Seiko Epson Corp. unveiled new multifunctional and color inkjet printers - four consumer models and two business models. All products feature new printheads that enhance inkjet performance and allow for higher printing speeds.

The new printheads include two latest improvements. One is increased maximum volume of ink droplet per ejection - from 7 pL to 11 pL. Previously, droplet volume per ejection ranged from 1.5 pL to 7 pL, now it ranges from 1.5 pL to 11 pL. The company said, this became possible due to increased volume of ink chamber in the printhead and enlarged pressure plate transmitting the displacement of piezoelectric element.

The other improvement is modification of the drive frequency, which corresponds to the number of ink ejections in a unit of time. The frequency was increased from 45 kHz to 60 kHz thanks to new design of ink flow in the printhead. According to the company, these two improvements increased t the inkjet performance as much as twice.

For example, the printing speed of one of the new color multifunctional printers, PM-A840, is 5.5 sheets per minute when measured by using the standard test pattern on A4 paper (J1) (I assume it’s a color photo test) specified by Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA), while that of the existing model, PM-A820, is 3.7 sheets per minute under the same condition.

The time required to print an L-size photograph by using PM-A840 is 22 seconds, which is 3 (oh my God!) seconds faster than that required by PM-A820.

The business-use color printer, PX-V780, employs the new printhead and two nozzles for black ink. As a result, the printer was able to produce 37 A4 monochrome sheets per minute, which is roughly the equivalent of a laser printer, Epson said.

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Modern printers are much smarter than the original printing devices they were like, say, 10 years ago. Aside from just printing, they can scan, copy, send faxes, automatically connect to the Web for software updates, and so on. The only thing printer couldn’t do was translation. Not until now.

Fuji Xerox Corporation developed a technology that enables laser printers and copiers to translate the text to be printed. The idea behind the technology is simple — the printer scans a sheet of text, and then connects to a dedicated server on the internet where the text is translated and sent back to printer for output. The translating algorithms on the server can distinguish between text, drawings and lines, so page layouts remain.

So far, only four languages are available for translation: Japanese, Chinese, Korean and English.

The laser printer is still a prototype and the technology will take time be refined to be ready for market. No information is yet available as for the quality of the translation, hopefully it will be better than that of Babel Fish or Google Translate.

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