100 chart. Voting closes today, July 23, so get clicking for your favourites (a suggested listing for you to select from is presented, or you can offer you own preferences). It’s a one-time electronic vote, so don’t even think about voting yourself to stardom! I look forward to the celebrations evening for this which is next Wednesday, and we will point you towards the winners next week!

As a follow up to last week’s piece about The Times going paid-for on the web, you might like to take a look at how The Guardian has viewed the outcome (I read this story, by the way, on The Guardian’s iPhone app, currently available for a one-off £2.39 payment). It suggests that The Times site has suffered a 90% drop in visitor numbers. It does also, however, indicate right at the end of the article that this was to be expected anyway. It also does some complex maths regarding what it suggests might be the current level of income. In my opinion, the jury is still out, and probably will be for some time. For any publisher of a paid-for web site, it has to be about achieving a consistent, regular income over time. As a very small personal stat, I would still say that there is too much news out there for free for this to be a success. A friend I had not seen for a while told me just last weekend, however, that he now has an iPad and has already subscribed to The Times, and thinks it’s just great. We will wait to see the verdict from the rest of the paying public.

Late Addition: What I should have included in the above, of course, was that July 23 was also the launch day in the UK for the BBC News app for both iPhone and iPad. It's a mighty fine piece of work for sure, and its free, but is this fair competition? Poor Mr Murdoch is trying to scratch a living out of this! Tell us at PIND.editor@gmail.com

In the world of print, the long running debate about pre-packs lumbers on, with the latest edition of PrintWeek offering over its Reader Reaction column to opinion on the BPIF’s decision to ban such organisations from the membership.

It was also interesting to read earlier this week of another 500 redundancies to be made at leading German press manufacturer Heidelberg, though the most interesting piece of the article detailed a new initiative for reducing the hours of those still employed. Is this the way forward for industrialised countries, or is this just a sneaky way to cut costs? Your thoughts welcomed to PIND.editor@gmail.com
Fancy a simple .co web address? Well, now they are available! Go have a read, then register your new name before it gets taken . . .

We have long been a fan of DropBox for a quick, cheap (free!) and easy way of shifting files around between your own computers, to getting files to friends and associates easily without the restrictions of e-mail attachments. Well, it would appear that we have found another even simpler solution with write.fm This allows you do load a file, add a note, or some text, and then just let folk know what you called it. Seems too simple? Maybe it is. It’s not even password protected at the moment, so maybe it is just too basic (ie, open to the viral brigade)? Go have a look at write.fm/russhxs1 (or type the address directly into your browser) for an example of a couple of files that I have left there for you!

One interesting piece of research that those nice folk at Marketing Week have offered us this week confirms that whilst online use in the UK is certainly on the increase, we haven’t really yet reached the critical mass needed to call ourselves Digital Britain.

And in the "Only in India" section, a $35 tablet PC has been announced, with the aim for product to appear some time next year. The price could even drop to $10 - now that really is the economies of scale working overtime! Just in from our Engadget friends: a little bit of video on this product, which sheds just a little more light on the project. The BBC raises the topic of a similarly cheap laptop project which seemed to evaporate . . . however, you have to hand it to the Indian government for the efforts that it is making it trying to push the internet into the hands of as many of its population as possible.

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Printing Industry News Digest July 16, 2010

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 14, the weekly summary of major news stories from the printing, packaging and communication sectors. Published every Friday, PIND incorporates links to the week’s key news stories: every piece of bold, maroon text below can be clicked on to take you to more detail on that particular topic, which will open in a new window.

Further to our recent news item regarding News International and the electronic version of The Times newspaper, the world of publishing is gradually getting its head around the benefits of the iPad with news now breaking regularly on new publications. Popular Mechanics from US publisher Hearst has announced its presence on the iPad, with the intention of releasing the electronic version at the same time as the printed version by the end of the year. A price has been set for the at app at $1.99, but no price per edition has been established as yet. To illustrate how keen publishers are to adopt the tablet form of computing, Indonesia’s largest daily, Kompas, has become the first newspaper in the region to release an iPad app.

