You are probably familiar with the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) acronym, which stands for a property of programs to display an image that is close to the final result, whether it’s printed text or Web page. It seems like now  the term can apply to printers as design studio Artefact introduced the concept of printer See What You Print or SWYP.

Unlike most modern printers, this model is a fully autonomous device with a large touch screen and computer platform. User prints out any material, the source of which can be a full-pledged personal computer, laptop or desktop, mobile device, smartphone or tablet. However, before actual printing user can edit the image with the simple image editor.

Since the display size of the printer corresponds to A4 paper size, the user sees the actual image that will be printed out. To start printing you only need to touch and slide down with your finger on the screen. Worth mentioning is the ink level indicator: when cartridges run low on ink, the image on the screen fades unevenly, once again confirming the main idea of  the concept — “You see what you print.”

It’s been or almost a year that Epson offers the PrintJinni application for iOS devices, which allows users of these smartphones to print photographs and other information via their handheld assistants. Finally, the company offered a similar application that allows direct printing from mobile devices to owners of Android smartphones and tablets. It’s called Epson iPrint.

Having installed the Epson iPrint, users can perform printing to any Epson printer or multifunction supporting a wireless connection. In addition to regular printing documents and photos from smartphone, the application also allows printing with cloud services such as Box.net, Dropbox and Evernote. Users can also print Web pages and change the print settings from the application.

Advanced settings include the ability to select and enqueue multiple photos at once. Supported is the borderless photo printing from the phone. Users can also select different type of image resolution and optimize printing quality. The application is now available for download in the Android Market.

To connect to a computer printer, you usually need to install the supplied driver set. Sometimes these drivers are be downloaded from Internet, and sometimes they are installed as a part of software pack, most of which will never be demanded. Ideally, the printer, as well as any other connected devices, should be working without any additional moves.

Apple seems to shares this position completely, as evidenced by a number of registered patents. The first patent describes an extremely simple idea: the printer has a built-in small volume storage that contains all of the drivers. When you connect the printer they automatically downloaded and installed to your computer. The idea of the second patent maybe familiar to Google users, we are talking about cloud print. The computer sends data that you want to print to cloud, the Web server converts them into a format that the printer understands, then the actual document is printed.

The third patent deals with printers, which receive data of strictly defined formats. If the user wishes to print the type of document that a given printer “understands” (e.g., DOC), then installation of the driver is not required. If the user wishes to go beyond this format, installation of a specific software is required. As always in case of patents, no reports of when these technologies will be implemented in commercial products, and whether they will be implemented at all.

Hewlett-Packard officially revealed to public the release of its most compact color laser multifunction printer, HP LaserJet Pro 100 Color MFP M175nw.

The manufacturer says their darling was designed primarily for small and medium-sized businesses. The model is enclosed in a black body with dimensions of 441 x 421 x 338 mm and weighs 16.2 kg. It can print, scan, copy documents and images of different formats. In addition, the device is endowed with USB 2.0 and Fast Ethernet, has a wireless Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n module and supports energy-saving technologies like HP Auto-On/Auto-Off Technology and Instant-on Technology. The multifunction is equipped with the HP ePrint that allows you to print from any location via the Internet (you need to simply send an message to printer e-mail address).

Some specifications:

B/W printing speed: Up to 16 A4 pages / min
Color printing speed: Up to 4 A4 pages / min
First B/W page out time: 15.5 sec
Time to first color page: 27.5 sec
Monthly load: Up to 20,000 A4 pages
Recommended monthly print volume: from 250 to 950 pages

B/W scanning: 14 pages / min

B/W copying speed: Up to 16 copies / min
Color copying speed: Up to 4 copies / min

Display: 2-line (16-character) LCD