Printing Industry News Digest No.58, June 25, 2011

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 58, the summary of major news stories from the printing, packaging, digital and communication sectors. Welcome to the latest edition of PIND incorporating brief summaries and links to the week's key news stories so that you can look up that all important detail. Do also take a look at our automated GenesisNews Print Daily publication; why not take out a free subscription for a daily delivery!

QR codes are back in the headlines this week – not least because in the Netherlands (and across Euro-land therefore!) you will soon find a QR code on the back of the five Euro coin! It’s readable in the illustration, but I do just wonder how good it will be on the actual coin? We will, of course, let you know just as soon as we can! When officially released the site that the code links to will also change to be something a bit more meaningful (so we are led to believe, at least!).

Tesco in South Korea and QR codes: sound like an unlikely mix? Take a look at this thought provoking video. You will see QR codes in a completely different light afterwards. The Tesco on-line grocery shopping business has risen to number one in South Korea through the innovative use of QR technology. What might it do for your business?

Regular readers already know that they need a QR reader in their smartphone in order to decipher QR codes. We have talked before about my own personal favourite, i-nigma for the iPhone, but we do appreciate that there are certainly more Android phone users out there in the real world, so here are Mashable’s selection of seven free QR code readers for Android phones.

If you are new to PIND, we should really recap on why we think that QR codes are important to communications, and especially important to the future of printed media. This link from StickerScan actually sums up most of our thoughts on QR codes pretty well: have a read. It might just change your business! Printed information needs to carry QR codes because they provide a beautifully simple way of connecting static print to live, exciting and up-to-the-minute web pages. Another page offering five ways that small businesses can use QR codes is provided by ReadWrite biz, whilst a further four ways to integrate QR into your marketing programme are offered here.

Our own favourite example of the QR code in action is, of course, the Genesis Marketing business card. We have a QR code printed on the reverse of the card – just like the one to the left of this text. That simple code links to our GenesisNews blog site, and specifically to the “Further Information on Genesis Marketing” page. Scan the code that is shown here to see what happens. The landing page that it delivers includes connections to our LinkedIn page, our Twitter page, our Daily “newspaper”, and even our customers own home pages. It helps to tell a real great story about our business. Are your business cards doing something similar for you and your business?

There are, of course, as many ways not to use QR codes and there are positive steps that you can take. This blog piece stabs at a few; there are plenty of others don’t worry!

One feature that we should have incorporated in last week’s edition came to our attention only early in this week. We apologise for missing it first time round! Certainly America’s leading writer on the subject of print, Frank Romano, has been busy sketching his thoughts out on how the industry will look in 2020. This short summary of an original article is a great read. Are you a printer? You should read it!

Back in the world of print as it currently exists newspapers and their production staff are taking another hit at Trinity Mirror, as further confirmation is published regarding Guardian News and Media’s troubles.

Finally, do keep checking back to see what will be featured in our next edition, PIND 59. Details of our next edition will be added to this link during the course of the week. For an RSS feed of PIND, copy this link into your feed reader; and for the GenesisNews Print Daily, take a look at the link and take out a free subscription!

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Want to read issue 57? Click Here!

Printing Industry News Digest No.57, June 18, 2011

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 57, the summary of major news stories from the printing, packaging, digital and communication sectors. Welcome to the latest edition of PIND incorporating brief summaries and links to the week's key news stories so that you can look up that all important detail. Do also take a look at our automated GenesisNews Print Daily publication; why not take out a free subscription for a daily delivery!

The Google Chromebook has landed as of Wednesday of this week. Who should worry? Who should get excited? The Guardian does an excellent job of defining the corporate market that the Chromebook thin client is squarely targeted at and outlining what it is about the product that will already be worrying the big-wigs at Microsoft, and possibly the providers of anti-virus software too.

The team at Mashable then take a close look at some of the hardware that is required for Chromebook to be a winner, making a detailed examination of the Samsung Chromebook Series 5 3G.

For a more detailed look at the thinking behind Google Chromebook, we return to The Guardian to advise why we might need hassle free computing. Maybe it can also answer the question of whether we are talking about a product that competes with the tablet or the PC or both!

OK, this is bound to be a bit biased, but it never hurts when seeking a full rounded debate on a new product or concept to let the originator have a word. Here is the Chromebook world according to Google.

Most current PC users won’t consider buying Chromebook, or so says some back-of-a-cigarette-pack research from US-based Betanews; are they right to think that way? Most PC users don’t actually back-up their work, and most don’t want to have to run their own computer department, but they do! Chromebook could eliminate both of those problems to start with . . .

Convinced that this could be a good step? PC World asks which Chromebook is right for you, comparing the hardware platforms.

