Printing Industry News Digest No.67, August 27, 2011

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 67, providing a summary of major news items from the printing, packaging, digital and communications technology sectors. PIND incorporates brief summaries and links to the week's key news stories so that you can look up that all important detail, digging deeper behind the headline. Do also take a look at our automated Twitter-based GenesisNews Print Daily publication; why not take out a free subscription for a daily digital delivery!

Johnston Press, the regional newspaper publisher, has been finding life hard this year, with pre-tax profits down nearly 50% in the six months to July. Some 179 jobs have also been axed during this period.

Elsewhere in newspaper land, the Wall Street Journal has been working hard on giving potential readers good reasons to sign up to its paywalled products. Hats off for effort for sure. MediaWeek gives us the low-down on how newspapers are monetising tablets.

Further to our articles last week on e-books, and the battles faced by the printed product, the Guardian provides further focus. In this latest comment it looks more at a more central problem: the battle for the authors. If writers cannot make money, then both forms of the book are surely dead. One report says that Western Europe is turning swiftly towards the e-book.

The tablet world has certainly been rocked by the demise of the HP TouchPad, but will Amazon be any more successful? Wired took a close look at the issues this week, and it is a very worthwhile read - if you are interested in tablets do take the time to go through this text.

In the meantime, Apple is still making things tough for the guys at Samsung, with further court action now looking likely to prevent the South Korean giant from participating in the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin.

As one tablet dies, another comes along to take its place. The Lenovo ThinkPad is about to see the light of day according to those Mashable chaps. If the $499 price tag translates directly to sterling we could be looking at a £300 quality tablet. You might say that this is only for a 16Gb and wi-fi model, but actually that is more than enough for an awful lot of potential users. The product is based around a 10.1 inch screen and Android Honeycomb OS.

The latest on QR codes offers some very artistic interpretations of code images – scroll down this entry from Web Designer Depot to see some great designs. A further set of excellent examples are shown here. I dare you not to be inspired!

If you live in England and tune in even occasionally to the BBC’s news service you are unlikely to have missed an item detailing how the BBC did something quite useful this week, releasing the results of a survey detailing 3G coverage across the country. No surprises in the results, however! Patchy in the cities and pretty hopeless in the countryside. Surprise, surprise!!

Finally, do keep checking back to see what will be featured in our next edition, PIND 68. We aim to add details of our next edition this link during the course of the week. For an RSS feed of PIND, copy this link into your feed reader; and click here for the GenesisNews Print Daily – you can even take out a free subscription for this daily news update on print, publishing, packaging and associated technology!

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Printing Industry News Digest No.66, August 20, 2011

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 66, providing a summary of major news items from the printing, packaging, digital and communications technology sectors. PIND incorporates brief summaries and links to the week's key news stories so that you can look up that all important detail, digging deeper behind the headline. Do also take a look at our automated Twitter-based GenesisNews Print Daily publication; why not take out a free subscription for a daily digital delivery!

Where else can we start but with “A” Level week – OK a bit off subject you might think, but it’s been a pretty hot topic in my house this week! Pleased to report to anyone even slightly interested that A, A, B was the outcome, and Dear Darling Daughter is heading off to the uni of her choice. She should be suitably equipped with the right bits of tech to see her through, but for those not quite sure what’s needed, our friends at Mashable come up with an infographic on how students use technology, along with a link to the best apps for students.

In addition to that, we want to catch up on some of the stories that we have touched on recently – several of which have moved forward significantly. For starters, the HP TouchPad and its WebOS look fated already. Having only just gone on sale for a mighty $700 / £425, PC World is today advertising the HP device at just $99 or £60. It also highlights five features that shouldn’t die with the machine.

In the world of e-books, we looked at a feature from the Telegraph in PIND No.64. This week the Guardian weighed in with its own thoughts on the subject. A couple of other interesting web sites were brought to our attention flagging up the wonders of moving pictures. Quite sure that there is nothing new here, but it does just remind us where the wonders of digital images can go, and what that could mean for the digital book.

Newspapers, in a general sense, we reference often, and we were certainly keen to include the launch of the Independent’s “i” shrunk down essentials newspaper. This week we find out that “i” has overtaken its big brother in sales. How does that work with the income? With “i” retailing at 20p and big brother selling for £1, we have to ask: “Has someone got the sums wrong?” Tell us more at PIND.editor@gmail.com

On the subject of newspapers, we are advised this week that the New York Times paywall is working; a story that we have visited a number of times, so this latest update from Wired is welcomed. Call us sceptical if you will, but we wonder exactly how much substance there is in this! Your comments and thoughts welcomed.

