Frank Romano:  Hi there.  This is Frank Romano with WhatTheyThink.com.  Well, welcome back to another year, whatever this is.  Another cartoon found by Dov Isaacs, I love this one.  It shows a person trying to sleep on a park bench covered by a laptop computer and he says, "I miss newspapers."  I never figured out how newspapers somehow kept you warm, but maybe that is the case.

Some of you may have seen the latest Sherlock Holmes movie, which by the way I recommend.  It's very interesting, exciting and it tries to keep some of the genre alive by introducing a new level of violence that perhaps we never saw in Sherlock Holmes before.  But it's interesting that the logo that they use is hot metal.  This is the one you'll see in all the promotions and in the trailer and in the opening credits.  Now what's interesting is, it's hot metal type but it's its white reading.  Now you know that that's not how you print it.  It would have to be backwards.  I was curious what font it was and so after some research, I discovered it is Clarendon.  It probably is the URW version of Clarendon, although many of the Clarendons are pretty much consistent in their design. 

Scott Tilden sent me a list of the best and worst jobs in America that was compiled by the Wall Street Journal.  It was 200 best and worst jobs.  The top six were actuary, software engineer, computer systems analyst, biologist, historian - I'd be good at that one, mathematician - I wouldn't be good at that one.  He found some interesting anomalies.  Paralegal assistant rated higher, number seven, than attorney, which was number 80.  An attorney was very close to janitor, which by the way was also very close to public relations executive.  A compositor/typesetter was at 146.  I don't even know if there are any compositor/typesetters anymore.  Aren't we just typists nowadays?  Teacher was at 116, not far from sewage plant operator.  Corporate executive, Senior, 133 and immediately before, undertaker which was 134.  Newspaper reporter was 184, in between seaman and stevedore.  What Scott observed was that reporter at 184 had a starting salary of $20,000 and roustabout, which was the last one, 200, had a starting salary of $21,000.  So the world is changing.

There was an article on Routers the other day that Heidelberg is seeking a partner for a digital printing business; didn't make this up.  The German business newspaper Handelsblatt reported it recently.  It said "digital printing is becoming an interest", I'm sorry, the quote from Heidelberg is, "Digital printing is becoming interesting again."  Oh, let's see, it was interesting then it stopped being interesting and now it's interesting again.  "As a rather stable business", oh I see.  It was instable before and now it's stable.  "Heidelberg is looking for a partner and has looked at, among others, NextPress.  Well, wait a minute.  They were half of NextPress, so definitely they should look at it.  They had a lot to do with what NextPress became.  Which by the way is a very good system.  I mean, well designed as a system to be on the plant floor next to a printing press because that's how it really was designed, as a printing press.  But it says they're talking to NextPress, which is Kodak, and other companies.  They're looking for either a joint venture or a stake in a digital printing company.  Well, how are you going to get a stake nowadays?  You're not probably going to buy in to Xerox at this stage.  Canon is merging with Oce', that's probably not going to happen.  So you really don't have a whole lot of choices out there at this stage of the game.  It'll be very interesting to see what Heidelberg comes up with.  And then they will have to start re-promoting digital printing and admit that they were wrong in getting out of the business, although that wasn't entirely their fault.  It was that gigantic conglomerate that owned them, that technically made them get out of the digital printing business.

Lastly, you've heard the rumors.  There's lots of stuff going on about the new iTablet, they think that's the name of a new Apple device that's going to be somewhere beyond the Kindle but below a tablet computer, if you will.  It'll probably be a flat screen.  The Wall Street Journal thinks it'll be ten inches diagonal.  There are lots of rumors out there, but I have for this very audience, because you are a subscriber to WhatTheyThink.com, you're going to get a first look at the new Apple iTablet.  You ready?  Here we go.  Yeah, see the code name for it was Newton and it leaked out several years ago and they made it then because they wanted it to come back so they could surprise everyone with a new introduction.  So somewhere at the end of January, they will be announcing it and somewhere toward the end of March they will be shipping it and it may or may not have the name Newton on it by the way, but it will be a tablet computer.  Whether it will take your handwriting and translate it into type, we're not sure, but we know that it will play videos and probably do everything the iPhone does.

So remember you saw it here first and that’s my opinion.  Take care.  One of the things I think we have to do is talk to these people very carefully, very sincerely.  We have to say to them all of you are stupid.