Class actions against Alucobond supplier Halifax Vogel Group (HVG) and its manufacturer 3A Composites and also Fairview Architectural have been instigated by legal firm IMF Bentham and William Roberts Lawyers on behalf of apartment owners in Sydney buildings. Wide Format Online publisher Andy McCourt has this report.

Independent industry researcher Image Test Labs (ITL) says it has achieved “a historic first in the printing industry” by configuring Screen’s flagship inkjet press, the Truepress Jet520HD, to deliver the image reproduction quality of a commercial sheetfed offset press over a production run of three miles (4.8km) of paper.

Epson has joined hundreds of US, Chinese and Japanese companies in requesting product exemptions from President Donald Trump’s plan to increase tariffs on another $300 billion of products from China - including printers and copiers - in the escalating US/China trade war. Epson has several manufacturing sites in China and, in its submission to the USTR, infers that is reviewing its manufacturing bases but that, since it owns most of its sites, relocation is not always feasible in the near-term.

This year’s PrintEx19 will include a sustainability solution from ABC Copier Solutions to deal with the growing problem of older equipment that's no longer required by Australian printing businesses. The service has already been adopted by major franchise groups including Kwik Kopy, Snap, Minuteman Press and Worldwide.

It’s End of Financial Year sales time and companies including Roland DG, Mimaki and Alfex Laser are offering big discounts on purchases made before 30 June.

SAi’s VirtualSign is a new app which creates a virtual representation of how signs will look in the real world.

US industry group The Specialty Graphic Imaging Association (SGIA) – represented in Australia by the SGIAA – says sustainability will be a focus at this year’s new Printing United trade show - formerly known as the SGIA Expo - in Dallas, Texas (October 23 - 25). 

The Hexis Battle Wrap competition at Printex Sydney 2019 will offer installers a chance to win a trip to the SEMA trade show in Las Vegas later in the year.

Epson says the new textile solutions centre called TSC Asia at its plant in Nagano is designed to “accelerate the global expansion of the digital textile printing business.”

The new EFI Cretaprint Hybrid Ecosystem, to be launched this month at the Ceramics China trade show, enables switching between eco-solvent and water-friendly inks.

The new 150,000 square feet centre – about the size of three football fields - brings together hundreds of the world’s leading additive manufacturing experts and is aimed at “accelerating the transformation of industries with world-class R&D, engineering, co-development and sustainable innovation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

The new Avery Dennison MPI 3300 Easy ApplyTM Series can be used in a variety of short-term indoor and outdoor applications that require fast and consistent application of the graphic to the substrate.

Melbourne’s Exotic Graphix handled the design process from start to finish on the new Tesla Model X that joins the Victoria Police Highway Patrol Command as part of a feasibility study into electric cars.

Fuji Xerox NZ managing director Peter Thomas has confirmed that Japanese parent Fuji Xerox was considering selling its New Zealand subsidiary earlier this year before the government lifted the company's suspension from government printing contracts, according to a report in The New Zealand Herald.

Following on from recruiter James Cryer’s article on getting to students at high-school level about careers in Signage and Display, there is a website that all sign businesses should be aware of and that is www.signcareers.com.au.