I've long been talking to some of my colleagues in the print community that “printing other than ink-on-paper” is an important consideration for a future-minded printer. Increasingly, that is becoming the case in reality. Particularly with the increasing global cost of energy, a great deal of government research granting and funding is available to industries whom might develop what I have long touted as a missed opportunity for the print industry. This following link discusses one of the easiest potential opportunities for a print professional to look at when you think about what this might actually entail: http://on.msnbc.com/lWQ1e1 It is not a new theme to my contributions to implore printed electronics and ink-jet circuitry. In my half dozen or so articles on this topic I discuss a lot of technology that might apply to a printing company in a mindset of transitioning an expanding their market into electronics rather than publications. I discuss printed electronic displays, batteries, RFID, solar cells and other basic circuits that would have been made traditionally with boards, silicon and solder. Increasingly however as further incentives for fuel savings and energy costs bring into light the need for some of the simplest of circuits… Solar cells and batteries. Is it sexy to print something so mundane (large patches of photovoltaic ink or electrolyte and conductors) as to require little regard for pagination, shingling, stitching or lovely eye-popping color? Likely not from the standpoint of a traditional print professional, but it is when looked at through the eyes of a young venture-capitalist with a mindset to start a new business “printing” money, it is low hanging fruit. When “Finishing” becomes a verb for sealing and electronic testing rather than binding and trimming technology, we may forget that both products are methods of printing. While it may have been premature to think about when I first brought some of this up 6 or 8 years ago, this is real-world technology now, and once again, I implore the forward thinking printeries in our community to look into this potentially lucrative print product.