By Evan Ackerman

Printers are this close to becoming obsolete technology. I mean, paper in general is just a terrible idea these days… All kinds of catastrophic things can happen to paper (fire, loss, airplanes, etc.), and not only that, but it can kill you. I do admit that on occasion, having a printer comes in handy, like the few times a year when I need to print a boarding pass or some labels, and this is why the PrintBrush is basically my fantasy printer: it’s small, it’s fast, it’s silent, and 99.9% of the time I can pretend that I don’t actually own a printer at all.

The PrintBrush is a real product, not a concept, and you really do just wave it back and forth over a piece of paper like in the video. It’ll cover a full size sheet of paper at 600 dpi (black and white only) and uses Bluetooth and rechargeable batteries to print without any wires whatsoever. The real beauty of the PrintBrush is that it’ll print on any flat surface you like, meaning that you can print addresses directly onto letters, for example. It even prints on fabric. It works using some kind of crazy accurate optical sensor, sort of like the thing that optical mice use, except way better ’cause it can detect tilt and rotation in addition to translation. Supposedly, the PrintBrush is due out in early 2010 for $199 USD… They have working examples, which is good, and a production plan, which is good, and some dates, which is good, but their last press release is eight months old so as cool as the PrintBrush is, I wouldn’t hold your breath on this one.

[ PrintBrush ] VIA [ Crave UK ]

By Chris Scott Barr

I had the opportunity to visit New York for the first time earlier this year. I have to say that Times Square is one of the most amazing sights I’ve ever seen. The lights and giant screens are awe-inspiring at night. Well how would you like to get one of your own pictures up on a giant screen in Times Square? One company is giving you a chance to do just that.

CanvasPop is a new company that promises to take any of your pictures from Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket (or wherever you have your pictures uploaded) and will print them on a large canvas. They promise to work with any resolution (they specifically list the iPhone as a source), and still have good-looking results. Well if you’re one of their first 500 customers, you’ll be able to put one of your own pictures up on a big screen in Times Square. It’ll only be up for 15 seconds, but you’ll receive a picture of the screen showing your picture, complete with date and time. Prices start at $30 for an 8×10 canvas, and go up.

[ CanvasPop ] VIA [ Crave ]

By David Ponce

We spent a good portion of Thursday morning listening to HP’s execs talk about their new products with an enthusiasm of near onanistic intensity. Sure, their lineup of laptops, printers and desktops is slick and all, but we here are OhGizmo! tend to stay away from the “Bigger, Faster and Slimmer” school of technological innovation. That’s why I was pleasantly surprised to hear HP had been working on an application for the iPhone which allows you to print any pictures you take directly from your phone, on any of HPs WiFi enabled printers connected to your network. We’re not talking revolution here, but it is an added bit of functionality that’s more than welcome on the iPhone.

It will print pictures up to 4″ by 6″, and is available right now from the App store. I saw a demo, and it works just as advertised.

One side note. I’m amused by the fact that HP refers to the “App Store” with quotation marks on their web page. I guess they’re still “getting used” to this whole “iPhone thing”.

[ iPrint Photo (direct download) ]

[ HP's Website ]

It’s easy to share a digital photo via email or a public website, but how do you accommodate those family members who haven’t quite embraced the digital age just yet? Well one option is to upgrade your digital photo frame to one of these models from Prinics which feature a built-in 5×7 printer. That way, when your parents are scrolling through baby photos and lamenting about how they’d really love a copy of a particular shot, you can print one out for them right then and there.

The printers use a special, self-contained photo paper & ink cartridge that’s extremely easy to replace, and since the cartridges are completely sealed, they apparently have an unlimited ‘use-by’ date. I’m not sure how much the cartridges cost (which is a factor that could make or break the product) but each one is good for 36 shots. The Prinics frames come in either 7 or 8 inch models and besides the printer they also feature memory card slots, an easy to use GUI, a remote control and even patterned or plain black acrylic frames. Unfortunately the Prinics site is a little vague when it comes to pricing, but if they intend to compete in the 5×7 photo printer market they’ll have to aim for a reasonable MSRP.

[ Prinics Photo Frame Printer ] VIA [ Gizmag ]

Looking for an affordable all-in-one printer? While I usually recommend people use a professional print facility for making hard copies of their digital photos, there are still times when having a printer at home can be very convenient. And you’re probably not going to find a better bargain than the $99.99 Epson Stylus NX400. Sure there are even cheaper all-in-one models on the market, but over the years I’ve come to prefer Epson when it comes to hardware reliability and print quality.

The NX400 can spit out black or color text documents at a rate of 34 pages a minute, and can produce a borderless 4×6 print in about 26 seconds. It also features a scanner bed, built-in memory card slots, PictBridge support and a 2.5 inch LCD display that allows you to do everything from make copies to touch up photos without having to boot up your PC. The NX400 also uses Epson’s instant dry DURABrite Ultra Ink which allows your prints to be handled as soon as they come off the printer and also makes them smudge, water and fade resistant.

Of course it’s no secret that printer manufacturers are happy to sell their hardware on the cheap and make their real money when it comes to replacement ink cartridges. But a high-capacity black ink cartridge for the NX400 runs $19.99, while a set of cyan, magenta and yellow DURABrite Ultra Ink cartridges runs $37.04. Definitely not dirt cheap, but not terribly expensive either.

