Printing Industry News Digest No.106, July 28, 2012

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 106, 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.

The newest version of OS X for Mac is out this week. Code-named Mountain Lion, this latest update provides tighter integration with the mobile iOS operating system, notably with apps such as Notes and Reminders, both of which interface with iCloud. Another big feature amongst the 200 additions is Dictation which provides support for speach-to-text in any software that requires keyboard input. For $20 / £14 Mountain Lion is very well worth the upgrade.

Manroland’s sheetfed operation in the UK has parted company with its MD and sales manager this week. We understand that its premises will soon be sold too, as the building is the only asset of value of the now defunct Manroland GB business.

Printed or plain cigarette packaging is a big question it would seem. Answers in UK have been put back to August 10th in order for further debate and input. Issues regarding job losses in print and packaging and a strong argument with regard to counterfeit products are countering the obvious focus on deaths by the Department of Health.

Plans are in place at Newsweek for the eventual transition to a digital only publication. The 79-year-old publication cites a key driving force as being production costs of a weekly magazine.

Religious too are seeing the invasion of the e-book. A new colour e-reader incorporates, it would seem, “special religious features”. The Android based tablet will cost you some $150  in Family Christian stores. An app is also available for both Android and iOS.

The book business, meanwhile, is celebrating the way that digital print has saved the industry. Frank Romano, as part of his Frankly Speaking tour, offers this summary of the wonders of digital production for publishers. From another angle, e-books just seem to be getting ever cheaper: is that a good thing? What about the author?

In the world of newspapers, doom and gloom appears to be everywhere. However, the UK-based Daily Mail & General Trust has reported a 3% revenue increase in its third quarter interim results. This reversed a 4% drop in revenue in the previous quarter according to our good friends at PrintWeek.

Regular readers might have noted that last week we mentioned quarterly earnings reports for both Microsoft ($18.6 billion) and Google ($12.2 billion) in PIND105. This week we can compare these numbers with Apple ($35 billion) in its Q3 announcement.

Our favourite 7-inch tablet, the Google Nexus 7, has received more plaudits this week, and also a new distribution point, with Carphone Warehouse now stocking the machine. Not too sure whether you really need a contract with it: £20 per month and a free device? (the 16Gb Nexus is only £199). Our own review of the product still glows: small enough to be portable, large enough to be readable; very handy and easy to pick up in the evening for couch surfing purposes too!

Commentators are convinced that Apple must deliver a product in this format. More news to come, we are quite sure.

Almost finally, UK readers rejoice. Our 4G network is now on its way! Just hang on until next year . . .

Finally, 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 update on print, publishing, packaging news and associated technology!

PIND106

Missed Issue 105, including Google Nexus 7 launch? Then simply click here!

Issue 104: Kodak bosses bonuses
Issue 103: Printed electronics latest
Issue 102: British banking



Updated daily, get Tech News as it relates to print and publishing.

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Printing Industry News Digest No.104, July 14, 2012

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 104, 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.

In what might appear to some to be taking a leaf out of the British bankers books, Kodak executives seem, according to reports this week, to be keen to pay themselves nice chunky bonuses for jobs well done (while creditors remain unpaid, of course). Do please read right though to the comments section at the bottom of the page: you will surely find it tremendously entertaining. Thoughts and comment in e-mail form to PIND.Editor@gmail.com by all means.

Following up on last week’s news on printed electronics, PrintWeek has reported on the funding package that has been secured by The Centre for Process Innovation.

It was a great pleasure in early July to be present at a PrintWeek briefing delivered by the legendary Frank Romano, professor emeritus at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Whilst Drupa focused, Frank also offered his thoughts on the various sectors of print production: where they are right now, and where they were heading. A summary of the event now appears on the PrintWeek web site.

In the same vein as Frank’s industry snapshot, a report that came to our attention this week summarising the current state-of-play in the business-to-business magazine sector. Whilst there are, of course, problems, the report focuses on the changes that have had to be made in order for success. One b-2-b publication in the print world that still manages to hold its head up high is Labels & Labeling, so it was good to see this week that the chairman of publisher Tarsus Group, Neville Buch, has been recognised.

The big number crunchers at Nielsen have provided data this week to support all of that: magazine advertising down 1.4%; internet ads up 12.1% in Q1. Meanwhile Next Issue has delivered a new digital magazine package for readers, providing a great big chunk of publications for your pleasure at an all in price.

The New York Times meanwhile highlights the fact that time really is running out for newspapers to change their game and get on the digital boat before it sails.

At PIND we love positive news, and there can be little more on the plus side than this story from Austria, where a town has effectively created its own library through the use of QR codes. It is suggested that the QR code near the local police station could wiz you off to the text of Arthur Schnitzler's The Killer, but we suspect that this is just journalistic imagination!



In tablet talk you just can’t get away from the Google Nexus 7 as the first orders start to arrive. The Guardian provides this week’s review of the product. We have managed to keep our money in our pocket here at PIND for now.

The big comms story of the week – though we do try to steer clear of phones here at PIND – has to be the serious outage at O2. The reasons are focused on here, but, in a more general sense, this has to be a major concern as we rely more and more on our digital kit. It follows hot on the heels of the serious bank computer problem at Nat West. Reliable and effective back-up solutions, with a tried and tested disaster recovery plan, have to be top priority.

And nearly finally, we feel the need to make mention of Microsoft again. They tell us this week that late October is the likely time-frame for the official release of Windows 8. Can’t wait.

Finally, 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 update on print, publishing, packaging news and associated technology!

PIND104

Missed Issue 103, including printed electronics developments? Then simply click here!

Issue 102: British banking
Issue 101: Microsoft Surface
Issue 100: newspaper news



Updated daily, get Tech News as it relates to print and publishing.
Got friends that might like GenesisNews? Tweet them now: click here!