June 17, Friday night, 21:00 UK time: an hour’s worth of the delightful and clever Lady Gaga on the ITV channel. Nothing for PIND to report on here you might think, apart from advert break number 1 which went immediately into this Google Chrome / Chromebooks advert featuring the said Lady and her fans in action. Great ad placement and a great ad really. Like her or not, you surely have to admit that she is one smart mother monster! On the subject of video, and to close this Chromebooks sub-feature, take a look at Google’s specific short film on the benefits of this new venture.

Meanwhile, back in newspaper world, The Guardian, much quoted above, is now suggesting via Press Gazette that staff are to prioritise digital over print. The numbers currently tell a different story, with Press Gazette telling us that just £40 million digital contribution is included in a total turnover of £221 million. Sharp declines in paper sales, however, do point to digital being critical. My iPhone Guardian app, which cost something like £2.60 for a lifetime’s news, and still only costs £3.99 for a one year subscription, would seem to be unlikely to make too much cash compared to the £1 per day cost of the paper version.

Something of a saviour for printers in this week’s news is a story from PrintWeek detailing an opportunity for printers to get involved in printing electronics. Go take a look; this could be one of your best bets for the future!

Finally, do keep checking back to see what will be featured in our next edition, PIND 58. Details of our next edition will be added to this link during the course of the week. For an RSS feed of PIND, copy this link into your feed reader; and for the GenesisNews Print Daily, take a look at the link and take out a free subscription!

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Want to read issue 56? Click Here!

Printing Industry News Digest No.56, June 11, 2011

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 56, the summary of major news stories from the printing, packaging, digital and communication sectors. Welcome to the latest edition of PIND incorporating brief summaries and links to the week's key news stories so that you can look up that all important detail. Do also take a look at our automated GenesisNews Print Daily publication; why not take out a free subscription for a daily delivery!

Lists of smartphone apps are not unusual, but those appearing now do appear to have a few consistent entries; some apps that appear to appeal to just about everybody. We thought that it was high time that PIND jumped on this bandwagon and put a few thoughts down for readers about iPhone apps that are either essential for all, or something that we find particularly useful . . .

All for One and One for All
Perhaps heading the list for iPhone users is one that seems to appear on most lists: Dropbox. Why? It's a simple way of creating a storage space (2Gb free for starters!) for the iPhone, and of sharing documents between your phone and your desktop device, whether that's a PC or Mac.

Another that comes high on the list of "super syncing" is Evernote. Generally promoted as a note-taking solution, this has a variety of software downloads for all platforms. Syncing your shopping list has never been easier!

The Calendar app is a standard item on iPhone, of course, but it took me some little time to work out that I could sync it with my Google calendar (not Outlook - that is pretty straightforward, but we are not Outlook fans at all!). Google apps in general are an essential for many people, including Google Tasks, Blogger, Notebook, etc.

One further standard item is the Safari browser, but for those that get busy with their browsing or just prefer the tabbed approach with full screen working (and are not too keen to wait until iOS5 becomes common currency), we recommend taking a look at Atomic Web.

Another piece of current software that will be replaced within iOS5 is Instapaper. If you haven't already got this package loaded [it used to be free of charge], it will now cost you real money, so you might want to wait until iOS5 does come along - it will be a standard feature in that version of the software. What does Instapaper do? It allows you to store web site pages as plain words and spaces for future reading. So far so good, but it also does that by actually keeping this info on board, meaning that you can still read the saved texts when you are out of wi-fi or 3G range (travelling on the tube for example).

Still just about in the "general" section, we would offer a couple of our favourite news sites. OK, everybody has their own preferences; these are just good all-rounders. Both of our suggestions are small and neat at first view, but easily expanded on if you want more detail, or have time for an extended read. Suggestions number 1: BBC News. Suggestion number 2: The Guardian. BBC gives you a good news overview with the opportunity to drill down to the BBC web site story, or you can simply click to go to a live News 24 television feed. The Guardian will now cost you £3.99 for a year, but that is still good value when you consider the physical newspaper cover price of £1 per copy.

For those that Write
Those apps that we specifically use for writing based tasks are headed by our favourite: Simplenote. Most of this version of PIND was written in Simplenote on the iPhone 4 with a Bluetooth keyboard in our local branch of Costa. Sometimes its good to write something away from the noise of the office! Simplenote interfaces with ResophNotes on the PC, so that our coffee shop scribbles are transferred immediately back to our desktop machine. Text can then be simply copied and pasted into Word or straight into WordPress.

We could, alternatively, be seeking to update an existing document. Our office kit is backed up in a cloud environment via SugarSync. Installing the SugarSync app on the iPhone means that we can access any file that we have backed-up. By bringing that Word or Excel file into the iPhone app Office² we can effectively adjust, correct or update the file we have stored. To transfer it back to the PC at the office, save the new file to Dropbox or the equally handy browser based Box.Net. This will allow fast updating of the file on the PC, which will then be backed up to SugarSync again from the desktop machine, completing the cycle.

