Printing Industry News Digest No.127, December 22, 2012

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 127, providing a summary of major news items from the printing, publishing, 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.

It seems staggeringly hard to keep the manroland name out of our headlines: similar to 12 months ago! Late this week we heard that the Plauen site was to be closed by the administrator following the breakdown of negotiations with potential investors. Earlier in the week the Print Business had told us of the departure of the CEO for the sheetfed business, though his role was always of a temporary nature. The web systems business, however, continues to go from strength-to-strength.

The Kodak patent sale went ahead, with a group of 12 involved: a veritable who’s-who of the tech world, including Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Adobe Systems, and FujiFilm. In what might be termed the sale of the century, the group managed to purchase the intellectual property rights for a reported $525 million; one “very special price” from an initial valuation of $2.6 billion.

Digital Twin: a potential boost for the printed magazine page? US-based Netpage is hoping that its augmented reality software can provide a connection between the mobile device and the printed page.

Sales of Morgana’s PUR binding kit are beginning to take off: the latest install is at leading Xeikon digital printer The Digital Press, where a DigiBook 150 has been selected to replace hot-melt perfect binding kit.

One or two end of year software snippets that you might enjoy, or find vaguely useful: we made mention recently of Archy, a great Mac way of displaying your Google Drive contents. You should find that you can use Archy as well as a Google Drive that you already have loaded on your system: access to two different Google accounts from one Mac! You will find a use for it! Don't forget to check out third-party apps for Google Drive too . . .

Tripped over a useful function in Simplenote this last couple of days too: to simply share a note with others, add their email address as a “tag”. They will not only be copied, but their adjustments (from within Simplenote) will be incorporated into your document as they make changes, and your updates into their document too! Care should be taken of course, but this could be a great way of getting a number of opinions gathered quickly. Give it a try.

Only just in time for Christmas: Raspberry Pi fans can spend their festive cash in the Pi Store! Perhaps that’s a post-Christmas place for any Xmas monies received?

Right. It’s that festive thing again. Getting short of wrapping paper at the last minute? PIND to the rescue! Print some out!

Then it will be time for New Year plans and resolutions. As a starting point I loved this great quote: “Being Realistic is the Most Commonly Travelled Road to Mediocrity”. Perhaps we could all use this thought as a springboard to creating some exciting New Year’s resolutions that will really empower us all.

Keep your finger on the pulse: grab an RSS feed of PIND (copy this link into your feed reader); click here for the GenesisNews #Print Daily to get the latest daily stories; or click here for regular Tech & Comms updates in blog or RSS form. You can also connect to a free subscription of the Print Daily for an update on print, publishing, packaging and associated technology delivered straight to your in-box every day! For details on Genesis Marketing – publishers of PIND – click here.

PIND127    

Missed Issue 126, including Fuji’s JetPress? Then simply click here!

Issue 125: Death of The Daily
Issue 124: Océ inkjet
Issue 123: manroland web systems



Get your Tech & Comms updates direct from the blog, use the RSS feed, or keep updated via Twitter.

Printing Industry News Digest No.126, December 15, 2012

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 126, providing a summary of major news items from the printing, publishing, 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. Click the pics too! Extra links are hidden behind the images below.

Short-run packaging is the focus for the first European orders for Fuji’s JetPress 720. Installs are expected in France and Austria. Look out for the most expensive packages on the market, as this unit lists at $1.5 million, and trundles along at 2,700 sheets per hour.

Following recent news re the addition of Kodak Prosper inkjet technology to its manroland web systems presses, rumour is rife that Axel Springer could be close to a tie up with Daily Mail publisher DMGT. The Print Business provides the detail.

The CEO at manroland sheetfed has decided that it’s job done: Alfred Rothlaender, tempted from retirement by business owner Tony Langley, has completed the “heavy lifting”, as Langley describes it, and leaves the business in best shape following the sale of the Mannheim factory site for housing development.

We know you’ve been wondering for a long time: “What are the Top 10 stories on GenesisNews this year?” Wonder no more: the answers are here!

Need more portable storage for your iOS or Android product? The good folk of Kingston have an answer for you: well, at least a 128Gb answer. That should be enough for most folk do you think?

$800 bucks for a 3D printer makes it sound like this technology is coming within the reach of small to medium sized businesses, or even home enthusiasts: Solidoodle 3 has the answer it would seem.

The festive period might well see a glut of tablets and new computer systems arriving at the foot of your bed. Whilst feeling sorry for poor Santa having lug all of that lot around, you might also ponder on what to do with your old kit. Lifehacker offers some suggestions.

The annual Richard Dimbleby lecture is to given this year by Mr Bill Gates: put it in your diary as exciting UK Christmas TV time if you like!

Still not sure what present to buy for your wife, daughter, girlfriend, etc, etc? Why not buy them an app? Yes, by right clicking in iTunes you can now gift an app to your (iPhone owning) loves one’s without even leaving the comfort of your own office.

What about Raspberry Pi you ask: well, how about building a streaming jukebox for Christmas? Whilst Pandora is the suggested vehicle, you might want to change the source for European readers. Mind you, one of the comments following this article suggests that you would probably be better off just converting an ageing iPod to the task. Easier, but perhaps not quite so much fun! OK, maybe use Pi for a solar-powered FTP server instead?

Keep your finger on the pulse: grab an RSS feed of PIND (copy this link into your feed reader); click here for the GenesisNews #Print Daily to get the latest daily stories; or click here for regular Tech & Comms updates in blog or RSS form. You can also connect to a free subscription of the Print Daily for an update on print, publishing, packaging and associated technology delivered straight to your in-box every day! For details on Genesis Marketing – publishers of PIND – click here.

PIND126  
 
Missed Issue 125, including death of The Daily? Then simply click here!

