Gizmodo: inkjet

Casio PCP-1200 Photo Printer Has 7-Inch Touchscreen, Keyboard for Some Reason

Kit Eaton — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 06:52:00 EDT

This new photo-printer from Casio is one mixed-up gizmo: As well as standard photo-printing functions, it's got a 7-inch touchscreen and a full keyboard. So is it a mini computer with printer aspirations, or a printer with computing aspirations? Hard to say, but it's supposedly able to edit the photos you pop in from a memory card or mobile phone, and produce custom greetings cards, calendars and the like. And it comes with hundreds of built-in stamps and illustrations. You'd better be seriously into DIY greetings though: the PCP-1200 costs a whacking $500 in Japan. [Far East Gizmos]

Inkjet Ink Test: Manufacturer Brand vs. Cheapo Store Ink

Jason Chen — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:20:00 EDT

Trusted Reviews has a big investigation on inkjet printers and inkjet ink, and their year-long study comparing fading between more expensive manufacturer brand vs. the cheaper crappy brand shows that you get what you pay for. Over three months, the differences between the two were negligible, with pages only fading slightly (but noticeably) in quality.

When you got to twelve months, you got somewhere between considerable fade and severe fade, which makes the page no longer usable. The lesson here is that if you're printing out movie tickets for tonight, cheap ink is fine. If you're printing out photos from your trip to Japan, go for quality. [Trusted Reviews via Crunchgear]

Kyocera Inkjet Printhead Spits Out 1000 Pages a Minute

Sean Fallon — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:45:00 EDT

I can't say that I have ever been impressed by a printer, but the device they are cooking up at Kyocera could be a first. Their new KJ4 series printhead can churn out up to 200 meters per minute at 600 x 480 dpi, or 150 meters per minute at 600×600 dpi—which equates to about 1000 sheets of A4. After consulting a calculator, I determined that is nearly 17 pages a second.

It seems like paper would be shooting out of there like a Gatling gun, blanketing the office in a thick layer of spreadsheets and memos. However the KJ4 claims to pull it off thanks to its proprietary piezoelectric ceramics technology. It also features a 4.25 inch printline—the largest in its class. Look for the new printhead to go global starting in April. [7 Gadgets via 2dayBlog via Crunchgear]

Trak Mobile Inkjet Printer Concept Snaps Onto Laptop Lids

Kit Eaton — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 08:19:44 EST

Designer Hung Chih Wang thinks the inkjet printer market has room for an ultra-mobile concept: his "Trak" design is a mini printer that snaps onto the lid of your laptop. Handy for hardcopies on-the-go, it's small enough to be USB powered and even has a detachable print head for easy travel storage. There's no mention of how you keep the ink from spilling in your bag, but that should please those dollar-craving ink manufacturers, eh? [Yanko design]

Kodak ESP 3 All-in-One Printer Has Software Facial Retouch

Jason Chen — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 00:00:51 EST

The Pitch: Kodak's ESP 3 all-in-one printer, which has a nice black finish and a software feature for facial retouching with "one click" that "reduces blemishes" and enhances facial features. They also claim that it saves 50% ink when compared to similar inkjet printers.
The Catch: It's hard to tell exactly what the 50% ink savings means without comparing it to other printers ourselves, but the one-touch facial retouching is good if you're no good at photoshop (like me).

Scientists Serve Up Bluetooth Replacement in the Form of Inkjet-Printed Plastic Sheets

Sean Fallon — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:30:23 EST

Scientists at the University of Tokyo have developed a new 1mm thick plastic sheet inkjet-printed with various nanoparticles and insulating and semiconducting polymers that enables electronic devices placed on it to communicate with one another. A technology like this would have advantages over other means of short-range wireless communication (like Bluetooth) because it is inherently more secure and power efficient.

The team's goal is to develop a large-scale system that connects thousands of devices — a setup that would provide a wireless connection for a fraction of the cost when compared to current technologies. When combined with the wireless power sheets developed by the team earlier this year, it does look like a Bluetooth alternative that could be truly viable. [Technology Review via DVICE]

HP Uses Inkjet Tech to Replace Hypodermic Needles

Adam Frucci — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:30:42 EDT

HP has figured out a way to make their inkjet technology a bit more versatile: by getting it to inject drugs into humans. Yep, HP is looking to replace hypodermic needles with their inkjet technology in a method reminiscent of nicotine patches. HP is licensing a patch with up to 90,000 microneedles per square inch which could then inject drugs into a patient either over time or when certain conditions (i.e. blood pressure) are met. It would allow injections to be much more precise, which is good. Also, you wouldn't need to get injected with a big scary needle anymore, which would also be good. [ZDNet]

Epson Squirts Out Four High-End Stylus Pro Inkjet Priners

Jason Chen — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 14:14:48 EDT

Epson's latest line of Stylus Pro "Print Engines," better known to us as inkjet printers, have just been announced. The 4880, 7880, 9880 and 11880 all have their share of interesting features, such as the ability to hold a wine bottle's worth of ink in one cartridge.