Certainly it is easy to understand why publishers would want to migrate to a digital platform. Two of the three main costs for most publications can be reduced significantly: the cost of printing, and the cost of distribution. Only the third, the cost of content creation, remains. However, taking the cost of iBooks on the iPhone/iPad as one good example (and The Times newspaper application as a second): why aren’t those mathematical basics being reflected in the price of the electronic version? As a simple example, Jeremy Clarkson’s “Driven to Distraction” book costs £6.49 on the iPhone/iPad. A very quick internet search reveals that I can buy the printed version of the book for £5.59 in Waterstones, £4.39 at W H Smith, or £3.99 at Amazon for a new copy, or even £2.99 for a used version. Why does a digital file flying through the ether cost up to £3.50 more than a printed paper version of a real live book, that has had to undergo many long motorway journeys throughout its short existence, having started its life several decades ago when it was born as a tree?! Thoughts, comments and answers more than welcomed: PIND.editor@gmail.com

It should be recognised that, at this moment in time, publishers are only catering for a pretty small audience with their digital departures. It is however a quickly growing audience, and, as the above example illustrates, an audience that offers some serious profits for the publisher at the moment; but, at the same time, an audience that is sharp witted enough to see when its being reamed!

Still, it is also good to read news that indicates that traditional newspapers are still far from dead! Information came to us from the US newspaper publication News&Tech regarding the first European triple width KBA Commander CT press which has been snapped up by a German newspaper house for a mere $30 million.
Elsewhere, we were fascinated to see that RR Donnelley has been spending money developing its own ink-jet add-on for a web press. Certainly some equipment suppliers have been working along these lines, though only in monochrome to the best of our knowledge. It does, however, say something about the industry when the world’s largest printer is developing its own in-house solutions.

It was also interesting to read from the team at PrintWeek about alarm bells being sounded in the world of print finishing. With specialist trade finishers closing at an alarming rate concerns are being raised that printers simply won’t have anywhere to go when the good times return. Unfortunately no hint is given as to when the good times will return!

This week the Lifehacker team have given us a few extra thoughts on what you might be able to do with a “thumb drive” (as they call it), a USB stick, memory drive, or whatever name you want to give to those great little portable bits of technology! The link takes you to their top 10.
Getting the most from your Mac: squeezing hidden functionality out of the option key. I do like these added extra’s that you can get from a system. The guys at Lifehacker have pulled together a great selection of ideas for Mac operators to have a fiddle with!

And finally, a post that interested me on the most simple of tech issues: a straightforward and user friendly way of capturing plain text input. As mentioned not long ago in PIND, we were most pleased to connect up an Apple Bluetooth keyboard with our recently acquired iPhone 4, meaning that we could key on the go. This software recommendation actually does help to complete the picture. The Simplenote application, coupled with the ResophNotes on the PC, means that you have your notes on your desktop just as soon as you have keyed them remotely on your iPhone or iPad.

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Printing Industry News Digest July 9, 2010

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 13, the weekly summary of major news stories from the printing, packaging and communication sectors. Published every Friday, PIND incorporates links to the week’s key news stories: every piece of bold, maroon text below can be clicked on to take you to more detail on that particular topic, which will open in a new window.

Big corporate losses have been the flavour of the week almost gone, with Polstar stealing the “crown”, if that’s the right expression, with a £38 million pre-tax loss for its 2009 accounts. This is a company where the “gross profit” sits at £29.1 million (down a third, according to PrintWeek), and it is suggested that the CEO is paid in excess of £900,000 for the year, including bonuses! This week’s information request involves you e-mailing PIND.editor@gmail.com with some good reasons as to why the CEO of any company should be paid bonuses for losing £38 million. Some of the comment attached to this story on printweek.com makes for interesting reading.

In silver medal position this week, but an excellent effort, goes to the Evening Standard, where the loss was only £28.3 million for its first year of trading under the Russian media mogul’s banner. This is less staggering I guess in so far as it does include restructuring costs, including redundancies and the move to a free-sheet model, and also the acquisition itself, costing a suggested £6.7 million.
In what has to be seen as a positive move, BPIF members have voted to exclude pre-packs from membership of the federation. Companies have already been turned away as a result of this decision.

Going back to previous topics, we talked about browsers last week, and suggested that both Chrome and Opera were taking ground from the original breakthrough company Mozilla and its Firefox product. Well, Firefox is fighting back this week with a Beta release of its Firefox 4 browser. However, it might be argued that with tabs on the top row of the browser layout and the traditional menu bar disappearing behind one coloured button, that Opera 10.6 has been more than a slight influence on the new look product! Further tips on how to fiddle with the toolbar are offered from our friends at Lifehacker.