Other on the move favourites? Mashable for tech news; Currency for instant ££ to $$ conversions; iBooks for reading our favourite novels on the train; GoodReader, probably the best PDF reader; and of course GenesisNews, not really an "app" as such, but a bookmark stored on the iPhone home-screen.

You undoubtedly have your own specific favourites - why not mail us at PINDeditor@gmail.com and we will run some details in a future edition.

Finally, do keep checking back to see what will be featured in our next edition, PIND 57. Details of our next edition will be added to this link during the course of the week. For an RSS feed of PIND, copy this link into your feed reader; and for the GenesisNews Print Daily, take a look at the link and take out a free subscription!

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Want to read issue 55? Click Here!

Printing Industry News Digest June 4, 2011

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 55, the summary of this week's major news stories from the printing, packaging, digital and communication sectors. This latest edition of PIND incorporates brief summaries and links to the key news stories so that you can look up that all important detail. Do also take a look at our automated GenesisNews Print Daily publication for more regular updates; you can take out a free subscription for daily delivery to your desktop.

We stick our techie hat on firmly this week as we take a look at what Computex had to say for itself. Why? Tablets are king right now, and possibly for ever more, and this show was bound to see a whole load of new introductions in that market sector. Some 50 of the latest slates turned up for the show. Publishers, printers and techies should all know the score.

As per last week’s rumours, ASUS announced the Padfone – an integrated smartphone and tablet. An interesting idea that seemed to have some fans, namely TransPhone who claimed to have produced their variant before ASUS. To complete a hat-trick of phone burying tablet cases, Taiwan-based ICE Computer are working on the same idea too, claiming to have been working on the project for some time. All three had one thing in common: no real working prototype, just mock-ups. We look forward to seeing something more concrete one day!

For Viewsonic though it was about how many operating systems they could cram into one tablet device. The ViewPad 10Pro offers both Windows 7 Pro and Android 2.2 in a supposed dual-boot situation with 32Gb of on board storage. The 4.5 hours of battery life is not staggering however.

Shuttle were keen to show their trio of Android-based tablets: a 10 inch, 9 inch, and an 8 inch “ruggedized” for the education sector. Meanwhile Gigabyte offered up a Windows 7 tablet with USB 3.0 and an optical drive dock.

Toshiba have made their entry into the US tablet market with the Thrive, something that would appear to be very well speced and very competitively priced. A 10.1 inch product running Android 3.1, with two camera’s, USB and HDMI ports, an SD slot, Bluetooth, and wi-fi, shipping mid-July, priced from just $429. We reckon that equates to less than £265 at current exchange rates, which would have to be a pretty good buy. If those prices stay it could be v.popular!

On the subject of bargain buys, MSI showed off some inexpensive tablets, including a 10 inch product for just $299 (£182). No Android Market right now though.

Although not new-new the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer has been getting a few real life UK reviews recently, and it does sound as if this is going to become something of a true iPad competitor, once the latest Android software is smoothed out.

ASUS were also in the frame at Computex with something in the ultramobile sector – the UX21 went down well. The LG P220 also stirred interest in this category; and  Compal too added something good in this sector. Tough competition in a shrinking market?

No surprises to hear plenty of 3D talk at Computex. LG showcased an all-in-one PC with both 3D and multi-touch capabilities in the monitor.

One final Computex offering: Windows 8 was previewed. Take a look at how the world's most populous OS is transforming to adapt to tablet formats.

Away from the wonders of Computex, publisher Bloomsbury says that its sales of e-books has soared. Pre-tax profits for 14 months to the end of February hit £4.2 million, with e-book sales taking a sizeable £1.5 million of that, up from just £79,000 the previous year. That’s one heck of a jump! We also saw details of a start-up publisher giving readers the control over what should be printed: what a radical idea!

The number of publications that have now jumped on board the iPad Subscription train continues to increase, but the idea of shared demographic info is still causing many to shy away. The Daily, the Murdoch funded e-mewspaper for the iPad, is currently losing some $10 million a month. Ouch!

Any readers of The Daily reading PIND? It is only you guys over in the US of course – we can’t buy it over this side of the pond even if we wanted too. If you do read it, tell us all: PINDeditor@gmail.com 

One more link for QR code fans: this Ohio newspaper has really got the hang of using the QR concept, adding a code to main stories and features so that smartphone users can get an update throughout they day. We feel sure that all newspapers need to adopt something like this in order to compete with TV and web based news sites. No reason why the QR code couldn't link to a video of the story to marry all media together.


Finally, do keep checking back to see what will be featured in our next edition, PIND 56. Details of our next edition will be added to this link during the course of the week. For an RSS feed of PIND, copy this link into your feed reader; and for the GenesisNews Print Daily, take a look at the link and take out a free subscription!

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Want to read issue 54? Click Here!