According to IDC, W. European printer and multifunction (MFP) shipments are down by -5.8% Y-o-Y to reach 4.6 million units in Q1 2019, while revenues total $2.5 billion, a decline of -4.1% Y-o-Y.

"The decline shown in Q1 2019 was in line with expectations and the markets and this negativity is likely to be reflected throughout 2019, but there will be some growth from some segments," the analyst says. "The hardcopy markets are still very valuable to many OEMs and some traditional markets such as monochrome and inkjet are still very sizable even if they are declining."

Epson announces the DS-970 and DS-870-- a pair of colour duplex document scanners designed for busy and high-volume workgroups, with the DS-970 being the first from the company to offer scanning speeds of up to 85 ppm/170 ipm.

According to Epson, the DS-970 also ofers a peak duty cycle of up to 9000 sheets, while the DS-870 scans as fast as 65 ppm/130 ipm with a peak daily cycle of up to 7000 sheets. Both scanners feature a 100-page automatic document feeder for high-volume batch scanning, and help customers scan, organise and upload documents ranging from mixed stacks of business and ID cards to long documents and folded pages.

Researchers at the University of Michigan have come up with a novel approach for 3D printing-- solidifying liquid resin using the power of light, in a system claiming to be up to 100 times faster than conventional processes.

The light-based system literally lifts complex objects from a vat of liquid. To do so, the researchers use two lights to control where the resin hardens and where it remains fluid, allowing them to solidify the resin into more sophisticated patterns. The creation of a regions with no solidification allows the use of thicker resins (potentially with strengthening powder additives) for the production of more durable objects.

EveryonePrint announces the subscription-based Hybrid Cloud Platform (HCP)-- an all-in-one cloud-based print platform for channel partners bringing a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model to printing infrastructure.

According to the company, the HCP allows customers to seamlessly migrate existing on-premise print environments to the cloud, allowing users to deploy and manage the entire printing infrastructure from a single web-based UI. Available as either hosted SaaS platform or an on-premises private cloud, the solution comes complete with full data encryption and built-in auditing to help customers protect data, track documents, manage risk and achieve compliance. Integration with cloud-based authentication providers enables role-based permissions.