THE NEWS IN PRINT

We all know that in order to be productive at work, your workspace needs to be comfortable, relaxing, and even a little bit fun - but these offices take it to the next level. Does your office have a 3 storey high twisty slide, a full home theatre setup equipped with a PS3, a swimming pool, a fully equipped recreation room, or a full gourmet kitchen for when you get hungry?

If not, then check-out some of these ultra-cool offices that do have all of these sweet features. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't mind living in some of these offices. Maybe you can use it to persuade your boss to make some changes around your boring, cubicle-laced office? You never know. At least then you'd have no problem logging-in some extra overtime hours at work!

Xerox has produced a revolutionary ink that disappears after a certain amount of time. The technology is based on photosensitive paper exposed to UV light. While the paper can be reused similar to a DVD-RW or a CD-RW, the energy saved per print is significantly notable. Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) has been instrumental with this research.

The photosensitive paper turns dark when exposed to UV light and hence the print. The print stays until 16 hours and before 24 hours, the paper is blank as new. Also, if there is a need to erase the prints before the stipulated time, the paper can be run through an eraser that could do the job at any desired hour.

This paper can be rewritten hundreds of times. It becomes unusable if it gets crumbled or damaged.

Printing on a letter sized paper takes around 2000 joules with a normal inkjet printer. The similar print can be achieved on a photosensitive paper at 1000 joules, thereby saving energy by 50%. There's more, if the print is allowed to fade away naturally, it takes 100 joules to reprint; that's 95% of total energy savings. Wow!

Many prints taken at offices like emails, memos, minutes etc are meant for a short duration of time; its meant to be read and trashed. Instead, photosensitive paper can be used at minimal energy and reused, thereby saving paper.

This technology is currently in the research phase and researchers from PARC say that it might take a few more years for the technology to be viable commercially.

via News

If man can achieve printing on human skin through tattoos, there isn't a speck of a doubt that he can invent gadgets to print on any matter including water. Well, the water part hasn't been achieved as yet, but, there are other improbable mediums that have been achieved so far like....

A printer has been built and integrated with a robot to print on ping pong balls with absolutely no human intervention. It basically contains a hopper that acts as ping pong ball storage. When the print command is executed, one ball is ejected from the hopper through an injecter. The ball is placed on a pedestal that rotates. A printer head duly prints on the ball as the pedestal rotates. When the printing job is complete, the ball is removed off the pedestal by its tilting action.

The printer head's movement is limited latitudinally. As the ball rotates, the printer head moves to the right position and prints accordingly. The printer head used is Parallax, a Hewlett-Packard Specialty Printing Systems subset.

The Ping Pong Ball Printer project is headed by Vern Graner and assisted by Rick Abbott, both belong to the Robot Group.

Check out the video that shows the ping pong ball printer in action.

Space is a commodity that most don't like to compromise upon. With printers, we have often mentioned the compactness or the bulkiness as a feature for weighing them. All homes and offices look for printers that are compact and yet, to do what is expected of them.

Well, when it comes to space savers, we have witnessed the emergence of LCDs over CRTs over the years and many such up gradations on devices. Printers also have seen some compact ones, but nothing spectacular to throw everybody off gear. Printer needs a minimum space to feed A4 sized paper and to carry those print heads and the cartridges or toners.

Here's a concept that's gonna yank-a-doodle-doo everyone. A printer which hangs off the desk with only the paper feeding mechanism and the printer head sitting on the desk while the rest are shoved beneath the desk. The designer has done away with projections by using embedded LCD for displaying statuses.

Neat concept and tidily done. But, will it work? I don't know but my head says 'no' while my heart says 'this could work'.

via Yanko Design

The evolution of printers has seen printers with no buttons on them to the introduction of a LCD screen and a few menu buttons to choose different options. Japanese have the tact to frame a new set of standards since the Second World War and this time round, it just confirms the fact.

Casio has introduced a printer, PCP-1000, which has a LCD screen as big as a regular monitor. The diagonal dimension of the LCD screen is a mind wrecking 7"; other printers usually have LCD screens somewhere between 1.5" and 3". This isn't the only striking feature, but PCP-200 and PCP-1000 also come with a keyboard. The printer looks like a printer that comes with an attached computer.

Users can edit photos on the printer, add subtitles using the keyboard and create postcards through templates. The keyboard comes in handy for entering addresses and messages on postcards. In very basic sense, it eliminates the need for a computer to alter the photographs, adding captions and any other image editing actions.

The PCP-1000 which has a 7" LCD screen costs around £275 while the smaller version of PCP-200 which has a 3.5" LCD costs £200. These printers are currently available in Japan and will soon be introduced in the rest of the world including UK.