Printing Industry News Digest No.135, February 23, 2013

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 135, 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.

PUR perfect binding is in focus with Morgana Systems. Links to three short videos on the products are well worth a look as PUR moves to short-run digital work. The affordable DigiBook 150 is an entry-level hand-fed machine suited to very small quantities.

Meanwhile many companies expressed joy and delight at the recent Hunkeler Innovation days staged in Switzerland. Many are asking if this is this the new way forward for exhibitions. One voice against might come from Packaging Innovations at the NEC, Birmingham, this coming week.

Publishing, meanwhile, takes centre stage in London where the Publishing & Media Expo happens on Tuesday and Wednesday, at Earls Court.

Such a show is more than likely to have a focus somewhere within on self-publishing. The Guardian offers some sharp thoughts on this revolution for writers. Meanwhile, in the US, a David v. Goliath case is launching with three bookstores taking on the might of Amazon and six of the biggest publishers in America. Where’s your $5 on the outcome?! Restraint of trade is the basic point of focus.

What is next for books, asks the Guardian. A good question to go to the above show with perhaps. How about a talking book alongside the readable version? Gigaom imagines this to be a working product via your Kindle.

The 4G mobile network has been much in the news this last week, with the UK government and its wildly optimistic valuation taking centre stage. The guys quickest out of the 4G blocks in UK, now known as EE, do not appear to have taken the country by storm with their offering, which may well have influenced the bidding process. 4G should succeed in the long-run, but try giving us a decent network first and then asking for a hike in monthly subs – otherwise its very much like the kings new clothes!

For those at the techie sharp end it will surely come as no surprise to hear talk of double digit growth in the tablet computer market during this last year. Expectations from Forrester are for that to continue in the coming years with a figure of 55% online adult ownership in Western Europe by 2017. That equates to a whopping 147 million units in case you were wondering!

Some of those should certainly be Google Nexus products by our reckoning. With Google retail stores widely tipped to be on the way in the US, it would be good to see a better promotional push of these most excellent tablets. If a seven-inch form factor (or thereabouts) is on your shopping list, why would you buy anything else? Well, HP is now posing an option that might be worth looking at if you can wait until April . . . a $169 price tag (straight UK conversion: £111.44) is a very reasoned argument for the spec.

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.

PIND135    

Missed Issue 134, with latest on digital publishing? Then simply click here!

Issue 133: Hard times for heavy metal
Issue 132: Morgana turns Swedish
Issue 131: Kodak out of IPEX



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

Printing Industry News Digest No.134, February 16, 2013

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 134, 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.

Inkling offers an alternative digital publishing environment: competition for Apple and Amazon it would seem. Pearson, DK Publishing and HarperCollins show interest says TechCrunch.

All change at ABC: as digitally published magazines grow in popularity, so reporting stats have to change. Time-honoured ABC circulation figures are now able to point directly to both printed circulation and digital editions. This month marks that change point, and whilst print is still dominant for all leading players, how long will that remain the case we all have to ask.

The Sun to drop its iconic page three? Wouldn’t that be suicide for already dipping circulation figures? Murdoch and suicide don’t go together in our book.
It’s not all plain sailing however. Amazon competitor Barnes & Noble posts further gloomy news re Nook numbers. Publishers too are walking a thin line: Time Warner reportedly looking to sell Time. Hearst meanwhile is going headlong into the digital world.

Ricoh, it is said by the PrintWeek, has launched a digital v. offset calculator. The aim is to help users select the most appropriate printing technology. I wonder where it is weighted? Ricoh makes digital, not offset: a clue?

As a follow up to last weeks heavy metal view, the Australian team at Print 21 publishes its thoughts on Heidelberg’s latest sales figures.

Design for mobile, that a message that was promoted late last year by our friends at ccDotmeter, but it is strongly echoed at Poynter, where the stress is on the disruption for news-based sites. It points out very succinctly that mobile is going to be the dominant platform by next year, meaning that we are already very nearly there!

Want Winston to read you the latest? Great iOS app for reading through the latest news headlines from home, as well as from Twitter and / or Facebook. It’s not perfect yet by any means, but Winston is a great eye opener as to what is possible.

Ways to create multiple Dropbox accounts? We have thought about it, but for now the easier option is surely to create more Google Drive accounts if you want free storage space? Mega has loads too!

