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PRINT World News—for Leaders in the Global Graphic Communications Industry
NPES and the Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC), the producer of the US-based PRINT show, have developed this free resource for leaders in the global graphic communications industry.
PRINT World News is unique as a worldwide overview report for and about today’s graphic communications industry. Each month it will deliver a summary of key stories addressing vital trends and emerging issues from around the globe.
Ralph J. Nappi, President
Graphic Arts Show Company (GASC) and
NPES – The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies
USA
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Headlines
Industry News
"Europe: QR Spreads Its Reach"
"Latvia: Printers Turn to Foreign Markets to Boost Sales"
"Australia: See Your Newspaper Come Alive"
"Japan: Newspapers Going Strong Thanks to Salesmanship"
"Strategy: Magazines Find Success With Interactive Content"
"Strategy: Using 3D Technology to Print Buildings"
"Strategy: Cloud Computing to Boost Print Industry"
"Strategy: Magazine Publishers Use Web to Boost Subscriptions"
"Trends: Printing Cheaper Solar Cells"
"The Future: Stretchable Displays"
"The Future: Pixels by the Yard"
"The Future: Printing Solution to Hydrogen Production"
Industry News
Europe: QR Spreads Its Reach
Every step we take to identify tangible results to print will only help our future This does it!
Already popular in Japan, two-dimensional bar codes that can be scanned by cellphones for instant access to information are starting to pop up in periodicals in Europe as well. The "QR" codes work by directing the Web browser on the cellphone to a site with information about related ads and promotions, and they are common in many magazines in Japan, with three-quarters of respondents to one Japanese poll saying they had used them. Now, they have been appearing in the German tabloid Welt Kompakt and the Austrian magazine M, and a new magazine in the United Kingdom called Spektacle is printing QR codes with every article. Cellphone users can download the software needed for QR codes from various Web sites, and some cellphone vendors are starting to incorporate them by default. In the future, the QR code idea could be coupled with the ability to pay for products by cell phone—already common in parts of Asia—to allow promotions such as beverage coupons with QR codes that a cellphone can scan and then present as full payment at a suitably equipped vending machine.
From "From the Page to the Internet, via Your Cell Phone"
Beyond Print (05/14/09) Alexander, G.
Latvia: Printers Turn to Foreign Markets to Boost Sales
Competition can come from all corners of the world...even Latvia!
Latvia's printing and publishing industries have begun to focus on foreign markets as domestic sales decline, according to Latvia's leading publisher, Preses Nams. Several companies, including Livonia Print and Poligrafijas Grupa Mukusala, have gained significant experience in exporting their products to foreign markets. The companies say that several external factors, including the devaluation of the national currency in Sweden and fast growth of the Russian printing industry, have impacted sales.
From "Printing Companies to Focus on Foreign Markets"
Esmerk Latvia News (05/14/09)
Australia: See Your Newspaper Come Alive
Linking e-media with print media will be the best way to capitalize on each. Fighting this trend will hurt print more than emerging e-media.
Australia's Daily Telegraph newspaper is using a new technology called Papermotion to link its print newspaper with an interactive online experience. The May 17 edition of the Sunday Telegraph was the first to incorporate the technology, which it will use to promote the movie "Night at the Museum II." Readers visiting a special Web site are able to hold the newspaper up to their Webcam to trigger multimedia content, such as games, video clips, music, 3D animation, and mini-sites. Readers can, for example, see the image of a dinosaur skeleton walking across the newspaper they are holding up, and the image on the screen will mirror their motions as they move the paper. Marketing director Joe Talcott of the paper's parent company News Limited says that this digital dimension will be a revolution in newspapers: "When they put the Melbourne Cup on the front page of the newspaper, you'll be able to use this technology to watch a video of the horse winning the race."
From "See Your Newspaper Come Alive"
Daily Telegraph (AU) (05/10/09) Hills, Brenden
Japan: Newspapers Going Strong Thanks to Salesmanship
"Selling" newspapers...there is a novel business concept. Apparently with some success.
Print newspapers may be under fire in much of the world, but they are likely to remain strong in Japan, where fierce competition for subscribers often includes salespeople going door-to-door with free gifts to entice people to subscribe. The two leading daily newspapers, the Yomiuri and the Asahi, hand out such items as laundry detergent, theme-park tickets, or free beer in exchange for a three-month subscription. Japan's media conglomerates do not have the option of mass layoffs like in other countries, as Japan expects companies to contribute to the common good by keeping as many people employed as possible, and tough labor laws and unions contribute to the equation as well. The door-to-door salesmen have helped the newspapers retain high circulation numbers—in fact, the center-right Yomiuri has the largest circulation of any daily in the world, with more than 10 million a day, twice as much as USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times combined. Japanese newspapers also carry a level of local advertising unmatched in the West, with neighborhood offices filling the papers with leaflets and fliers for all sorts of businesses located a stone's throw from each subscriber's home.
