Printers are boring! OfficeMax has a color laser printer for $130, though, which is NOT boring since color laser printers normally go for a bajillion dollars. → Read More
As if it weren’t enough that we have useless features on our point-and-shoots, now we have to have them on our printers as well. First of all, the idea of taking my photos, editing and adjusting them, doing red-eye reduction and so on in-camera, then printing them out on the spot is so ridiculous that I can’t even convince myself that it’s done by anyone on this green Earth. A screen on the printer seems so superfluous a feature, and such an expensive one, that I can’t believe it is being touted as a positive. Enjoy slideshows on your printer! It sounds like a fake ad. Nevertheless, these crimes against nature will be available from Sony in April. → Read More
Ask any geek of a certain age and predilection what they dreamt of back in high school and they’ll say, in order, a date to the prom and a color laser printer. Now that everyone with $100 and a pulse can get a fairly nice inkjet printer, Samsung is offering the CLP-315, a $184 color laser printer that is about as big as a standard all-in-one printer but with the added benefit of printing at high speeds and in vibrant color. → Read More
I’m not one to get overly excited about the technology behind transportation logistics (or am I?) but this thing from HP looks pretty cool. It’s basically a handheld wireless-enabled barcode scanner that can also print quick-drying ink directly onto boxes. So if you work at, say, UPS, you scan a box coming in, that info is transmitted wirelessly to your warehouse servers, and then you print another barcode or “FRAGILE” or some other message onto the package itself, all in the blink of an eye. Check out this video to see it in action. [via Treehugger] → Read More
Hewlett-Packard has two new inexpensive photo printers in the $149 Photosmart A630 (seen above) and the $99 Photosmart A530. Both printers are capable of printing out photos up to 5×7 inches in size, which should please those of you who find 4×6 photos to be pedestrian and boring now. The A630 also features a 4.8-inch touchscreen, which is pretty large for a compact printer. → Read More
Don’t expect this new ink to be hitting a printer near you any time soon, but I found it reassuring that the companies in charge aren’t just sitting back and letting the cash roll in. They are, in fact, hard at work on new ways to make money. The latest advance is this gel ink, which, not being water-based, will keep its place and shape on nearly any surface. There’s already printing on nearly every surface you can see, but you’ll find they’re often coated in something, or actually covered in a vinyl, or wrapped in a thin layer of special plastic. This new ink will cut out the middle man and allow them to print directly onto foil, untreated cardboard, and so on — the way they like it. It’s still “in the research phase” but it looks real enough. Looks kind of sinister, actually. → Read More
In the interest of making printing even easier, Canon will release or has released the Selphy CP770, a bucket-shaped printer. The printer, says the presser, should make printing fun for the “whole family.” → Read More
Hold on to your hats as we blast face-first into the whimsical world of laser printers! Samsung has announced the world’s smallest laser printers. That’s right, plural, as in two of them! I don’t know, Samsung. They still look kinda big, unless those girls are both in kindergarten and sitting on a tablet of Advil. Anyhoo, the CLP-315K (pictured on the right) does 16ppm black and 4ppm color at 2,400 by 600 dpi and the CLX-3175FNK (pictured on the left) handles scanning and faxing. It’s got a USB port that allows you to scan directly to USB memory sticks. Cool. Not quite sure about prices or availability yet, unfortunately. → Read More
Here’s an interesting development: Kyocera is building a new KJ4 series print head that can print at 150 meters per minute at 600×600 dpi, which equates to about 1,000 sheets per minute. Check your box for your current printer’s speed and be amazed. The head should go into printers next month. Kyocera uses ceramic piezoelectronics to make this 4-inch head squirt out ink faster than a squid at a calamari festival. Sorry for that last joke. It’s early. → Read More
[photopress:xeroxtools.jpg,full,center] Xerox, the textbook definition of “metonym,” wants to guilt-trip you into ditching your [apparently] environmentally devastating printer for one of its own, which are powered by sugar and spice and everything nice. To further its goal, the Norwalk, Conn-based corp has released a slew of online tools to help you determine how much you’re killing Mother Earth with your printer. How much ink is used per printed page, how much energy is consumed, etc. It’s all tallied up and output to a pretty graph like that one up there, which you can later trade with your friends to see who’s greenest. Personally, I like how Bits asks, “How Green Is Your Printer?” My answer, straight out of Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions, is “Who gives a damn?” The redder the better, I say. I do believe Armand Van Helden addressed the environment 10 years ago with his song “Mother Earth,” long before it was de moda. → Read More
