You may know that DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) prohibits your downloading and sharing any copyrighted material – pirated movies, music, book, TV shows, etc. If your computer IP is detected to take part in such activity, your ISP will receive a DMCA takedown notice – a formal message to report infringing content. The ISP will, in turn, warn your or whoever is know to be associated with detected IP to stop illegal activities. Briefly, this is how copyrights holders protect their intellectual property.

What does it have to do with printers, you may ask?

I’ll tell you what. Some guys (two teacher and a student namely) from University of Washington examined BitTorrent file-sharing networks using specially designed BitTorrent clients to monitor the traffic on these networks. They didn’t actually upload or download any files, but somehow the researchers received over 400 takedown requests. Each of those notices was a false positive accusing them of copyright infringement. The results of the study show that virtually any Internet user has a risk of receiving the DMCA takedown notice.

It still has nothing to do with printers, you may remark.

Yes, but we are almost there. The researchers say in the study that of all the numerous takedown notices they received, 13 were issued for 3 laser printers and a wireless access point. Interesting, right?

The results of the study make it clear that being an advanced user you can make your printer download movies for you and come out clean. On the other hand, the study shows how inconclusive is the method used to identify infringing BitTorrent users.

So if your ISP forwards you a takedown notice, cast the blame on your printer.

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New cost-of-ink-per-page analysis of ink cartridges is a new way for customers to estimate their printing costs.

QualityLogic, a company providing quality assurance and control services, reported it had completed Cost-of-Ink-Per-Page (CoIPP) Analysis for the Eastman Kodak Company.

CoIPP Analysis uses cartridge cost and page-yield to calculate and compare the cost of ink required to print one page on Kodak EASYSHARE 5100, 5300 and 5500 All-in-One Printers to 11 competing printers.

Page-yield is determined by Certified Page-Yield Test Program, QualityLogic’s special software based on ISO standards determines. Cartridge prices in UK, France, and Germany were provided by IDC, a provider of independent market intelligence.

QualityLogic published a paper that you can view for details, but here is a briefly overview of what results of the analysis show.

Naturally, all three Kodak’s printers demonstrate lowest cost of ink per page in monochrome, color and photo printing. For instance in UK, one page printed on any of Kodak Easyshare printers in mono, color and photo mode costs 0.016, 0.047 and 0.064 GBP, or $0.033, $0.096 and 0.131 respectively.

It turns out the most expensive printer inks among the compared are for Hewlett-Packard’s Photosmart C5280 followed by Photosmart C4280. A page printed Photosmart C5280 in monochrome mode would cost 0.065 GBP; in color mode – 0.148 GBP; in photo mode – 0.311 GBP. Converted into US dollars, that’d make $0.137, $0.302 and $0.636, respectively.

Of course, actual prices in USA will vary, but the example gives us a general idea of cost difference scale.

Not so long ago a study initiated by HP found that HP ink cartridges contain inks twice as much as remanufactured and refilled ones. Some time before that, an ink study sponsored by Epson found that Epson genuine inks provide stronger color-fading resistance and, thus, longer life of printed images.

Just like these studies, the QualityLogic’s analysis is not completely independent and unbiased. However, such CoIPP analysis provides consumers with information that is fair, accurate and consistent. It gives them a new way to look at this portion of the overall cost of owning and operating a printer.

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Recent study show customers have no basis for comparison when buying printers, which results in $6 billion overpay on ink every year.

The American Consumer Institute released a new white paper entitled “Inkjet Prices, Printing Costs and Consumer Welfare” disclosing pricing strategies adopted within the inkjet industry. This is the first document made by public organization (we don’t consider numerous articles on the topic in magazines and sites by independent authors).

Inkjet printers are usually under-priced or even sell in the red to make them more appealing for purchase. However, the manufacturers make up the profit on overpriced ink, and consumers are left with no choice and spend hundreds of extra dollars to operate the printers. The printer ink is currently one of the most expensive liquids in the world. The price of it can be compared with that of the world’s finest champagne, gasoline and most luxury fragrances.

Currently, there’s no standardized printer ink unit pricing, such as cents per printed page. In this situation, customers at the shop have no information about real printing costs. They buy cartridges without knowing how much ink is in them or how many pages one cartridge will print. The lowest price cannot serve as the rule of thumb, because very often the lowest priced cartridges have much less ink.

The paper also suggests that adoption of a form of truth-in-labeling would allow customers to compare each printer’s cost-of-ink per printed page. The paper concludes that competition in the inkjet printer and ink sectors would be much more intense if consumers were made aware of the cost implications of their printer choices. Better information means lower costs for consumers.

I believe this is a good start. If more public organizations begin informing consumers on the issues and thus affecting the manufacturers, the situation with overpriced printer ink may really change for the better.

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The idea of creating artificial body organs is not new. It has been vastly developed in sci-fi literature, where the very process of creation was surrendered to the imagination of the author. Few people know that scientists have long been into this area and have reached some positive results.

Science Daily reports that Gabor Forgacs, a professor of physics in the MU College of Arts and Science, has been developing and perfecting the process of “printing” tissues, aiming at building human organs. In his recent study, Forgacs showed that creating tissue structures by means of printing maintain the properties of the composing cells, and the very process resembles the way living tissues are created in nature.

The researchers used bio-ink particles, or spheres with 10,000 to 40,000 cells, and “printed” them on sheets of special “bio-paper.” The spheres then began to fuse in the bio-paper into one structure, pretty much like drops of water stick together into a larger drop of water. The size and shape of the resulting structure can be controlled by removing bio-paper to stop the fusion.

Previously, there have been two obstacles that prevented printing tissues using large amounts of cells. First, it was necessary to find out how to get right cells to the right places locations within the tissue. Second, even with the right cells positioned in the right place, it was unclear how to make an organ start working.