Need more than nine browser tabs open at a time? Lifehacker says no need. We are not wholly convinced. OK, you don’t need hundreds, but we tend have to seven pinned tabs in Firefox before we actually start browsing for real (mail, the diary, Twitter, the blog, etc). That leaves room happily for six or seven full sized tab headings as well if needed, which is rarely. Good post to read though!

Android Tips: Not quite so much a pure Android tip this week, more a general tablet talk piece really, and you could say several tips wrapped into one! This week we talk mobile and mobility. Still lugging a heavy, large, and ungainly laptop around with you? Struggling to find a train seat that will accommodate your on-the-go work unit? We just question whether you really need all of that hardware in tow: some will answer an unwavering “yes” to that, others might ponder on an answer and start thinking tablet. Tablets offer various configurations for working on the move. We offer a couple of very useable Android examples for your consideration:

Take Samsung’s 10.1 tablet, add the suppliers own Keyboard Dock station and its USB connector placed into the power slot on the right of the keyboard. Stick in any cordless mouse USB plug and you have a perfect imitation of a DIY laptop. The advantage, of course, is that the tablet separates at any time you like to provide a far more portable unit for swift internet browsing. Type your thoughts into Evernote, connect to your Dropbox account, and create Documents To Go while you travel.

Option 2: Connect just about any Bluetooth driven keyboard to a Google Nexus 7 tablet for a rapid transformation into a mini desktop. A similar USB to mini-USB plug will provide access for your cordless mouse if desired, however, landscape mode would be more successful for this – especially if you are using a cheap and cheerful stand, as shown in our picture. The devices shown really will provide a pocket sized computer for your excursions: the keyboard folds to fit in a jacket pocket, as the Nexus 7 slides into your inside pocket too.

For both of the above, connect to a 3G signal when you need it by tethering your phone’s connection and picking up that network on your tablet device. Mind you, how about doing all of the above on your phone (or should I say "phablet") anyway? Great connectivity focused video via YouTube featuring Samsung's Galaxy Note II phone and a few cables!

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.

PIND134    

Missed Issue 133, with hard times for heavy metal? Then simply click here!

Issue 132: Morgana turns Swedish
Issue 131: Kodak out of IPEX
Issue 130: Start of Android Tip Series



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

Printing Industry News Digest No.133, February 9, 2013

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 133, 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.

Two interesting news items from print’s heavy metal brigade this week. Firstly, KBA advised the world that a 2.5% price increase in its presses was going to solve all of its problems: questionable for sure! And then on Friday, Heidelberg posted its “strongest third-quarter operating result since 2007/08.” Sounds impressive until you realise that this still leaves the business some 32 million Euro’s in red ink YTD. Where to next for the big machinery boys?

InPrint came to our attention this week: an exhibition for the world of industrial print. This is a sector that we never fully appreciated in all honesty. However, a glance through the overly wordy definition of the title should be enough to make anybody involved in print sit up and take notice. Such a show spreads a pretty wide net, and certainly includes the wonders of printed electronics and 3D printing – two topics that we have spent time and words on in recent months. The show is set for Hannover, Germany and happens next year from April 8 to 10 2014: plenty of time to get your thoughts together on this massive topic.

Want some Google? Eric Schmidt is going to sell £1.6 billion worth of it during the course of the next year – that’s 42% of his stake. His estimated 7.6 million shares in the company represent 2.3% of Google's outstanding stock. On the subject of popular shares, LinkedIn stock has soared 19.2% on the back of some juicy earnings.

Least surprising news of the week? Following the recently reported chunky hand-out from Google to French publishers, the rest of Europe’s media wants some too. No such concerns in the US, as online subscriptions carry on increasing for the New York Times.

While the Guardian is happy to give out advice on how you might access the internet with your tablet, analysts are telling us that tablets will outsell notebooks in France this year. Mashable meanwhile is keen to offer suggestions on what to do with your old tablet.

On the subject of how to get online, the UK’s 4G network is gradually growing this year, with some 27 more towns coming on-stream, expanding the total to 65 conurbations.

Ready to get in line for Mailbox? Well, its getting nearer to reality, but it seems that if you want to be in a position to test the delights of Mailbox, already being touted as the best Gmail client for iOS, then you will need to join a pretty lengthy queue. We think we will wait until its finished.

