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.111, September 1, 2012

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 111, 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.

Start big, bold and good news style: Komori has been busy combining its offset litho and gravure security printing knowledge to create a new focus on printed electronics. Regular readers will be reminded that we at PIND pin great hopes on the wonders of printed electronics: serious printers should be looking at the huge potential that this area of the market offers. If you are a printer and you have still to understand the potential for printing electronic elements, where have you been? Thankfully you found PIND just in time!

More quite staggering losses announced by Kodak this quarter. According to reports the latest numbers mean that the combined losses for the company since the start of the year total $745 million on sales of $1.1 billion. My maths isn’t the greatest, but even my number crunching says that this equals bad business.

Lexmark budget inkjets are no more, it would seem. Amid some 1,700 lay-offs, the market appears to be just too competitive.

Amazon’s marketplace for Android apps is available in Europe at last! Initially available in the US from early 2011, the European launch seems to have been coming for a very long time. Hooks up firstly with the new “white paper” Kindle, and probably the launch of Fire in Europe.

John Lewis, it would appear, is to become the first UK retailer of the Nook.

We liked this concept: sticky notes for your Gmail. It’s on our list of things to take a more detailed look at soon, but right at the moment only appears to work with Chrome browsers. See what you think and let us know if you like it please: PIND.editor@gmail.com

Still waiting to take the magic leap from PC to Mac? Here’s one possible slice of encouragement: run Mac OS on your computer. Take a look; see if it ticks all the boxes. Talking cross-polination: Microsoft's SkyDrive is at last available as a full Android app, whilst the great free photo editing tool Gimp is now available as a native Mac OS software.

Android on a netbook? Intriguing combination. It’s being promoted at the ideal tool for the classroom. Not sure. The GoTab comes at a reasonable £150 try-it-out price though . . . ?!

Tablet Talk: Couldn’t leave without adding mention of this report from Business Insider. How many tablets will be sold in 2016? Some 450 million. Last year, 2011, saw 100 million of the little chaps on the move. That’s some growth!

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.

PIND111    

Missed Issue 110, including Kodak film exit? Then simply click here!

Issue 109: Heidelberg IPEX
Issue 108: Kodak Patents
Issue 107: Olympic Print



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

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



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Printing Industry News Digest No.103, July 7, 2012

Welcome to Printing Industry News Digest (PIND) issue 103, 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.

Printed electronics comes back to the top of the shop this week, with Andy Thomas, editor of Labels & Labeling magazine, taking a look at developments at The Centre for Process Innovation, where more or less standard narrow web kit is being used to achieve exciting results.

With the dust settling on Drupa, our Australian chums at Print21 offer up their detailed Benny Landa interview. Worth a read if you want a deeper understanding of nanographic presses, and their potential to change the market. You can also see the full Landa Drupa presentation here.

Meanwhile, the final financial details of the Manroland GB sheetfed and web operations were announced this week by the administrators. Even with the dramatic reduction in the size of this press manufacturer, there are still too many suppliers chasing too few orders. One almost has to ask, who will be the next to go?

The publishing of e-books is easy right? Well, not quite so. Publishing – in whatever format – still has to cross a number of rivers and climb various mountains. Andrew Zack takes us on a publishing journey.

We made mention of the Google Nexus 7 last week, and you may well have already seen the Google video of things taking shape. You can now also put your pre-order in.

However, such moves from Google have re-ignited rumours that Apple will get going this year with product in the 7-inch space. Could be interesting. PIND has never championed the smaller format tablet: you have a phone for portable work, and you would need an additional data contract if you want almost-anywhere internet. The format is still going to be popular this year though – it is the affordable point of entry into the tablet market that makes the big difference. Can we resist the pre-order page above . . . [big struggle ensues!]

Existing Galaxy tabs, in the meantime, are strongly rumoured to being close to an ICS upgrade. We will confirm when we actually see this in real life! By the way: what is Samsung doing right, as profits surge 79% in its second quarter?

ZDNet has been asking questions regarding Microsoft in the form of: Why Microsoft is Building a Tablet, but Won’t Build Smartphones. Whole different distribution / partner system me thinks. In almost the same breath, we are advised that Amazon is planning a smartphone.

Talking of Microsoft, as we do very occasionally, are they taking yet another leaf from the Apple book? A Windows 8 upgrade for Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 will be available for download for just $39.99. That should help take a lot of people on the new journey (eventually!). Experience may well tell us, don’t jump too soon. Let everybody else iron out the bumps first.

Skype fans should be aware of both PC and Mac updates aimed at further improving stability.

An interesting read for software geeks, and not-so-geeks too: the best Google features that you probably don’t use. And this can be more of an eye opener than you are expecting. My money is on you finding something here that you didn’t already know, and that will prove useful!

Almost finally, one question all parents should be asking: do smart devices make smart kids? The BBC poses the question and attempts some answers.

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!

PIND103

Missed Issue 102, including thoughts on British banking? Then simply click here!

Issue 101: Microsoft Surface
Issue 100: newspaper news
Issue 99: PIND Drupa wrap-up



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

Got friends that might like GenesisNews? Tweet them now: click here!