One other Firefox mention: a new extension, Poyozo, offers one simple streamlined way to collecting together all of your various inbox’s in your virtual life. Might be worth a look. Although both Chrome and Safari have jumped onto the extensions train, neither has anything remotely close to the variety and sheer number of optional extra’s that Firefox can offer.

The week before we looked closely at the new Apple iPhone 4. Now as introductions go it’s had a bit of a rocky ride with the signal loss issue especially! Here at PIND we have gone for a Gear4 cover – a two piece full surround, which actually works out less expensive than the much promoted Apple Bumper, costing £25, which is now in short supply! The Gear 4 cover, as illustrated, makes it easier to get the phone in and out in order to mount it into a car cradle.

For those who have become seriously disenchanted with Mr Jobs and company it might be worth having a look at this “jumping ship” feature, detailing what a move from iPhone to Android would entail features-wise.

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Printing Industry News Digest July 2, 2010

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 12, the weekly summary of major news stories from the printing, packaging and communication sectors. Published every Friday (except for last week!), PIND incorporates links to the week’s key news stories: every piece of bold, maroon text below can be clicked on to take you to more detail on that particular topic, which will open in a new window.

The Times they are a Changing: The Times newspaper has begun charging readers to access its online content. From this day forward access to the Times and Sunday Times website will cost £1 per day, or £2 a week if readers sign up to a subscription. Is this going to change the world of newspapers? You do actually still get a good front page at The Times web site, but if you click to get more detail on anything you are asked for ££££. Will readers just go elsewhere for their online news? Why not mail PIND.editor@gmail.com your thoughts on the subject.

The hot print supplies news from yesterday was Ultrachem purchasing the RW Coatings business, which has been expanding at a rapid rate of some 25% per year in turnover and sales for the last two years; a growth that has to be seen as impressive when you consider what the economy was doing during that time.

Ever wanted to create a newspaper out of your Twitter account? Possibly not the first thought that comes to mind, but now it is possible, and produces some interesting results! Check out TechCrunch, who will tell you all about the product, or go direct to paper.li to create.
On the subject of newspapers, Wired has published an interesting take on the history and future of the British tabloid.

Two different tests on internet browsers came to the conclusion that both Chrome and Opera provided a better overall performance than the rest this week. Both are worth a look, as they examine the issue from different angles, but both Legit Reviews and Lifehacker reach similar conclusions. Both browsers have impressed here at PIND too, though the normal legacy issues still have to be overcome, and we still use mostly Firefox!

One story already featured here on the front page of GenesisNews covers the installation of Wave2 at Mladá fronta, the Czech Republic based publisher. The company launched a new regionalised newspaper last year – a brave decision in its own right – and has been able to further capitalise on the success that it has had with the publication by moving to “self-service” ads with the help of Wave2’s UK created software package.

Also recently covered on GenesisNews, multi-award winning Oxuniprint featured in printweek.com’s e-mail and web site news this week as it unveiled its latest Mitsubishi press investment. The previously owned machine was procured through DPM, the used equipment specialist, and the install makes Oxuniprint’s presses and all B2 Mitsubishi attack. The reliability of the product was a major factor in the decision. New Mitsubishi presses are now distributed in the UK by M Partners.

Perhaps the biggest news on the general communication front this week has been the demise of Microsoft’s Kin phone product. Full details can be found here. Of the smartphones that are still alive and selling, Bill Shrink offers a good comparison of the features that you get on iPhone 4, Droid Incredible, Evo4, and Nexus 1.

In a brief return to our key topic of last week, Apple is claiming some sort of record for shifting 1.7 million iPhone 4’s in three days, and you have to say that is a pretty impressive sales total. As a late breaking additional piece of news, Apple now informs us that the signal loss that was making the headlines during the course of last week is in fact down to a software issue! Mmm, you don't sound too convinced?

One thing that really attracted me from the initial summary of the iPhone 4 features was the ability (at last!) to be able to connect a Bluetooth keyboard for easy text entry. Now it does seem, unless you jailbreak the phone, that you are limited to the Apple Wireless keyboard, which is not the most portable of products (ie, not fold-down pocket-sized), but then maybe I ask for too much! It does, however, work very well, allowing the simple typing of text into many applications, including e-mails, notes, calendar entries, to do lists, Google searches, etc. Many of the top row of function keys also work with the phone, including brightness, volume, and iPod play/pause, track forward and back buttons. OK, it's not cheap (£56), but like most Apple products it does the job extremely well!

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