Yes, even though PMA ended on Saturday, we’re still digging news out of the show. Here’s a good one for any photographer considering buying one of HP’s well-reviewed — including in this publication — wide-format Z-Series printers which are seeing some significant price cuts. Usually this means a new model is on the way, but after meeting with HP at the show, this doesn’t seem to be the case. The way it was explained to us, the lower prices are being offered as an alternative to the previous mail-in rebate program which many people find annoying. (Including us!) The new price breakdown on these big printers from HP is below. Dan Havlik is Technology Editor at PDN Magazine and Editor of DemystifyingDigital.com. For more professional photography news, visit PDNonline.com. → Read More
Don’t push me, ’cause I’m close to the edge Some Korean designers designed this hanging printer with a full paper carriage that hangs over your desk and only the print head and roller sit on the desk. It’s not real and no one will ever ship it, but it sure is pretty. Hang on for dear life [Yanko] → Read More
[photopress:T054020.jpg,full,center] I’ve never much cared for the modern computer printer’s business model. In short, the idea is to push cheap, craptacular printers on the masses, then use them as a loss leader to make money on the ink. This works because printer ink, much like oil, is a commodity that has a per-barrel price. This price fluctuates, and that makes traders money. Sadly, the price is rising, and it has just topped $1000 a barrel for the first time, ink has been trading since 1964. This means we’ll see prices of computer ink increase across the board. Seeing has how expensive the crap is now, this is in no way a good thing, unless you’re a commodities broker or trader, in which case you’re going to hell. Printer ink tops $1000 a barrel [New Biscuit] → Read More
Shame on you, Staples and HP! Lull us into a false sense of security with your hilarious Easy Button and not hilarious celebrities’-hands-doing-stuff commercials while you pull the wool over our eyes with your printer ink price-fixing. I feel violated, although that might have nothing to do with this HP/Staples stuff. These are all allegations at this point, so let’s not get too bent out of shape but a man in California is suing HP and Staples for breaking antitrust law, claiming that HP offered Staples "at least $100 million worth of ‘market development funds’ and incentives, in exchange for an agreement to stop selling third-party HP-compatible ink cartridges. According to the lawsuit, Staples then used HP’s exclusivity to raise prices on the HP cartridges it offered." → Read More
HP has unveiled a new printing technology, called CloudPrint, that allows you to upload documents to HP’s servers in PDF format and then print them anywhere in the world. You send the file through the free service and receive an SMS with a “pick-up” code. You can then go to any Cloudprint printer — HP provides a handy map — and type in the code to print your document. This seems a little silly and overwrought to me. A number of technologies — the keyboard, the web browser, and the $2/hour cyber cafe — makes the concept irrelevant. While I can see the value of “printing” a document on your mobile browser to a distant printer, is this really the way to do it? It currently doesn’t even support mobile devices and the “I have to really print this now” market probably consists of two or three uptight business travelers. Your thoughts? HP invents printing for your mobile [Tech.co.uk] → Read More
Going after small businesses and home offices who desire an affordable network-ready tool, Canon has announced the imageCLASS MF4270 laser multifunction printer. The MF4270 is lightning quick and will spew out 21 pages-per-minute. Like whoa! Try to contain your excitement because I’m trying very hard to contain mine. It also prints duplex output directly from your PC, incoming faxes and copies letter-sized documents. The MF4270 even scans in 24-bit color at 9,600dpi! The imageCLASS MF4270 MFP provides a vigorous fax solution in a compact desktop design featuring eight one-touch speed dial numbers, 100 coded speed dial numbers, 256-page memory capacity, PC Faxing, and two-sided duplex output. The imageCLASS MF4270 uses a 33.6 Kbps Super G3 fax for rapid transmissions. All of this can be yours for $299 starting next month. → Read More
