Technology & Innovation Assignment

Anirban Chowdhury
SIBM, MBA-II, Operations
Roll No. 32269
 Technology & Innovation Assignment

Q1. Innovating the Content for a News Paper

New-papers, one of the oldest forms of sharing information and also one of the
oldest industries are facing a great threat from online information systems and 24X7
news channels. The traditional readers are moving towards newer avenues to seek
for information in the shortest time possible. Newspaper executives around the world
are scrambling at a solution to the new marketplace.

Newspapers existed at a time when information was scarce. They performed the role
of aggregating news (as well as creating it), and distributing it to the public through
expensive channels which could not be easily recreated.

In today's age, information is in abundance and is drowning out consumers - with a

distribution environment that is now cheap. Further, the role of news aggregation can
be done more efficiently through online tools. However this has caused a problem -
because in the value chain of online news, the aggregators are the ones that are
able to monetise the content. Because people don't have time to read all the news
now, they rely on aggregators that pull content from a variety of sources - and then
only click on stories that capture their attention. These aggregators can place
sponsored posts or advertisements alongside other articles, and so have found a
new way to monetise content in the 'click economy'.

For a newspaper to be successful in the market and capturing the attention in

people’s mind two parameters takes absolutely pivotal role. It should provide a rich
content backed by a wonderful look-and-feel.

Some Ideas that could possibly help newspaper to recapture the domination of the
overall information market by adding or modifying its content:

A four section daily paper with journalists and readers sharing and discussing
news together.

Section 1: a dynamic, definitive guide to local news featuring digests,

analysis, listings, links, columns and audience contributions; excerpts
and synopses of top content appearing elsewhere; and an annotated
guide to the top material concerning international, national, regional
and local news, sports, business and arts.

Section 2, the most important local, national, and foreign news, fully
updated and differentiated from earlier Web copy.

Section 3, an in-depth package that changes every day, which would
present serious, investigative, quality journalism, not available
anywhere else.

Section 4, all the expected features from crosswords to comics, plus
new ones including reader creations.

There should be a well articulated editorial which will discuss about the recent
burning issues from political, economic etc. and also “letters to the editor”
column basically to have a good feedback mechanism.

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An online information superstructure built around a double home page, with

an easy toggle back and forth: one screen for an orderly display of news and
other content, the other a portal-type screen offering a master index of
anything useful and appropriate for your audience, with more choices, more
services and a non-traditional license to experiment.

The newspaper should allow readers to customize their content. This is not a
new concept online. Personalized home pages, email alerts, RSS are all
commonplace across the web, and if not already should be integrated into the
online channel for the newspaper. This will not only help them better
understand what the readers are interested, and allow for better targeted
advertising, but will also make them better able to navigate the reams of
content available.

Another breakthrough innovation can be digital newsstands that would allow a

user to select from a menu, and have a custom paper printed off immediately
on authentic newsprint (like a soda machine that spits out a newspaper). Plus
advertising and print layout would be defined on the fly by software. Further -
give people a plastic 'remember me' card, so that they can use with other
electronic newsstands, of which get updated every time they make a change
(similar to an ATM). Once this is attained - next step is partnering with other
news organizations to share/combine content. (Give me the wall street journal
combined with Boise local business in one paper!)

A new, more conversational tone, both online and in print, including staff and
outside blogs, behind-the-scenes essays from staff members and a higher
proportion of analysis and explanation.

Archives and galleries with a more user-friendly format like Google or Yahoo!
that cluster content by precinct, neighbourhood or topics. Searches that index
advertising or searches programmed to answer questions such as where a
movie is playing.

Expanded interactive guides to movies, shows, concerts, galleries and other

arts, with amazon.com-like reader reviews and interaction.

Real-time online traffic and weather blogs.

Contests every day for the funniest, weirdest, most helpful or most outrageous
local images, audio and video.

There should be a poll everyday asking the readers opinion.

Tournaments, online and in-print, pitting local individuals and teams against
one another in solving puzzles, predicting sports or election outcomes.

Online book clubs and discussion groups on local sports, religion,

relationships and more.

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 Technology & Innovation Assignment

Original uploaded programming, in which readers Web-cam their

neighbourhood news, read political commentary, offer Leno-like stand-up
comedy bits on the news and debate key local issues.

A complaint forum, directed toward local government or business, in which

editors or audience choose which questions have merit and pose them to
local authorities.