[ Epson Stylus NX400 ] VIA [ Electronista ]

While the world is slowly moving away from the need for printed documents, it will still be some time before we can ditch our printers altogether. In fact I really only use mine for printing the occasional ticket or other travel documents, which is what the Printstik from Planon seems ideal for. At just 1″ x 10.75″ x 1.9″ it’s small enough to be stored in the bottom of your laptop bag for when those random ‘print emergencies’ come up while on the road.

It features a USB port for connecting to a laptop as well as Bluetooth for printing documents directly off of a smartphone or PDA. One thing I particularly like is that it uses replaceable thermal paper cartridges instead of ink. Each cartridge contains 20 pages, which means everything is self-contained in the Printstik. On a single charge you can expect to run off about 40 pages at 200DPI, and it has a print speed of about 3 pages per minute. The Printstik itself is available from the Planon website for $299.99, while a three-pack of replacement paper cartridges runs $24.99.

[ Planon Printstik PS910 ] VIA [ Gizmag ]

When traveling on business, most people tend to rely on Kinko’s or Staples when they need something printed. The downside of course is that you have to deal with Kinko’s and Staples employees, who barely know how to push the copy button. So for those who are tired of trying to teach the person behind the counter how to open a PDF comes the PIXMA iP100 portable printer from Canon. The iP100 is actually an upgraded version of the iP90v, with improved resolution and speed. The iP100 can print up to 20 black and white documents a minute at a resolution of 600×600, or about 14 color documents a minute with a resolution of 9600×2400. It uses just two ink cartridges to keep the printer’s size compact, with the black ink tank being increased by 50% capacity in this model.

While the printer can be plugged in to a power outlet like your standard desktop model, it also features an optional lithium ion battery pack which will allow you to print 290 pages on a three hour charge. As for connectivity, the iP100 can connect to your laptop via USB, directly to a camera using the PictBridge protocol or even a cellphone or PDA using infra-red or an optional Bluetooth module. ($49.99) The PIXMA iP100 should be available this month for $249.99, while the lithium ion battery pack is an extra $99.99.

[ Canon PIXMA iP100 Mobile Inkjet Printer ] VIA [ SlashGear ]

I suppose that part of the ‘tough’ image associated with tattoos is having to go through the tattooing process itself. But we at OhGizmo! are all for any solution that skips the pain part of getting ink done. That’s why this inkjet tattoo paper is so awesome. Not only is it painless, but it allows you to turn any design or image on your PC into a temporary piece of body art.

Actually creating your own tattoo design is probably the hardest part. Once it’s printed you just need to apply an adhesive sheet to the printout and smooth out any bubbles. When you remove the adhesive sheet, the printed tattoo will be left with a sticky surface allowing it to be applied to your skin with a wet sponge. The tattoos are water-based and non-toxic, so while they’ll stick around for about a week if you avoid bathing or showering, they can easily be removed with just soap and water.

A single A4 sized sheet of Inkjet Tattoo Paper is available from Crafty Computer Paper for about $5, while a 5 pack is about $25. So there’s no real savings for buying in bulk.

[ Inkjet Tattoo Paper ] VIA [ MAKE: Blog ]

The Kyocera Corporation recently announced that it has developed the world’s fastest high-resolution inkjet printhead for commercial applications. In fact the KJ4 Series achieved a print speed of 150 meters per minute on a Miyakoshi MJP600 commercial printer, at a resolution of 600×600 dpi. That translates to about 1,000 A4-sized pages a minute, or an even more impressive 16 pages a second.

To pull off this feat, the company applied its proprietary piezoelectric ceramics technology to create a compact piezo actuator that controls the ink flow. And its this component that makes the high-speed, high-resolution printing possible. While the KJ4 series was tested in a commercial printer, I’m not entirely sure if it will ever be available in consumer level inkjet printers. At least not one that’s capable of spitting out 1,000 pages a minute.

[ KYOCERA Introduces World’s Fastest Drop-on-Demand Inkjet Printhead ] VIA [ 7Gadgets ]

By Evan Ackerman

Printers are a pain in the butt. I have used printers for one reason and one reason only in the last few years, and that has been to print out airline boarding passes. I would LOVE to be able to use a printer to make photo prints, but that’s always more expensive pain in the butt-ness, since you blow through ink and have to use fancy paper to get decent results. The Canon PIXMA MX7600 solves half of that problem, since it’s designed with “the ability to produce crisp graphics and text on plain paper with the incorporation of the new Pigment Reaction (PgR) technology.” I have no idea how PgR technology works, but the result is that “curling, ink bleeding and printing through the paper sometimes associated with color inkjet printing on plain paper is dramatically reduced.” Cool, now explain to me why it costs MORE money to replace an ink cartridge than it does to buy a new printer, and I might start paying attention. The MX7600 can spit out a 1200 dpi 4×6 color print in 43 seconds, has six (!) ink tanks including a clear ink, can scan and copy and fax, and includes a card reader. MSRP of $400, available sometime this month.

[ Canon PIXIMA MX7600 ] VIA [ SlipperyBrick ]