“It was a natural progression from our Roland XC-540, which it will replace,” said Group 101 managing director James Sahota. “Roland do a lot of things really well, like loading the roll from the rear, the VersaWorks RIP and also reliability. For the next few years I won’t need to do anything, I don’t need to start thinking that in a year’s time I will need new heads or schedule some maintenance,” said Sahota. The eight-colour XR-640 has a maximum resolution of 1,440dpi. It can be configured CMYK plus Lc, Lm, Lb and white or metallic silver or CMYK plus Lc, Lm, and white and metallic silver. “I haven’t finalised the ink configuration yet, I’m going to go away and think about what which way I want to move,” said Sahota. The 1,625mm-wide XR-640 was launched last September and has a list price of £20,999 plus £2,499 for the heaters. It’s capable of 21.6sqm/hr in “production mode”. Group 101’s machine was sold through Roland reseller Signmaster Systems and will be installed next week. As well as the XR-640, the company bought a refurbished Agfa Anapurna M1600 roll-to-roll printer earlier this year as part of Sahota’s growth strategy for the Thurrock-based business. The company was founded six-years ago in Sahota’s spare bedroom, when he was a graphic and industrial design teacher/lecturer. Today the business employs five staff and has sales of £500,000. “We’re confident we can grow and one day I want to come to a show like Fespa and buy a machine like the HP Scitex FB10000, for me there’s no limit and I’m dreaming big.”...

The augmented reality application has been co-developed with interactive media specialist Kangaroo, and uses HP’s Aurasma app and is on show on stand F66N. Live content plays when the t-shirt is viewed via a tablet or smartphone using Kangaroo’s implementation of the app. Potential applications include branded t-shirts at music gigs, with added-value extras such as album tracks or video available to those who purchase a garment. “A lot of young people will access media in this way, because they’ve grown up through apps,” said Kangaroo director Sonny Sharma. Separately, Magic Touch managing director Jim Nicol said demand for transfer printing onto binders and hard surfaces had “gone berserk.”...

The Viper can print on products up to 300mm in height, which, said the vendor, accommodates most printable objects. With a speed of 80 seconds per bed of parts, the printer is designed for runs of at least 20,000 products. It’s UV curing technology is designed to enable printing of sensitive plastics. “Speed is the especially exciting feature of this machine,” said Tamara Vroomen, print specialist at Bergstein. “But it also has ionization to reduce static and so misplaced spray of ink, and very easy to use software.” The Viper is priced at £120,000....

Created by UK POS with an undisclosed Chinese partner company, the transparent acrylic signage range is aimed predominantly at the retail and hospitality industries. The signs are made to order and customers are able to specify lettering and visual designs that will be etched into the cut acrylic sheets and illuminated by a plain or coloured LED bulb sited within chrome wall mounts. The acrylic sheets, which are cut to size and etched at UK POS’s Manchester facility, are available in a wide range of thicknesses to a minimum depth of 2mm. The wall mounts with incorporated LED bulbs are assembled in China. Meanwhile the 45-staff £8m turnover company, which produces signange for the likes of Selfridges, B&Q and Morrisons, hinted at a major expansion on the horizon at its UK facility....

The augmented reality application has been co-developed with interactive media specialist Kangaroo, and uses HP’s Aurasma app and is on show on stand F66N. Live content plays when the t-shirt is viewed via a tablet or smartphone using Kangaroo’s implementation of the app. Potential applications include branded t-shirts at music gigs, with added-value extras such as album tracks or video available to those who purchase a garment. “A lot of young people will access media in this way, because they’ve grown up through apps,” said Kangaroo director Sonny Sharma. Separately, Magic Touch managing director Jim Nicol said demand for transfer printing onto binders and hard surfaces had “gone berserk.”...