A local records centre, providing agendas and minutes of every significant

meeting in your area; text or links to as many public records as feasible; and
company’s homemade community databases such as local sports stats, crime
maps, home values or restaurant menus.

Greater capitalization on the treasures of its archive; readers can develop and
download scrapbooks featuring every article, photo or other mention of
themselves and their families in your library; or publication and sale of special
in-depth or feature reports drawing on your archives and research capabilities.

A help-needed feature, a sort of super-classifieds, that lets readers pose

questions, seek products, evaluate services and possibly engage in
transactions from which you share the profits.

Moderated forums and advice segments for personal finance, health, travel
and other subjects.

New products and revenue sources: frequent-visitor points, premium services

(such as customized news delivery, conferences featuring star journalists, first
crack at ads and coupons, local discounts), neighbourhood magazines, daily
auctions (lunch with the editor!), grants from nonprofits, vastly upgraded
searching services and search-related ads, customized magazine and book-
length reports on key topics.

In addition to improving the delivery of news, computer and

telecommunications technology can improve the research and news gathering
process of newspapers. Unlike the one-to-many model where information
came from the top, news on the internet bubbles up from the bottom and
meanders its way upward. The daily reality of the many-to-many model
means the journalist has a chance to rally know and interact with his/her
audience that goes beyond traditional letters to the editor.

Staging regular creativity meetings throughout the news organization and in

the community.

Hosting an ongoing online suggestion box with prizes.

Announcing some cash prize to the readers to encourage them to design

something breathtaking which can be implemented in a word newspaper
should be connecting the readers thought process into making the
newspaper.

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 Technology & Innovation Assignment

To make the design of the newspaper to be attractive we should consider the

following factors:

Create hierarchy: Readers see at a glance what are the most important
stories on the page. Centerpieces anchor each page.

Create a Center of Visual Impact (CVI): More than 80 percent of readers

climb into the page through the lead image. Each page must have dominant
art. Almost all pages will have lead art from the lead story or the centerpiece.
CVI determines the news value of the page. If it is soft on page 1A, the entire
page will scream "soft news" to readers.

Organize: Because readers are in a hurry, information on the page must be

organized to avoid confusion. Make sure the design helps to highlight the
questions readers will have about this information.

Contrast: Successful pages will have vertical and horizontal elements. There
will be dominant and secondary elements. There will be lead and dominant
headlines and secondary heads.

Color: Color should be used to inform, not as window dressing. Best use of
color is in photos and graphics. Color also helps move the reader around a
package. Designers should have logic for use of color. Remember to use
restraint.

Typography: The more typefaces used, the more disorganized it is to

readers. Editors are encouraged to spend more time on what headlines say
than trying to decide what typeface to use.

Surprise the reader: Each day we should give readers a surprise --a head,
photo, story, page design or graphic -- that is so outstanding that they would
pass it along for another person to read. Design can enhance that surprise.
The secret: make it special.

Break the rules: Guidelines are made to be broken, but only for a valid
reason. If the rules are constantly broken, consistency goes out the window.
That ruins the impact of a visual surprise because there is no benchmark to
compare the surprise to for readers. Page designers are encouraged to take
risks with the basics. Don't be so predictable as to be boring.

Consistency: Keep things in the same place each day so busy readers don't
spend too much time hunting for information rather than reading.

Make it fun: Seek the opinion of other staffers and don't have a thin skin.
Simple yet dynamic design should result. Content is the most important part of
page design. Remember the goal with design is to get readers into the body
copy.

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 Technology & Innovation Assignment

Q2. Evolution cycle of printing technology

The pictorial
ictorial representation of the evolution cycle looks like:

We will talk about the printer technology evolution: then & now

In today’s society printers are used by many people on a daily basis, and they are, in
large
e part, taken for granted by most. If you think back to the early days of these
machines, though, you begin to see how this amazing technology has evolved
throughout the years. Printers weren’t always the speedy little machines that sit upon
our desktops today,
oday, not even close. In the early days, these printers were so large
that if placed on a desktop, it would break it in half! Not only that, but printing speeds
have greatly increased over the years along with the quality of the print, the
capabilities of the printers, and what could be the biggest difference between old
printers and new printers: the price tag.

The most influential invention ever in the printing business was the printing press
way back in the 1400s. We’ll start our journey back in time with
with the printing press,
and see how it has changed from the early days of manual printing presses to the
automatic machines that we use today. From there, we’ll look at the most popular
printers that we use today, and see how they started as expensive, bulky,bulky slow,
primitive machines, and how they have evolved into the complete opposite of that.

