There’s quite a number of wireless printer solutions available on the market, but if you are looking for a few more capabilities, you make take note of Ricoh’s new HotSpot series models.

The series includes a color model SP C410DN-KP and a monochrome SP 4100N-KP, which according to Ricoh are the first printers that let users “print documents from any Wi-Fi enabled location or device.” No additional software download or installation is required.

HotSpot Series printer use Ricoh Embedded Software Architecture, developed by Ricoh together with PrinterOn, a developer of mobile printing solutions. The new printers have PrinterOn’s PrintSpots mobile printing software pre-installed and pre-configured, so there’s no need for external servers or applications. Also, this prevents unwanted changes in setup and print queue.

There are two ways to print on Ricoh SP C410DN-KP and SP 4100N-KP. The first is to upload the files to a website associated with the printer; the second is to forward the file to the printer’s own email. That means you won’t have to install any drivers and are rid of tedious printer setup.

After the printer accepted a task, it sends a unique confirmation task code back to user. This code can be entered from a printer’s digital keyboard for printing the task.

No official price is yet known, but the monochrome SP 4100N-KP already sells for $1700. Naturally, the color model, Ricoh SP C410DN-KP, will cost a lot more.

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Epson’s EC-01 inkjet printer is the flagship product in their new Environmental Vision 2050 initiative: it’s shipped in an unpainted recycled cardboard box, the manual is printed on recycled paper, and the included driver CD is stored within an envelope made of recycled paper. But what really sets this printer apart is that you don’t replace the ink: when the cartridge runs out, you replace the whole printer. Sounds great! Or is it?

A representative of Epson explained: “When you purchase a Coca-Cola, it’s not the bottle that you want, it’s the Coca-Cola! Similarly, when you buy a printer, it’s not the printer that you want but the pages that printer can produce.” So just like you can return a Coca-Cola bottle to reclaim the depost included in the price, so too will you be able to return the EC-01 to Epson to get back 50 euros. The EC-01 ships with an ink tank that is estimated to yield 8,000 sheets.

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This post has little to do with printers, but rather with printing technology. Below there’s a video of a waterfall that is controlled by a computer to “printing out” astonishing patterns and pictures. This waterfall is located in Canal City Hakata, a shopping and entertainment complex in Fukuoka, Japan.

As you can see from the video, the waterfall seems to function using same techniques as an inkjet printer. Basically a computer is controlling hundreds of nozzles to precisely deliver water drops so that they fall forming images or texts.

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A lab-on-a-chip device can now be made at home on a piece of paper. All it takes is the right paper, ink, and sunlight to create a microfluidic device that can not only test water quality but also identify deceases.

George Whitesides and his colleagues at Harvard developed this new method to help developing countries access the latest lab techniques.

They have found that paper naturally contains pores that can be used to carry liquids just like in standard chips.

In order to make “walls” leak-proof and confine the fluids into narrow channels, the researchers used so called photoresist, a polymer liquid that hardens if subjected to UV radiation.

To make a paper chip, the researchers saturated a piece of regular printer paper with photoresist.

Next, they covered one side of the paper with transparency, and then used a pen to draw the desired pattern of channels on top.

The saturated with photoresist paper hardens under UV light except for the area that was masked beneath the inked-on pattern.

Once the paper dried, the researchers got a leak-proof sheet with a tiny network of embedded permeable channels within. In other words, they got a microfluidic device.

While drawing onto the transparency by hand is not very precise, but Whitesides claimed that the designs could simply be printed onto the transparency using an inkjet printer.

Via NewScientist.com

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