The team at IMMIJ Victoria have taken home the win in BJ Ball's Yupo prize draw. The competition drew more than 200 entries from around Australia, with the lucky winners bagging an expenses-paid trip to Japan and an exclusive guided tour of the Yupo Corporation head office in Tokyo.

Industry training initiative FuturePrint is off and running full steam ahead, with more 60 businesses already signed on and over a dozen apprentices already up and training. With a new website up, and these first ground level results in hand, FuturePrint is officially open for business.

Print guard, pic or pen - Heidelberg wants printers to have their say in an online video competition, and share their Speedmaster success story. Print shops are invited to "be unbeatable" by uploading a three minute clip of themselves with their Speedmaster and get in the draw to win a prize.

Budding authors out there should get writing, if the latest InfoTrends study is anything to go by the book market is looking at more than 40 billion extra pages over the next four years. According to the report, print volumes are tipped to grow by 1.2% by 2017, with book printing showing the largest gains.

Jim Henneberry has resigned from the position of Chief Executive Officer at Australian Paper after eight years with the company. Hirofumi Fujimori, the representative director of Australian Paper’s Japanese-based holding company, Nippon Paper, will take the role of acting CEO.

KD Printing packs its bags after more than 20 years and moves in with nearby Print Group Australia. The two Melbourne printers have joined forces as KD Print Group, a new 50/50 joint venture pooling their resources to beat down debt and push out into new markets.

Printing Industries has attacked Australia Post's proposed price hike as lazy and short-sighted, and liable to king-hit already weakened print mail volumes. Australia Post plans to raise the cost of stamps by 17%, up from 60c to 70c, in a bid to stem the $multi-million losses ravaging its regulated mail service.

Industry icon Group Momentum goes into administration after more than 30 years as a trendsetting business and digital pioneer. Administrators were officially appointed on January 29, and are currently working with the business to prepare for a meeting of creditors scheduled for February 10.

Richard Rasmussen, director of Ascent Partners, punches in with the first installment of his industry market watch for 2014. He kicks off the year with a detailed overview of business sales, acquisitions, mergers and closures, as well the latest equipment sold and installed throughout January.

Since 1992, the world has become familiar with Geoffrey Moore’s camel-hump “Chasm” diagram that eloquently describes how new technology innovations are diffused – unless they fall into the abyss shown during the ‘early adoption’ phase.

Manroland's struggling sheetfed business delivers a profit for 2013, making good on its hard road back from insolvency. The German offset press giant officially hit the wall in late 2011, before being picked up by British industrialist Tony Langley and gradually rehabilitated over the next two years.

Blue Star leaps off the page with the launch of its brand new augmented reality division, Blue Star Interactive. Blue Star Interactive is an Australian first to exclusively tackle the worldwide boom in AR, leading industry trends in the next generation fusion of print and digital communications.

HP pumps up its eco cred, as recent trials demonstrate Indigo prints are fully recyclable and can be placed in normal recycling collection. HP backs up its environmental targets with fully recyclable packaging for ink cartridges and an expansion of its take-back program for consumables.

Snap names national trade specialist CMYKhub as official manufacturing partner in Queensland. CMYKhub stepped up following the closure of Snap's Queensland hub in December last year, with the opening of a dedicated digital site supported by Snap Gold Partner, Konica Minolta.

Heidelberg's XL 75 Anicolor 'digital offset' press has emerged as the cost leader for 29" short-run work, beating out all four-up e-ink competitors in the field. The surprising results were drawn from the Printing Industries of America cost calculator tool, PrintAS, which determines a precise cost crossover point.

David Crowther is on hand at Colour Graphic Services to help printers meet the latest revision of ISO 12647-2, bring their systems up to scratch, win business and get serious about colour.