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 Technology & Innovation Assignment

It’s quite amazing to see how a machine, such as the first laser printers designed
specifically for consumers, began as a machine which had a price tag of over
￡1,500 and printed only 8 pages per minute (ppm), to laser printers of today which
cost a fraction of that price and print up to 200 ppm.

Printing process

Gutenberg Printing Press: As I mentioned earlier, the printing press is considered to

be the most revolutionary invention in the history of the printing industry. It was
invented in Germany by a goldsmith named Johann Gutenberg back in 1439. At the
time, this revolutionary invention greatly increased the speed at which books were
printed. By today’s standards, the process was still incredibly slow, though. These
wooden machines had to be manually operated, and even the ink had to apply to the
text-blocks manually.

Steam Printing Press: The design of the printing press remained largely unchanged
until the 1800s when a press made completely of cast iron was constructed. This
new press reduced the force required to print by approximately 90% while doubling
the size of the print size. Still, this new design was relatively slow only producing
about 250 prints per hour. It wasn’t until 1814 that the first automatic printing press
was constructed, and this printing press greatly increased the efficiency at which
newspapers and books were printed. This primitive press was powered by steam.

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 Technology & Innovation Assignment

Today’s printing presses are fully-automatic, digital presses that are capable of now
only printing an entire newspaper, but also folding it properly. They are capable of
using seemingly endless varieties of fonts and colours. The fastest digital colour
press in the world is the Xeikon 8000, which is capable of producing 230 A4 ppm in
true 1200dpi image quality. This translates into about 8.5 million pages per month.

Dye-sublimation Printers

Dye-sublimation Printers: Dye-sublimation printers are common in producing photo-

quality prints. The process works by transferring heat to a ribbon with 3 coloured
panels and a clear overcoat layer (cyan, magenta, yellow, overcoat layer). The
heated solid-state dye then turns into a gas, and it bonds to the printing material.

One of the first consumer Dye-sub printers that were created specifically to print
photos was the Fargo Foto-Fun Printer in the mid-1990s. This thing retailed for
approximately ￡, and it took a sluggish 2.5 minutes to print one photo at a maximum
resolution of 203 dpi. An equivalent dye-sub printer of today will produce better
quality photos (400 dpi+), is more than twice as fast as the original dye-sub printers
(approximately 1 ppm), and you can get a compact model, such as the HiTi BS-
ID400, for as little as ￡12. Quite a big difference in technology in a relatively short
period of time.

Photocopier

Xerox Model A: The first photocopiers were invented in the 1940s by a man named
Chester Carlson. He and a team of researchers later patented the term xerography,

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 Technology & Innovation Assignment

which was the process used to create copies with the photocopier. The Xerox
corporation was born, and the first ever Xerox machine was called the Model A,
which was a manually operated commercial xerographic printer. The Model A was
difficult to operate, and it required an incredible 39 step process to produce one
copy.

Xerox Model 914: It wasn’t until 1959 that the first automatic photocopier was
invented, the Xerox Model 914. The 914 could reproduce documents up to 9″ x 14″ –
hence the name Model 914. It took this huge machine about 15 seconds to warm up
and make its first copy, and then 7 seconds between subsequent copies. The Model
914 weighed a backbreaking 648 pounds, and its dimensions were 42″ x 46″ x 45″.
This huge machine was only able to manage 7 copies per minute, and it carried a
hefty price tag of just under ￡15,000.

Xerox CC275: Today’s photocopiers are digital rather than the older analog models.
This has a couple of advantages including automatic image quality enhancement,
and the ability to scan images once and then print out multiple copies instead of
having to rescan the image each time a page is printed. Xerox now sells both B/W
and colour photocopiers, with the more expensive colour models ranging to over
￡10,500. The Xerox CC275 will copy up to 75 ppm, which equates to about 300,000
pages per month. The first copy takes less than 3 seconds to be completed,
compared to 15 seconds in the Model 914. New photocopiers are also much lighter
than in the past, the CC275 only weighs about 300 pounds compared to over 600
pounds in the model 914. I’d say that Xerox copiers have come a long way in 50+
years.

