Category: Comment
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Looking ahead
I thought it would be useful to start the year with a story looking at the ongoing themes that I’m aiming to cover in more detail on this website throughout the course of this year.
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On thin ice
So, we’ve more or less reached the end of the year and it’s time to look back over some of the major stories of the year. I’ll deal with predictions for 2019 in the next featured blog.
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Look back in dismay
This has been a strange year, with nothing really noteworthy, just more of the same and a vague hope that everything will get better next year. This is particularly true of digital packaging printing, where we’ve seen a number of inkjet presses amid the belief that this is the next great frontier, and yet it…
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The devil in the detail
Earlier this year I had a run-in with a press vendor over a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA. It’s a fairly common business practice for companies to ask people to sign such agreements before sharing confidential information.
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The year for living dangerously?
The start of a new year always feels like a good time to pause and look at where we as an industry are heading; well, at least it gives us something to do in between waiting for the holiday hangovers to pass and work to get started properly!
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Leap in the dark
Leap in the dark This week Britons are being asked to vote on whether or not the country should stay part of the EU. Other countries have been giving referendum votes to determine whether or not the EU should adopt major treaty changes. But instead we are being asked to make a decision that will…
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Storm clouds:
Storm clouds: One of the themes that emerged from the recent round of pre-Drupa press briefings was for greater use of cloud computing. It’s not a new concept – we’ve all been making greater use of web services and cloud storage but many vendors are now proposing a much closer integration between their production and…
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Last of the Independent
Last of the Independent The Independent, together with its Sunday sibling, has ceased print production and is henceforth only to be available through its website. This could simply be the way of modern media, given that many of us now read our news through smartphones and tablets – thus saving on the cover price of…
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It’s elementary…
It’s elementary… Scientists working for the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry have officially added four new man-made elements to the periodic table, filling in its seventh row, and simultaneously rendering a great many school text books obsolete. This follows two elements that were added to the table in 2011, with a Japanese team…
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Out of the fire
Out of the fire Several European companies have released their Q3 figures in the last few days, all showing a general improvement in their fortunes. In every case this has followed a radical restructuring and heavy cost cutting together with investment in inkjet print technology and a renewed focus on packaging printing. However, some of…
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Industrial Printing
Industrial Printing This week sees the second outing of the InPrint show, this time in Munich, starting on Tuesday. It’s hard to define industrial printing. It includes conventional print technologies such as screen and wide format, but also more niche elements like 3D printing and some novel approaches to inkjet. It covers a wide market,…
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In the bag
In the bag Now that the 5p levy on plastic bags has been running in England for a couple of weeks, we can safely say that reports of high street chaos were greatly overstated. Consumers may not be happy about the levy, and quite a few seem to have been surprised that it affects plastic…