It's Business As Usual As School Holidays Come To An End.

With the long school summer holidays coming to a close, some companies find it a great relief that business gets ‘back to normal’

Companies offering business services tend to factor August into their business plans as a ‘quite month’.  With warmer weather and staff holidays business decisions or purchasing tends to be postponed until September arrives.  “Starting in September” and “I’ll get back to you in September” are common themes.  Even networking tends to slow down with many business networks not bothering to hold August meetings.

How do the school holidays affect your small business?

Canon (USA) Release New Colorwave 900 Wide Format Printer

Capable of printing more than 12,000 square feet per hour and with the ability to create 3.4 billion drops of ink per second, the colorwave 900 has been released in the US

Read more here

Microsoft becomes the first retailer to sell MakerBot's desktop 3D printers

Microsoft has become the first US retailer to sell MakerBot's desktop 3D printers for customers to take home on the same day.

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EU could impose levy on printers and printer ink after ruling

The European Union could impose a
levy on printer ink and printer consumables

The European Union could impose a levy on printer ink and printer consumables after a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), says computing.co.uk

The judgement follows a case in the German Court of Justice in which publisher VG Wort took action against Canon, Epson, Fujitsu, HP, Kyocera and Xerox, demanding compensation for the printing of published works on their equipment.

The surprise decision by the ECJ will enable the EU to introduce a Europe-wide levy and could open up printer manufacturers to a slew of compensation claims from "copyright holders".

Printer manufacturers, meanwhile, may be forced to raise the prices of their products or to withdraw from Europe entirely. It also raises the prospect of buyers sourcing printers from outside the EU to avoid the copyright levy.

Read More on this story on the computing.co.uk website

3D Printed Casts Could Soon Become A Reality

At last fracture support is brought into the 21st century. Jake Evill, a graduate from the Architecture and Design school at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, has been exploring a new concept that he calls Cortex.

Read More about Cortex on the Sprint-Ink printer ink and toner cartridge blog.

Brother Unveil New Printer Models.

Brother are aiming to strengthen its business market share and are set to bring in a new products by unveiling a new range of monochrome laser printers, multifunction devices, toner cartridges and printer ink.

Brother International Corp. Philippines (BICP) have developed  four new printer models—the Brother HL-1110, Brother DCP-1510, Brother MFC-1810, and Brother MFC-1815 aimed at meeting the needs of small and medium businesses as well as individual consumers.

Glenn P. Hocson, BICP country manager, said “The new models we are introducing to consumers and businesses in the Philippines provides a winning combination of exceptional reliability with high-quality printouts at irresistible value. The series is a dream come true for users who want it all—reliability, affordability and design,”

The market share for Brothers laser multifunction category is at currently at30 percent with single-use printers accounting for 18 percent of the market. With the new devices, the company aims to account for 50 percent and 30 percent, respectively, by 2015.

 

Brother HL-1110 Laser Printer

Made for durability and robustness, the new series of laser printers feature high-performance and hassle-free printing technology.

HP Expands and Rebrands Its Latex Printing Technology Portfolio

Delivers high quality, versatility of latex to industrial printing market

This week HP expanded its industry-leading portfolio of HP Latex Printing Technologies with the introduction of the HP Latex 3000 Printer, helping industrial print service providers (PSPs) produce high-value applications with improved productivity, quality and versatility.

HP also announced the rebranding of its HP Designjet and Scitex latex printers and printer ink supplies. The new sub-brand for these offerings is HP Latex, demonstrating the strategic importance of latex to the HP Large Format Graphics portfolio.

HP Latex Printing Technologies were introduced in 2008 as a water-based alternative to solvent ink technologies. Since then, more than 15,000 HP Latex printers have been shipped worldwide and more than 100 million square meters have been printed with HP Inks. HP expects these numbers to triple by 2016, with the number of latex-printed pages growing rapidly while the number of solvent-printed pages simultaneously declines by as much as 33 percent

The HP Latex 3000 Printer will help drive this growth, allowing a broader range of sign and display customers to shift pages from traditional solvent and UV-curable technologies to HP Latex Printing Technologies.

“Industrial print service providers constantly battle increasing competition along with shrinking timelines and budgets for big projects in this buyers’ market,” said Xavier Garcia, vice president and general manager, Large-Format Sign and Display Division, HP. “As the leader in large-format printing, HP is offering latex solutions that give our customers a unique advantage to cost-effectively address these challenges with new levels of productivity, quality and application versatility.”

Acknowledgements to HP News for this information.