An updated budget automatic packaging machine that offers substantial cost savings over traditional chamber and semi-automatic solutions can wrap items up to almost any size in length. Wrapid Packaging Systems, a European leader in the distribution of end-of-line equipment, is promoting an updated budget automatic packaging machine that offers substantial cost savings over traditional chamber and semi-automatic solutions The Compacta Trend, is an updated version of an earlier model and is available from as little as GBP 20,000

Side sealing, the Trend can wrap items up to almost any size in length, typical applications include 7 metre long profiles such as pipes and guttering.This level of versatility makes it suitable for packing a wide range of awkward shaped items including skis, candles, timber, jigsaw puzzles, CDs, magazines, egg boxes and numerous related items. Operating at speeds of up to 20 packs per minute, depending on the actual product, it offers a secure seal making it ideal for applications where security and tamper evidence are also of paramount importance.At the core of the Trend's flexibility is its ability to randomly pack a wide range of different sized products, with the minimum of adjustment.
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Southern Automatic Machinery to Host Fall Atlanta Laundry Equipment Show

Southern Automatic Machinery Company (SAMCO) will host its 2008 Fall Open House at its Atlanta, GA facility. Held Wednesday, September 17th, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., this event will celebrate the commercial and on-premise laundry industries with a full day event featuring product displays, service and industry seminars, special one-day pricing and more. The SAMCO Open House is an informative and enjoyable event that Laundromat owners from throughout the South look forward to every year.

Factory technicians from Dexter Laundry will be conducting service school training with special sessions focused on coin-op washers in the morning and the complete range of Dexter coin-op dryers in the afternoon. Also on hand will be representatives from the Coin Laundry Association (CLA), Dexter Financial Services, Standard Change Makers, American Changer, Vend Rite, Gas South and many others. Attendees can take advantage of special one-day-only discounts on scratch and dent items, soap and Dexter parts, and also to register to win one of several prizes including a new Dexter 50lb Express Big Stack. This event will be held at Southern Automatic Machinery Company's headquarters at 3800 Camp Creek Pkwy, Bldg 2400, Ste 118 in Atlanta, Georgia.
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World's first automatic motorcycle washing machine

Moto Express claim their contraption will clean your bike in five minutes flat. BORED WITH having to wash your bike the conventional way? How about this for another labour-saving device from the land of free, fat and lazy (or America, if you'd prefer).

The automatic motorcycle washing machine is called the Moto Express and the makers claim that it can do what would take all afternoon in around five minutes from start to finish. It sounds good in principal, but we're betting it's nowhere near as good as cleaning the wheel rims as we are with our collection of toothbrushes and tar remover. No 21: The 2007 Import and Export Market for Seaweeds and Other Algae in France. No 25: Oculocutaneous Albinism - A Bibliography and Dictionary for Physicians, Patients and Genome Researchers. The 2007-2012 Outlook for Chinese Prawn Crackers in Japan (which was mentioned in this space last week) is Parker's 66th-best seller. Rounding out the list, at number 100, is The 2007-2012 Outlook for Edible Tallow and Stearin Made in Slaughtering Plants in Greater China. Parker is also enthusiastic about books authored the old-fashioned way. He has written three of them.
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Automatic writing

When a professor invents a machine that writes books, and then uses that machine to write more than 200,000 different books, there arises the question, "Why?"Philip M Parker, a professor of management science at Insead, the international business school based in Fontainebleau, France, patented what he calls a "method and apparatus for automated authoring and marketing". Turn to page 16 of his patent, and you will see him answer the "Why?" question.

Parker quotes a 1999 complaint by the Economist that publishing "has continued essentially unchanged since Gutenberg. Letters are still written, books bound, newspapers printed and distributed much as they ever were." "Therefore," says Parker, "there is a need for a method and apparatus for authoring, marketing, and/or distributing title materials automatically by a computer." He explains that "further, there is a need for an automated system that eliminates or substantially reduces the costs associated with human labour, such as authors, editors, graphic artists, data analysts, translators, distributors, and marketing personnel."
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Warning Issued On Automatic Baseball Pitching Machines

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) today issued an urgent warning to purchasers and users of certain automatic baseball pitching machines of the potential for severe bodily injury which the machines present. The machines are labeled as follows: "Blazer (Champ)," the "Professional," "Range, " "Pro-Trainer (Olympia)," and/or the "Dudley Automatic Pitching Machine." They were manufactured by Commercial Mechanisms, Inc., of Spring Park, Minnesota, and Kansas City, Missouri. The Commission has two reports of permanent and severe brain damage resulting from these machines. There are about 18 other injuries including brain concussions, severe lacerations and severe facial disfigurement.

About 5,000 of these machines have been distributed throughout the United States to schools, colleges, clubs, recreation departments, and other athletic organizations. They were manufactured from 1963 to 1975.The Commission is asking consumers who have access to or know the location of a machine to call tie U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's toll-free hotline 800/638-2772.The pitching machines have rotary pitching arms propelled by a gasoline engine or electric motor which powers a gear, pulley and tension spring mechanism.