Friday, March 23, 2007

Printers of the (near) future

As someone who recently had to print out nearly 800 sides worth of theses I know how monotonous it is waiting for the printer to get through a large job. A colour laser printer took 45 minutes to print 120 colour pages - not exactly quick. In addition, anyone who has ever printed off an A0 poster from a plotter will testify that they're not quick (at around half an inch per minute it always results in the yearly battle between chemistry and biology finalists at Durham).

However Memjet, a startup company, is claiming to have invented printers that can print 4x6" photos at 30 photos/minute, A4 colour at 60 page/minute and large scale posters at 1 foot/second. It sounds good on paper (sorry), but they've released a video showing the printers in action and the demonstrations have been witnessed by third parties too. The most incredible thing though is the price - a regular A4 printer is going to cost under $200...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

For fast A0 plotting you want an OCE - we have them at work. Send to plotter, walk downstairs and 30secs later printed.

Well done on becoming a Dr.

Rich