THE NEWS IN PRINT

We've all been there. You're stuck in the middle of a new design or layout with a shade on in mind that you would like to use as part of the design. The problem is you are struggling to convert the thoughts in your (rather drained) brain to the technical hex code that is understood by Photoshop. My goodness, at times I wish my computer was capable of directly taking the thoughts in my mind and translating into whatever code it needs.

Xerox has set out to make this real as revealed when they filed for a patent called 'Natural Language Color Editing'. This technology will be able to decipher the words that come out of our mouth to readjust the colours in the graphic program. For example, I can say "Green a little lighter. Change the red to reddish brown, slightly darker. Yes, that's what I wanted"� and bingo, I have what I want.

Speaking at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the Inter-Society Color Council (ISCC), Geoffrey Woolfe, principal scientist in the Xerox Innovation Group introduced this concept.

"The innovative part of this is the mapping language," Woolfe said. "At Xerox we've found that if you can connect the human dimension to the mathematical dimension, you get a lot of usability."

Users can type "make the sky a deeper blue" or give a voice command "make the background carnation pink" and the software does the work. The invention, still in the research stage, creates "color language" by translating human descriptions of color into the precise numerical codes that machines use to print color documents.

"Today, especially in the office environment, there are many non-experts who know how they would like color to appear but have no idea how to manipulate the color to get what they want," said Geoffrey Woolfe, principal scientist in the Xerox Innovation Group. "You shouldn't have to be a color expert to make the sky a deeper blue or add a bit of yellow to a sunset."

This development could lead to colour adjustments on office devices like colour printers and commercial printing machines without the hassle of tinkering with HEX codes or RGB. Or it could make printing very very stressful indeed!

via Xerox Corporation News Release

It's a general practice to write on birthday cakes using coloured cream. Well, just imagine the same writing done on your breakfast toast by a computer!

Geeks at Evil Mad Scientist have tested a toaster that can print almost anything on bread. Literally anything! That means you could leave personalised messages for your family, create unique pieces of environmentally friendly biodegradable art to sell for ridiculous profit on eBay or even use your sliced bread loaf as organic Post-its!

The CNC toaster is connected to a computer where the X and Y coordinates are fed. Rather your typical inkjet setup, the CNC print head is a hot air gun which blows hot air according to the darkness desired on the toast (depends on the print). Testers were able to print "Hello World"� successfully and a rather dodgy toasted facial rendering of Ze Frank; shading proved somewhat difficult. They even tried printing on Indian Papadums and were reasonably successful.

This device may not have any commercial success but for people who thrive on inventing new things, it brings in great satisfaction and joy of creating something new. Looking forward to some writing on pizzas and pancakes as a next step.

I am speechless and definitely taken aback with the transformations people are making to a simple inkjet printer. I was first enthralled at the idea of printing the wires on a Printed Circuit Board; later came the films. Now, there is a hotel in Chicago that prints food on the menu. So, people can taste the menu card before they order off of it!

Moto Restaurant is the first ever hotel to print their menu on edible paper using edible ink via a self built transmogrifier developed by the head cook. Menu cards are printed, frozen in liquid nitrogen and finally baked in polymer ovens. I would never dream to complain over getting a sample of all the different kinds of food available before I eat. Very cool indeed!

via The Ink Blog

Inkjet printers are gaining momentum for printing things other than on paper. Last week I had written about circuit boards which could be wired using an inkjet printer. But, this week I have a new function for our faithful inkjet printer. Jesse England has used an Epson inkjet printer to print Super 8 and 16mm films on a transparency.

The arduous task included creating a template for printing on a Super 8/16mm transparency by converting it into a film strip format in Adobe Premier. Once everything was printed, Jesse manually cut the sprocket holes using a box cutter. With some other adjustments, he was able to succeed in printing films on a transparency. Although the quality was poor, it still is a start for what could be a defining moment in our filmy future. Kudos to this lad!

via Boing Boing

Electronics engineers like me take pleasure in news that revolutionises the electronics industry with a simple day to day gadget like an ink jet printer. This cutting edge process has been simplified many times by Seyed Bidoki, a PhD student from Leeds University, UK has modified a typical HP inkjet printer to enable the printer to print printed circuit boards (PCB).

Seyed replaced the inks in an HP inkjet printer with silver nitrate in one chamber and ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) in the other. The circuits are printed with the silver nitrate and ascorbic acid is laid over it. This printed circuit is washed with water to wash away everything except silver which acts as a layer of conductivity just like copper on a PCB.

This process of creating a PCB using a device like an inkjet printer is additive in nature and contradictory to the original process which is subtractive as it uses a process of etching. Although this technology doesn't have the low resistance that the present day PCBs possess, it is still a step towards the simplification of manufacturing the boards used in just about all modern electronic devices. Alexander Graham Bell didn't come up with cell phones; he just sparked the idea of telephony which has progressed far beyond anybody's imagination.

via New Scientist Tech