Android Tips: Having brought you the delights of Nova Launcher last week, we feel wholly obliged to show you just what you can do with it this week. In doing so we are entirely indebted to Thand and his Holo Cards posting via Lifehacker. This minimalist Android theme really caught our eye. Hopefully it does the same to you. Our use of the theme is not 100% as yet, and most interpretations probably won’t be: we all have out unique needs after all. Firstly, ours has been adapted for a Nexus 7, meaning that six dock names can be used. If you just like the square app boxes, you can pick those up by downloading the Minimal MIUI Go Apex theme. Full instructions for the Holo Cards theme are here.

Those readers enthused to attempt the creation of something similar should note that the use of names rather than icons in the dock is so much more than it looks. The names are actually just links to another screen-page. Rather than launching an app, they just transport the user to a new screen of apps to select from. The nine squares in the main screen are app launchers in traditional sense – they just have no name labels displayed. The whole exercise of changing the theme and way of working Android is very educational in our opinion. Try it – you might enjoy it!

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.

PIND133    

Missed Issue 132, including Morgana turns Swedish? Then simply click here!

Issue 131: Kodak out of IPEX
Issue 130: Start of Android Tip Series
Issue 129: Educational publishing



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

Printing Industry News Digest No.132, February 2, 2013

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 132, 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.

Morgana Systems, a leading UK-based manufacturer of post-press equipment, has been acquired by Plockmatic International. The Swedish-based company is also well know as a developer and manufacturer of document finishing technology, with a strong focus on inline booklet making systems.

The IPEX 2014 team came out fighting this week with some revised plans for next year’s event, including a reduction in the length of the event from eight days to six, and a white paper which summarises the state of the printing industry extremely well, in our humble opinion. If you haven’t read the Explore PDF yet, download it here and read it today. It might help crystallise your thoughts on your business as well as on IPEX.

Earlier in the week UK Ryobi press distributor Apex Digital Graphics announced that it would also be in a position to provide the range of Konica Minolta digital printing machinery to print businesses.

Money still outstanding from Goodhead Group? Looks like you are in good company. Unsecured creditors are owed a total of some £9 million, and are unlikely to see anything but pennies it would seem. Consumables suppliers to take the biggest hit, you will not be surprised to learn.

After doing the sums a total of 40 regional journalist jobs look likely to go as Trinity Mirror seeks to share more share more news stories across its 100-plus titles. The new strategy? You guessed: digital first. Mind you, this is a drop in the ocean compared to Time Inc. where about 500 lay-offs are looking likely at the 21-title publishing house.

So just why is the Guardian not going for paywalls? Interesting look at the various monetising strategies for news publishers from Mashable.

French government sorts out Google on behalf of publishing sector to the tune of £52 million. Germany liking the sound of this.

So, eager to get your 3D printing business up and running? What products are in the market you might ask: well, Engadget offers its consumers guide to 3D printer products. Once you get one, you can print your own robot!

Least surprising stat: tablets show year-on-year growth of 75% as Q4 2012 numbers reveal a whopping 52.5 million tablet devices were shipped. The detail is more interesting, revealing that Apple is still way out in front in Q4 2012 with 43% of the market, but that shows a decline from 51.7% in 2011, though a leap in actual numbers from 15.1 million to 22.9 million units in Q4 2012.

We all like a bit of crystal ball gazing don’t we? Our chums at Mashable certainly do: you might like to gaze curiously through their 38 predictions for the future. Meanwhile you might also like this software – it makes predictions for tomorrow’s news by analysing today’s headlines!

Android Tips: Nova Launcher is a must for Android tablets in our humble opinion. It's a highly customisable launcher / home-screen replacement software for Android 4.0 and above. Key features include infinite screen scroll (loop of screens); the ability to define how many user screens you have and what order they appear in;

increase number of apps in dock – we use eight on the Nexus 7 for example; and have scrolling dock. Basic Nova Launcher is free, but we suggest you spend just a few pennies to upgrade to the Prime version – install the free software first and add Prime after. This adds a very good gestures capability for app launching, and unread counts for email apps. It's not just us! Some 32,000 five star ratings on Google Play suggest that others like this launcher too!

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.

PIND132    

Missed Issue 131, including Kodak out of IPEX? Then simply click here!

Issue 130: Start of Android Tip Series
Issue 129: Educational publishing
Issue 128: RSS news readers



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