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Laser Printer

HP Laserjet: This type of printer is common in today’s workplaces and is becoming

increasingly common in people’s homes as well. The reason that laser printers are
so popular is because they produce high quality prints at a very rapid pace, and
these printers tend to have a relatively long life span. Laser printers weren’t always
lighting quick, though. The first mass-produced desktop laser printer was the HP
LaserJet, which was released in March, 1984. While extremely innovative at the
time, this LaserJet doesn’t quite live-up to today’s laser printer standards. This
printer was capable of printing only about 8 ppm, and the print cartridge had to be
replaced every 3,000 prints. This prehistoric printer sold for an astounding ￡1,750
back in 1984. The LaserJet was popular, though, and HP celebrated 50 million sales
of this printer in 2000. The most innovative aspect of this printer was not its speed or
printing ability, but its quiet operation which was very different from other noisy
personal printers on the market.

HP P1005 LaserJet: Today, the fastest laser printers can shoot-out 200 B/W ppm, or
100 colour ppm – a far cry from the 8 ppm of the first LaserJet. Taking a look at a
more comparable laser printer to the original LaserJet, we see that desktop laser
printers have come a long way in 20+ years. The HP LaserJet P1005 desktop printer
is HP’s smallest laser printer – about half the size of the original LaserJet. This
compact little printer features a 266 MHz processor, 2 MB of memory, and can print
pages at a rate of 14 A4 ppm – almost twice that of the first-ever LaserJet. This
printer also has a longer duty cycle than the original at 8,000 printed pages. The
biggest difference between then and now is the price. The P1005 outperforms the
original LaserJet in every way, and yet it has a retail price of only about ￡70.

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Fax (Facsimile) Machines

Telecopier 200: As we all know, fax machines are used to transmit copies of
documents via the telephone network. Similar electronic transmission technology
has been around since the mid to late 1800s in a crude form, but modern fax
machines date back to the 1970s. The first laser, plain-paper fax machine was the
Telecopier 200, which was manufactured by Xerox Corporation in 1975. This bulky
fax machine could send standard A4 pages at 2, 3, 4, or 6 minute transmission times
that were selected by the operator based upon how high the quality the operator
wanted (ie: faster fax – lower quality). At the 6-minute interval, this fax machine could
produce prints with a resolution of 96 x 96 pixels. This analog fax machine worked by
using a laser and photoreceptor technique that was similar to how a laser printer
functions. While this fax machine could do a sufficient job of sending faxes, its size
was immense, and its transmissions were slow.

Xerox F110: Taking a look at an example of today’s fax machines, the Xerox
FaxCentre F110 is a £300 digital fax machine. This fax machine, like most today, not
only sends faxes, but it also scans documents, will make copies, and it can also
function as a printer. One of the biggest differences between old and new, is the
huge difference in size between the two machines. Where the Telecopier 200 was
almost the size of an ATM machine, the F110 weighs only 7.25Kg. Another huge
difference between the two fax machines is the fax transmission time, which on the
Telecopier 200 is a minimum of 2 minutes, and with the F110 it’s a blazing 3
seconds per page. The laser technology is also far more advanced in today’s fax
machines – the F110 is capable of printing at 600 x 600, compared with a maximum
of 96 x 96 in the first-ever laser fax machine.

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Inkjet Printers

HP DeskJet: Inkjet printers are the most common type of consumer printer on the
market today, and for good reason. They are inexpensive, produce quality imagery,
and they are relatively speedy. The same can’t be said for the original inkjets from
the late 1970s and early 1980s, as these were slow and didn’t produce very good
quality prints. One of the first mass-produced consumer inkjet printers was the HP
DeskJet in 1988. The original DeskJet didn’t print in colour, and it carried a hefty
initial price tag. This price seems expensive, but at the time it was the best value on
the market when compared to other inkjets. This printer was only capable of printing
1-2 ppm, and although it was small in size, it still weighed in at a hefty 14 pounds.
The original DeskJet was capable of printing at 300 dpi quality – not great, compared
with today’s standards.

Today’s DeskJets are head-and-shoulders above the originals in every aspect.

Some DeskJets can be purchased new for less than ￡40 – much cheaper than in
1988. One such printer is the HP Deskjet D2530. This printer will print in both B/W
and colour, and it will print either type at speeds of up to 16 ppm. It’s capable of
printing up to 1200 dpi images in colour, and it will accept a variety of paper sizes
including both 4 x 6 photo sized paper or standard A4. There’s also a huge size
difference between the old and the new. Today’s Deskjets weigh approximately 1/3rd
of the total weight of the original DeskJet.