In the course of the study, it turned out that both problems get solved almost automatically. As the tissue structure begins to form, the cells go through a natural process called “sorting,” which is nature’s way of determining where specific cells need to be. For example, an artery has three specific types of cells — endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells and fibroblast cells, each type needing to be in a specific location in the artery. As thousands and thousands of cells are added to the bio-paper under controlled conditions, the cells migrate automatically to their specific locations to make the structure form correctly.

The team also found that nature was the answer to the second question. In the study, scientists took cells from a chicken heart and used them to form bio-ink particles, which were then printed on to thick sheets. Heart cells must be synchronized for the heart to beat properly. When the bio-ink particles were first printed, the cells did not beat in unison, but as the cellular spheroids fused, the structure eventually started beating just as a heart does.

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Previously, I reported a study by Australian scientists that proved laser printers may be high-volume ultra-fine particles (UFP) emitters, and that these particles may be hazardous to health (heart problems and lung disease.)

Canadian Broadcasting Company sponsored its own study on that issue.

The research was conducted in three different locations in Winnipeg by placing particle monitors above printers in the offices. Basically, the results of this new study support those of the Australian study: laser printers do emit ultra-fine particle in large volumes.

In the three offices, 20 to 42 per cent of all printers tested were found guilty of polluting the air. 27 per cent of the printers in that study were considered high emitters, or printers that emit more than 10 times the UFP than was found in the ambient air. The amount of UFP concentrations returned to normal levels within one to two minutes after reaching its maximum.

Breathe deeply, no reason to panic yet. 27 per cent is not “most,” it’s just “some” printers. Besides, simple precautious measures of ventilating your room and sitting away from working printer, will make you heart and lung serve you longer.

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One day we are going to sink in the ocean of printer-produced pages, or, rather say, be buried under mountains of such pages. And Britain would to take the impact in the first place.

In 1975, Business Week magazine predicted a paperless office. Recent studies show this proves to be an exaggerated prediction. The number of printed pages is somewhere between 2.5 and 2.8 trillion worldwide and is predicted to go up within next 10 years.

A study done for Xerox shows that British office workers throw away almost half of what they print during a day. That equals over one trillion (million of millions) pages a year. Most of the wasted printouts are one-time use like drafts or e-mails; some printed pages hardly last 1 minute.

Another survey, this time done for Fujitsu-Siemens, reveals that British offices print up to 120 billion pages every year, 22 pages a day per average office worker. It’s said that such amount of paper would make a mountain more than 8,000 miles high. You can do the calculation yourself: a pile of paper 1-inch high holds around 250 sheets.

Experts say people are often too careless and, probably lack some corporate guidelines, when it comes to printing practices.

The increasing number of printed pages, while being a source of waste and pollution, has another side.

Vyomesh Joshi, Executive Vice President for HP Imaging and Printing Group, says in an interview that 49 trillion pages will be produced this year, and 53 trillion in the next two years. He complains that only 800 billion pages (1.6 per cent) are produced using HP printers.

The number of printed pages goes up and, as an HP research shows, more and more printing is done directly from the Web: this year’s 48 percent are expected to reach 60-70 percent next year. The company sees this as an opportunity to increase its share of the market.

With development of the Web, HP pays attention to online areas adjacent to printing. The company acquired the SnapFish photo service, now accounting 45 million users, and more recently acquired Tabblo, which allows user to more easily organize and print text, graphics and photos from the Web.

Also, Vyomesh Joshi predicted a bright future for inkjet printers:

Ink jet will completely replace photo printing technology in the next few years, Joshi said, and people will be able to print anywhere and anytime, from the home, retail locations or mail order. “This where things are going, and it will happen to books, magazines, newspapers and marketing collateral.”

Web is good, waste is bad. If you want something more material than images on your screen, but the idea of polluting the planet with printed pages does not excite you, here is news. Brother (the one that makes printers, faxes and sewing machines) introduced a new ink jet garment printer.

The Brother GT-541 uses ink jet technology that prints on variety of garments in high quality color directly from a computer. The company claims the ink jet garment printer is simple to operate, just like a desktop printer, and can be networked with multiple units.

According to the Brother, this printer suits well for making money. See, it only requires 50 cent for the ink and $1-$2 for the t-shirt, which can be sold at $15-$30. Great deal, isn’t it? Besides, the GT-541 eliminates all set-up, tear-down, clean-up, screens, squeegees, or pallet adhesive typical for traditional screen printers.

The printer uses water-based pigment ink of 4 colors (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) to imprint as big images as 14 x 16 inches at 600 x 600 dpi resolution. Being so good, the GT-541 yet has one downside – for a relatively small (approximately 4 x 3 x 2 feet) printer it weights just good 220 pounds! On the other hand, such devices are not to be carried around.

That’s all for today. See you next time!

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American scientists please us with another achievement in printing technology. They found a new method printing finely-detailed microscopic images with an enzyme instead of ink.

The new method known as microcontact printing and reported to have a wide application for rapidly transferring high-resolution images onto large surfaces. However, current nanoscale printing technology depends on the diffusion of ink, and cannot reproduce details finer than one hundred nanometers in diameter.

In the new technology, “biocatalytic microcontact printing”, a nano-print is coated with an enzyme - a protein that fastens chemical reactions.

The enzyme then digests away a layer on the surface, leaving behind an imprint almost like an old-fashioned rubber stamp. Because the process does not require diffusion of ink, the resolution of microcontact printed images is about 100 times greater than conventional technology allows for.

The technique creates potential for faster, less expensive methods of nanolithography, which could be used to create complex structures for micromachines, biosensors, and other nanoscale devices, says Science Daily.

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