Sunday, February 03, 2013

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.

MorganaPurchase3Morgana 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.

Konica Minolta now available through ApexEarlier 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.

Newspapers: more to focus on digitalAfter 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 publishing get £52 Google payoutFrench 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!

NovaLauncherAndroid 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;

Nova in action: resize iconsincrease 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



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