Fine Art Digital Photo Printers

Digital Photo Printers: Fine art digital printing began back in 1991 in order to produce
high quality, large-sized photos such as posters and other artistic prints. A
pioneering figure in this type of artistic expression was Graham Nash (left in the
photo), who was one of the founding members of the British rock band Crosby, Stills,
Nash, & Young. Nash Editions produced many of the band’s large, artistic posters
and prints during the 1990s and beyond.

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The first true digital fine art printer was the Iris Graphics Model 3047 in 1989, which
carried an insane price tag of ￡40,000 and more. The printer was basically a large-
scale inkjet printer that printed A0 sized paper (841mm x 1189mm). The desired
image is stored on a 0.25 inch recording tape that is inserted into the tape reader on
the machine, and it is then printed out on paper process, and the inks that were used
with the Iris machine had a very poor lifespan in terms of light fading stability – often
times prints would start to fade within a couple of years. The Iris Graphics Model
3047 now resides in the National Museum of American History.

New printers, such as the Epson Stylus Pro 9800, have revolutionised the digital
photo printing industry. This 44 inch printer uses an 8-colour UltraChrome K3 ink,
which provides for some of the highest quality prints anywhere in the world. The 1
inch print head of the 9800 is twice as fast as previous models, and much faster than
that when compared to the Iris. This printer is capable of producing large-scale
colour prints at 2880 x 1440 dpi. The price tag of this printer is far less than the Iris
Model 3047 sold for, with a MSRP of approximately ￡4,500.

It’s easy to see how printers have evolved throughout the years, and how they
continue to increase their functionality while still managing to decrease in price year
after year. It’s hard to imagine where printing technology will be in 20 years! New
printing technology is already being developed to produce the next generation
printers that are capable of printing 3-dimensional objects. It seems that printing
innovation will soon be taken to the next level so stay tuned.

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Q3. Learning from Guest lecture by Dr. Arvind Chinchure

Current profile: General Manager-Innovations & Head - IP at Reliance Industries
Ltd.
Past profile:
 Team Lead at Honeywell Technology Solutions, Inc.
 Team Lead at Intellevate (Now part of CPA Global)
 Lead Scientist at General Electric (GE) Global Research, Bangalore, India
Education: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai (PhD in Physics) He
was also a visiting Scientist at the University of Oxford, Rutherford Appleton
Laboratory, Southampton University, Institute of Applied Physics (IAPD), Dresden,
Max-Plank Institute, Stuttgart & Dresden, and Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Zurich.
Prior to joining RIL, he was leading a team of IP Analysts at Honeywell Technology
Solutions.
Mr Chinchure, currently working at Reliance Innovation Leadership Centre (RILC)
Pune, India. RILC was established to support the Reliance Innovation Council (RIC)
headed by Dr. R. A. Mashelkar. The members of the innovation council include
Nobel laureates, leading professors and management gurus like Profs. Robert
Grubbs, C. K. Prahalad, Jean-Marie Lehn, George Whitesides, and Bill Hasaltine.

Contents of lecture:

The lecture was based mostly on the recent trends in the field of innovation and how
various companies today are focusing more and more on providing innovative
solutions to the customer. Also, Dr. Aravind talked about how companies today are
trying to make innovation as their competitive edge and sustain longer in the era of
short product life cycles using latest technologies and innovation

(a) India’s growing interest and advancement in the field of innovation

(b) Developing innovation ecosystem to produce better leadership
(c) Deploying best and next transformational innovative practices that will impact the
country and the business
(d) Using new technologies based on disruptive innovations to develop new business
models
(e) Evolution of innovation : Idea generation phase to product creation

Apart from the above topics he also talked about Zero cost diagnostics by professor
George Whitesides who is a chemistry professor at Harvard University. Dr.
Whitesides and his team have recently developed a prototype “paper chip” that is
capable of diagnosing multiple diseases simply with the application of a blood drop.
The coin-sized piece of paper acts very much like a comic book sheet does. When a
drop of blood is placed on the opposite side of the paper, it soaks up through the
paper and causes various diagnostic colours to show up on the “tree” in the front.
The position and shade of the colours can tell someone if they have a host of
diseases, ranging from HIV to malaria to tuberculosis to hepatitis to gastroenteritis.
The best part is it costs about a penny, which is essential to diagnostic medicine in
third world countries.
He also talked about various management & innovation gurus like WA Hasaltine,
R.Grubbs JM Lehn, RA Mashelkar and G.Whitesides and their contribution in this
field.

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