Future Links February 10th

Managed print service partners positive on Xerox’ split
When Xerox will complete its split by the end of the year, it will not only affect the company itself but also managed print service (MPS) providers and other document specialists. In article on TechTarget, several MPS providers were interviewed and most asserted that the expected impact of Xerox’s division is likely to be positive.
More at Tech Target

EU requires new safety features on drug packaging
A new regulation will require prescription drug makers in all but three EU countries to incorporate new safety features on their product packaging by February 2019. Manufacturers will be required to place a unique identifier on the package, which includes a 20-character alphanumeric serial number, product code, batch number and expiry date, as well as national identifying or reimbursement numbers where required. Pharmaceutical companies in Belgium, Italy and Greece, however, will have until February 2025 to implement the serialization requirements because they are implementing similar requirements already.
More at RAPS

Drone captures data for 3D printed models
It sounds almost too easy to be true: Take a camera equipped drone, fly it around your neighborhood, send the data to a 3D printing service like 3D Hubs and obtain a model of the houses and gardens captured on film. Drone Deploy, a sophisticated piece of software manages to do just that and more. It can be used for 3D printed architectural models and terrain maps.
More at Visual News

Study looks at the future of retail advertising
Retail advertising is a major business for the print industry. Of the total spent on retail advertising, print accounted for about 37.5 billion UDS, not including in-store and out-of-home. Focusing on catalogues, circulars, newspapers, magazines and direct mail, PRIMIR (Print Industries Market Information and Research Organization), the research unit of NPES, has completed a new research study titled The Future of Retail Advertising.
More at Graphic Arts 

Puris 3D prints the largest titanium part for aerospace customer
Puris, a leading producer of titanium powder for 3D printing, successfully produced the largest, complex, 3D-printed titanium part for commercial use. The part was printed using ExOne binder-jetting technology and was processed to 100 percent density. The part was produced for an aerospace customer on the ExOne M-Print 3D printer at Puris’ Bruceton Mills plant under the direction of the Puris metallurgy team.
More at The Preston County News & Journal

Nulab transitions from silver halide to digital photo printing
For 150 years, silver halide has been the standard technology used in photographic print. Now, Nulab, a photographic printer based in Melbourne, Australia, says it is the first in the world to switch from silver halide to HP Indigo digital printing technology, with its new Enviropix media products. Nulab created Enviropix with the help of HP, and after 20 months of collaborating with physicists and color scientists from Israel, they have finally perfected the technology.
More at i-graphix

New on the drupa blog: Ecolean packaging takes a minimalist approach
Ecolean is a Swedish packaging company with a strong customer base in Asia. Its success is due to the popularity of its flexible packaging pouches and the growing demand for food packaging in general, especially in emerging economies. The company takes a unique approach to weight reduction: Its packaging film is made of 40 percent chalk blended with conventional PP and PE.
More in the article