From "Samurai of Print"
Forbes (05/17/09) Kelly, Tim
Strategy: Magazines Find Success With Interactive Content
Woman's Day magazine has gone beyond other magazines' advertising-focused experiments with digital interactivity by adding interactivity to its editorial pages as well, providing extra enticements for its print-edition readers. Pages adorned with an icon indicating that they are "snap-enabled" allow readers to digitally photograph them and send the images to a designated address in order to receive coupons, sample offers, or other promotions. One of the magazine's advertisers, the large retail store Target, says it sold thousands of necklaces with the help of a snap-enabled editorial featuring the jewelry in Woman's Day's October issue, the first to be made interactive. Woman's Day is planning four interactive issues for this year, according to Carlos Lamadrid, senior vice president and chief brand officer for Woman's Day Brand Group. "It allows advertisers to engage the reader in another way, and allows them to get a greater sense of return on investment," Lamadrid says. In order to ensure that readers knew how to use the snap-enabled pages, sections at the front of the magazine were used to instruct them on how to use their mobile phone cameras to get offers and promotions, and the related advertising pages made clear what they would get in return for their photos. Another magazine, GQ, used similar concepts last year for advertisers Gillette and Maserati, in which Gillette distributed samples of new products while Maserati was promoting a viral digital promotion of a study indicating that the sound of a Maserati engine creates a biological response in women. Meanwhile, Coty has sought to build its brand resonance with women via a snap-enabled ad campaign for Gwen Stefani Harajuku fragrances by allowing readers to choose between a ringtone of Gwen Stefani music, a free sample, and a quiz to see the fragrance most suited to their personality, based around a set of characters inspired by fashionable girls in Tokyo's Harajuku district.
From "Magazines Find Some Success With Interactive Content"
AdAge.com (05/12/09) Chang, Rita
Strategy: Using 3D Technology to Print Buildings
Concepts like this are far afield from ink on paper, but someone is going to be at the leading edge of making unconventional "printing" work for them!
A longtime admirer of highly fanciful and imaginative buildings, civil engineer Enrico Dini has developed a way to use full-scale 3D printing to remove real-world constraints on the kinds of construction architects can imagine. Dini has patented a system called D_Shape that uses an inorganic binding material with ordinary sand to create buildings with 3D printing, an easy-to-use and low-maintenance method. The technology can make parts 6 meters by 6 meters by 1 meter in size to be shipped to a construction site, or a whole building can be printed on location, using parts said to resemble sandstone. With its rigging suspended over the buildable part, the system deposits the sand and an inorganic binding ink, with no water necessary; the machine does not clog because the components do not meet until after they leave the nozzle. Dini and his D_Shape firm are discussing the system with a large number of architects and construction and engineering companies.
From "3D Printing Buildings"
Shapeways (04/22/09)
Strategy: Cloud Computing to Boost Print Industry
New technologies and ways of thinking have a major impact on the supply channel. Just take a look at the music industry!
Cloud computing can help reinvigorate the global economy in many different sectors, and printing is one of them, according to Russ Daniels, vice president and chief technology officer of Cloud Services Strategy at Hewlett-Packard (HP), likening it to the assembly-line revolution that Ford used to "put a car in every garage." "Standardized hardware has unshackled the computing power once trapped in mainframe computers, democratizing it so that all can share," he writes. "More recently, software has been developed that virtualizes, automates and differentiates this hardware to enable a configure-to-order model for the IT industry." A new cloud-computing service from HP, called MagCloud, enables anyone to publish a magazine with a professional appearance while saving money via printing on demand. "By eliminating substantial pieces of the physical supply chain, we can offer professional-quality print to a mass audience while reducing the impact on the environment," Daniels writes. "The same on-demand technology can be extended to book publishing and allow individuals to print customized books, mixing their own content with that of professionals." In the future, HP expects a "rich ecosystem of printing services" interconnecting businesses and individuals alike to deliver information to the right place in the right format at the right time.
From "A Cloud In Every Garage"
Forbes (05/07/09) Daniels, Russ
Strategy: Magazine Publishers Use Web to Boost Subscriptions
Magazine publishers such as Hearst Magazines, Rodale, and Condé Nast have been working to use the Web as a tool for bolstering their new subscribers. Hearst says that in 2008 the Web was its largest source of subscribers, and 95 percent of them were new to Hearst titles, not just switching from other means of subscribing. An in-house consumer marketing tool has enabled Hearst to create more than 10,000 different campaigns in the last two years, compared to just 200 campaigns a year in the past. Condé Nast is also building up a big initiative to generate more subscription revenue online by using behavioral targeting and customer history to customize offers, and has been testing it out with its business group, which publishes Wired and Golf Digest. "The info they have on subscribers is truly amazing," said one Condé Nast publisher who has seen the results of the test. A new online system has also enabled Rodale to cut back on direct mail and other subscriber acquisition methods, and it is looking to get more than 18 percent of net paid subscriptions via the Web and email offers this year. Meanwhile, Time Inc. is beta testing a new service called Maghound, similar to the Netflix model, which will allow consumers to pay a monthly price for three or more magazine titles.