Issue 124: Océ inkjet
Issue 123: manroland web systems
Issue 122: manroland sheetfed update



Get your Tech & Comms updates direct from the blog, use the RSS feed, or keep updated via Twitter.

Greatest Hits 2012: The Year’s Top 10 Stories on GenesisNews

Yes, it’s that time of year again, and we are more than delighted to present to you, dear reader, the top ten postings for 2012 as created by total visitor numbers! These are the ten individual stories from 2012 that gained the highest viewing figures as recorded by our hosts at WordPress. As a postscript, we will also acknowledge the success and interest in the weekly newsletter Printing Industry News Digest, which has itself set new records regarding reader numbers. As with all of the very best “top ten’s” we feel the need to announce these in reverse order!

10. Our dear friends at CCDotmeter are back in the dotmeter market and back in our top ten! The microDot product is their new high-powered microscope product for checking plate and print detail. New of a Harlequin RIP interface got you interested.

9. Benson Group’s first purchase of a Heidelberg Diana folder gluer for their Bardon plant received a fair few visits just last month.

8. Packaging production is in the spotlight at Benson Group with details of the Copperpot confectionary cartons getting everybody salivating for more. The product was successfully used as a very tasty sampler at the Packaging Innovations event in London.

7. Digital printing is the real growth area in communications hardware, and Stirland Paterson recognised this earlier in the year with the installation of a Xeikon 6000 press.

6. You will of course have noted that 2012 was a Drupa year, and UK post-press equipment manufacturer Morgana Systems used the event to launch a range of short-run PUR binders.

5. Digital was the topic at Drupa 2012, and a clutch of B2-format digital developments were on show, including a partnership between Ryobi and Miyakoshi.

4. Morgana are also featured in the top ten with the release of the AeroCut multi-function finishing device.

3. Litho presses are far from dead, and Ryobi appears at number three in our list with the introduction of its latest B2-format offering the 760E.

2. Drupa has to figure large in the list of course, and the release that highlighted both the start of the event, and pointed folk towards our special Drupa blog got a lot of attention.

1. Top of the listing for this year is a Drupa story that detailed the links between old and new, with Ryobi combining its litho know-how with Kodak’s inkjet knowledge: the hybrid press has received much attention this year!

Printing Industry News Digest

As promised in our opening paragraph, we couldn’t list out top ten without also offering a focus on our weekly news digest release. Editions in the January, February, March timeframe received the most attention from you, our readers, with the re-building of the manroland company and Kodak’s move into Chapter 11 being the obvious headlines around that time. Top scoring editions of the weekly are as follows:

1. PIND No.84: January 21
2. PIND No.87: February 11
3. PIND No.89: February 25
4. PIND No.90: March 3
5. PIND No.92: March 17

ENDS



Get your Tech & Comms updates direct from the blog, use the RSS feed, or keep updated via Twitter.

Printing Industry News Digest No.125, December 8, 2012

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 125, providing a summary of major news items from the printing, publishing, 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. Click the pics too! Extra links are hidden behind the images below.

The Daily dies: the digital newspaper solution from News Corp has shut its doors after some 19 months. Whilst the US iPad subscription only publication was highly regarded by commentators, and briefly topped the paid-for iPad app charts, the numbers just didn’t add up.

Elsewhere in newspaper land, the New York Times is to downsize its newsroom as ad revenues fall; Trinity Mirror has unveiled its tablet strategy causing an increase in the share price; the Washington Post is now considering the paywall as the appropriate solution to its woes; and The Times, meanwhile, is offering up cheap Nexus tablets to new subscribers. Perhaps 2013 will shed new light for newspapers and a realistic monetising solution.

We hope The Dandy fares better than The Daily in digital land. The final printed edition of Britain’s favourite comic rolled off the press this week. The 75-year-old publications print run had dropped to 8,000 copies per week from a peak of 2 million.

The current hot topic of adding bespoke data via inkjet to a standard litho print is in focus at German publisher / printer Axel Springer as it integrates Kodak’s Prosper technology with manroland web systems equipment. A Colorman press was the first, providing unique lottery number information. The rest of the group will now be equipped, according to PrintWeek.

Meanwhile, it appears that the patent sale is back on at Kodak. Bloomberg advises us that the Apple and Google are teaming up for a $500 million-plus bid. Should provide some aid to Kodak’s bank account!
 
Are printers bad at marketing and weak at selling by anything other than price? Print Monthly offers some thoughts on both topics that are well worth a read – especially if you run a printing business!

With a focus on 3D printing, Gigaom introduces us to a PDF from the guys at Frog Design that offers 20 Tech Trends for 2013. Is 3D printing going to take over for regular printing companies?

Our friends at Mashable ask can e-books and libraries co-exist. Thoughts from others on this topic, including the Guardian and Surrey County Council.

Three new Surface tablets from Microsoft are set to arrive next year. The BBC’s Click programme [UK readers only] provides some comparisons of the latest tablet offerings from Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

What should you do to a computer before you sell or dispose of it? Lifehacker’s article this week is supported by the thoughts of others regarding cleaning or even completely destroying the hard drive.

Keep your finger on the pulse: grab an RSS feed of PIND (copy this link into your feed reader); click here for the GenesisNews #Print Daily to get the latest daily stories; or click here for regular Tech & Comms updates in blog or RSS form. You can also connect to a free subscription of the Print Daily for an update on print, publishing, packaging and associated technology delivered straight to your in-box every day! For details on Genesis Marketing – publishers of PIND – click here.

PIND125    

Missed Issue 124, including Océ inkjet? Then simply click here!

Issue 123: manroland web systems
Issue 122: manroland sheetfed update
Issue 121: Useful packaging



Get your Tech & Comms updates direct from the blog, use the RSS feed, or keep updated via Twitter.