The three lower models, 4480/7880/9880 all have an 8-channel print head, which shoots out a "variable-sized droplet" as small as 3.5 picoliters. On the large side, the 11880 can support 64-inch-wide paper, which is great for printing out banners showing how much you hate your job. And, the big boy has support for a pressurized ink cartridge that holds up to 700ml of ink. That's something like a wine bottle's worth of ink.

The other specs:
Epson Stylus Pro 4880
• 2880x1440 dpi max
• 8x10s between 50 seconds to 6:25
• 89lbs

Epson Stylus Pro 7880 and 9880
• 2880x1400dpi max
• 16x20s between 1:18 to 12:57
• 131lbs (7880) and 198lbs (9880)

Epson Stylus Pro 11880
• 2880x1440dpi max
• 16x20s betwen 1:18 to 12:57
• 250lbs

No pricing or availability info yet.

Kodak 10 Cents-a-Pop Printers Tested [Verdict: the Pops are Poop]

www.gizmodo.com — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 05:51:27 EDT

Remember Kodak's latest multifunction printers? The ones Kodak was all cocky about, claiming that they crushed the competition with amazing photos at 10 cents? Well, according to Popular Photography, it's all a big pile of steaming bull dung.

After testing the Kodak EasyShare 5300 against its HP, Canon and Epson counterparts, it seems that not only does the Kodak comes last in every single aspect, but it has no price advantage whatsoever, not even reaching the 10 cents per print mark. The final price per copy was 11.5 cents and the quality "was so low in color saturation that they could be deemed no better than 'draft' quality by professional or lab-print standards." If you use better-quality paper to get results comparable to the competition, the price soars to 37 cents.

Popular Photography has not tested the 100 years life of each copy, but after reading their article, I won't be waiting around to see if it's true or not. –Jesus Diaz

All-in-One Printer Shootout [Popular Photography & Imaging]

Kodak's First Big Printers in 5 Years: EasyShare 5100, 5300, and All-in-One 5500

Louis Ramirez — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 02:02:59 EST

It takes a lot for an all-in-one printer to grace the Giz's homepage, but Kodak's new line of AIOs deserve a little extra attention because of that cheaper, ever-lasting, and faster spitting ink we told you about earlier.

That's the 5500 above, the king of the road. It prints, scans, copies. It has PictBridge, memory card slots and a 2.4 inch LCD for editing on the spot, a fax, document feeder and duplexer. Cadillac style, man.

Then there's the 5100 and 5300.

Kodak EasyShare 5100
-$149
-prints, scans, and copies
-PictBridge-enabled
-32ppm in black and 22 ppm in color

Kodak EasyShare 5300
-$199
-same features as the 5100, but adds memory card slots and a 3-inch LCD for editing your photos

They'll be available in March. And I can't believe we have printer lust.–Brian Lam

Kodak's new printers [Kodak]

Kodak Invents Photo Ink That'll Last 100 Years

Brian Lam — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 01:11:23 EST

Just before I'm ready to go to bed, Kodak drops news we hinted at yesterday: Multifunction printers pumping a revolutionary ink through their nozzles that'll create prints with an archival life of 100 years, versus standard inkjet photos that go the way of toilet paper after 15. And the ink costs half the price. Half?! We should buy Kodak's new printers simply because they're not trying to fuck us on the cartridge sales.

In fact, all of your 4x6-inch prints will be a lot cheaper with the new inks averaging 10 cents per print. Meanwhile, letter-size black and whites will run about 3 cents per print. The inks themselves will be priced at $9.99 for a cartridge of black ink and $14.99 for a five-color cartridge. Kodak claims this is 50% cheaper than what you'd spend on say an HP, Epson, or Canon ink refill. So we checked out their prices and in all instances, the Kodak ink saves you a pretty decent amount of cash. Whether the quality is as good—that we'll have to see for ourselves, but analysts have said good things so far.

Oh, these printers are fast as hell, too. They'll shoot out your photos at the rate of 22 pages per minute.

PC World has product comparisons, but I like Business Week's writeup of Antonio Perez losing a power play to Carly Fiorina to run printer giant HP many years ago, landing at the distraught Kodak to find the lab geeks had invented the 100-year ink, considered the holy grail of the industry.

The new printers are detailed in this next post.–Brian Lam

Kodak Launches a Printer Offensive [BusinessWeek]
Kodak Announces New Multifunction Inkjet Printers [PC World]

How Does Jeep's Waterfall Show Work?

Jason Chen — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:50:24 EST

If you've been to any auto show with Jeep in attendance, you've probably seen that fancy waterfall thing they use to write the word "Jeep", "Toyota Sucks", and draw pictures. But how does it work?

Think of it as an ink-jet but with water that you can program patterns into. It's a bit less impressive than the Bellagio water fountain—this has 3000 valves as opposed to Las Vegas's twenty bajillion—but it's still pretty neat. We'd like one of these in our showers to get to the dirty spots we can't quite reach. You know, everywhere. – Jason Chen

Detroit Auto Show: How Jeep's Waterfall Works [Winding Road via Jalopnik]