Our good old friend the QR code is in the news this week regarding how easily they can be used for evil, with scammers already seeing the potential for QR codes to provide them with details from your smartphone. Just make sure that you are only scanning reputable codes - be aware! Meanwhile PC World is telling us who is currently scanning QR codes.

Last week we looked at what we might be wearing on our wrists in the not too distant future. Adding to that topic, Sony has detailed the potential PC on the wrist, but it’s not going to be happening until 2020.

Back in PIND No.61 we walked our reader through the wonders of the Android tablet market, as we viewed it. This week we think we spotted the ideal budget Android: we saw this one at £119 with an 8-inch capacitive screen and Android 2.3 on DinoDirect.

Finally, do keep checking back to see what will be featured in our next edition, PIND 67. We aim to add details of our next edition this link during the course of the week. For an RSS feed of PIND, copy this link into your feed reader; and click here for the GenesisNews Print Daily – you can even take out a free subscription for this daily news update on print, publishing, packaging and associated technology!

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Want to read issue 65, including news of big losses at KBA? Then simply click here!



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Printing Industry News Digest No.64, August 6, 2011

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 64, providing a summary of major news stories from the printing, packaging, digital and communications technology sectors. PIND incorporates brief summaries and links to the week's key news stories so that you can look up that all important detail, digging deeper behind the headline. Do also take a look at our automated Twitter-based GenesisNews Print Daily publication; why not take out a free subscription for a daily digital delivery!

Plenty of software and software-ish stories to deal with this week including some secrets to be found in OS X and Apple's beta launch of iCloud, including that all important “what’s it going to cost me” information.

In the world of publishing, iPad / tablet versions of popular magazines are growing ever more popular, and there have been a number of news stories this week confirming the ever increasing popularity of such apps. For starters, Cosmo For Guys (CFG) has launched as an iPad only publication; Sports Illustrated is about to add an Android version into its digital stable; in the meantime Time Warner is going tablet mad, with major titles available on all major platforms before the end of the year.

Whilst publishers will be using social media in many and varied ways to promote their wares, this collection of authors are using Twitter and Facebook to promote their wares themselves, and are doing some clever things.

However, it’s not all brightess and wonder in the world of publishing as we find Hearst closing She and Cosmo Bride magazines.

More publishing woes from Guardian Media Group (GMG) which reported further losses in the year ending April 3, 2011. A £33.8 million operating loss (before exceptional items) might be seen as a further drain on cash reserves, but it continues also to point in the wrong direction with regard to turnover as well.

The Telegraph offers us some thoughts on e-books v. the printed variety. The journalist comes to the conclusion that the printed book is dead; there will be many linked to the print trade that want to offer an alternative view. Vent your anger here by emailing PIND.editor@gmail.com

Wired, however, has uncovered the reason why, in its opinion, we will never have truly innovative electronic books, as Facebook buys another leading start-up publishing business.
Printers too are struggling on through: following the purchase of Pindar’s Scarborough plant, the York Mailing management appears to be close to letting some 90 staff go; whilst the De La Rue saga goes on, with a possible move north leading to 150 redundancies.

Our chums at Lifehacker have been providing some rather interesting software "Packs" this week: best of breed collections of apps or software products for Windows, Linux, and iPhone. As usual with this sort of offering, it is easy to disagree with the choices made, however, all seem to provide an interesting starting point for discussion if nothing else.

In the world of browsers we find that Google Chrome has overtaken Firefox as the number two browser software. Meanwhile in the hoax of the week, Internet Explorer users were branded as thickness, especially those laggards still playing with IE6. Whilst even there Guardian fell for the spoof research to begin with, the story has since been deleted, though a "guilty as charged" message still remains.

For those attracted to the neat, tidy and fast aspects of SSD memory, good news! Space is now beginning to get cavenous too, with this soon to be released 1.6TB product. No clues on the axact price as yet, but guage it from these newly outed drives from Patriot and you will guess that it's not going to be a giveaway. You might worry too about one of these in Government agency hands: if they can loose a 256mb thumb drive and cause significant problems, imagine the amount of aggro that could be caused by mislaying one of these big beauties!

Finally, do keep checking back to see what will be featured in our next edition, PIND 65. We aim to add details of our next edition this link during the course of the week. For an RSS feed of PIND, copy this link into your feed reader; and click here for the GenesisNews Print Daily – you can even take out a free subscription for this daily news update on print, publishing, packaging and associated technology!

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Want to read issue 63, including “The State of the Tablet and Ereader Market”? Then simply click here!



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