From "Titles Mine Web for Subs"
Mediaweek.com (05/10/09) Moses, Lucia
Trends: Printing Cheaper Solar Cells
Inkjet applications, quality and speed only have one direction to go...it is up. Do you have your periscope positioned on inkjet?
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has helped direct the creation of a new method of making solar cells that uses ink-jet printing to produce the electrical connections in the cell. Ink-jet printing is much more precise than the screen printing used in the past for solar cells, which means less waste of material and the ability to use thinner silicon wafers, all of which are expected to cut the cost of conventional solar cells. Silicon can make up about 75 percent of the cost of a conventional solar cell, and this technology could allow for manufacturers to make solar cells with only half the amount of silicon they used before. The process, which was designed with an ink-jet printer from Colorado-based iTi Solar, could be used for commercial production within a year, according to NREL scientist Maikel van Hest.
From "Ink-jet Printing for Cheaper Solar Cells"
MIT Technology Review (05/07/09) Bullis, Kevin
The Future: Stretchable Displays
Practical and useable but "cool" too!
A team of University of Tokyo researchers led by professor Takao Someya has engineered a stretchable display by linking organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and organic transistors with a printable elastic conductor. "Printing is cheap, and it allows you to cover large-area substrate," says the University of Cambridge's Stephanie Lacour. The researchers previously used their conductor, composed of a blend of carbon nanotubes and rubber, to make a stretchable electronic circuit. The conductor is fabricated by combining the nanotubes with an ionic liquid and a liquid polymer to produce a nanotube-rubber paste. A high-pressure jet then spreads the nanotubes in the rubber. The jet can thin the nanotube bundles without shortening them and disperse the bundles uniformly in the polymer. "The longer and finer bundles of nanotubes can form well-developed conducting networks in rubbers, thus significantly improved conductivity and stretchability," Someya says. Extremely thin lines of the conductor are deposited on a rubber substrate with a printing mask. The lines function as a wire grid to connect organic transistors and OLEDs into a display that can stretch by up to 50 percent of its original shape. The display can perform without impedance when spread over a curved surface and can be folded in half or crumpled up without sustaining damage. Stretchable electronics offer an advantage over their rollup counterparts in that they can be wrapped around complex three-dimensional objects.
From "Stretchable Displays"
Technology Review (05/11/09) Patel, Prachi
The Future: Pixels by the Yard
Some advancements are not that far off or difficult to include in the current business model.
Researchers with Hewlett-Packard and Arizona State University have found a way to inexpensively print digital displays on a flexible plastic sheet, which can stretch or move while the digital template follows along and deals with any misalignments. The HP Labs process, Self-Aligned Imprint Lithography creates a combined template for an entire circuit bonded to the sheet at the outset of the operation, allowing the template to follow along with any deformation in the sheet. The company is hoping to achieve a price much smaller than the $100 per square foot that is customary with conventional flatpanel displays. The technology will first be used in a wrist-mounted display designed for soldiers in an Army research project, while in the future it could be used for electronic books or flexible cell phones, among other possible applications. In the HP-developed technology, the template is a 3D polymer material etched simultaneously with the semiconductor stack to create circuit features; the height of the polymer determines the parts etched, so the material can stretch to accommodate distortions.
From "Pixels by the Yard: HP Prints Flexible Screens Like Newsprint"
Discover (05/13/09) Cass, Stephen
The Future: Printing Solution to Hydrogen Production
Researchers looking for the optimal material for releasing hydrogen from water molecules have gotten an assist from inkjet printing, which has allowed them to produce 200 new photoelectrode compounds at a time to test. The goal is to sort out the advantages and disadvantages of different types of photoelectrodes to split up water molecules using energy from sunlight, in hopes of finding the best balance of long-term stability and high-efficiency energy conversion. The technique was devised by researchers at the California Institute of Technology, led by Nathan Lewis, who used combinatorial chemistry to produce different kinds of metal ion solutions on glass coated with tin oxide using an inkjet printer. Once the compounds were printed onto the surface, the solutions were heated to form mixed metal oxides for testing. The researchers thus produced a large database of compounds whose properties can be sorted to "guide exploration of additional sets of materials for desirable activity in photoelectrochemical solar-based water splitting," according to Lewis.
From "Printing Solution To Hydrogen Production"
Chemical Science (05/12/2009)
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