printers
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HP says webOS coming to slates and web-connected printers
We joked about HP printers running webOS almost the second we learned about the Palm acquisition, but it turns out that's actually part of the plan: HP CEO Mark Hurd told analysts that webOS would hit a "variety of form factors, including slates and web-connected printers" on the company's Q2 financial results call today. webOS tablets were obviously a no-brainer, but printers are slightly more intriguing, in a way: while we're not overly surprised HP wants to leverage webOS on its line of advanced touchscreen printers, we're very curious to see what that actually looks like in practice -- a printer with Synergy-level Facebook integration for easy photo printing? A printer that can play 3D games like Need for Speed? A printer that can... multitask? The possibilities are amusingly endless, if you think about it -- and HP's printing and imaging division is a $6.4 billion dollar business, so the money and motivation to push this idea into strange new places are certainly there. Speaking of money, HP's doing just well on that front in general: profits were up 25 percent this quarter to $2.9 billion on total revenues of $30 billion, so yeah -- Palm certainly has the money and resources it's desperately needed. Now it just needs some new products and sharper execution.
Macworld 2010: Steve and Mike's excellent HP adventure
One of the highlights of TUAW's visit to Macworld Expo 2010 was a pre-show tour of the HP booth on Wednesday, February 10. HP has a long and storied history with Apple, with both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak working for the company at one time before founding Apple. The company has created many Mac-compatible printers over the years, and has worked quite closely with Apple in recent years to insure that drivers for current and past printers are included in Mac OS X. HP's team welcomed us to their booth as the show was still being set up. Eric Killian, Worldwide Training Manager for SMB Inkjet Printing Systems, showed off two brand-new printers for the Mac; the OfficeJet 4500 All-in-one and the OfficeJet Pro 8500 Premier. The OfficeJet 4500 is not currently listed on the HP site, but we'll update this post when a link to the new member of the family is added to the product pages. Annamaria Pardini, Segment Marketing Manager for HP Mac-connect, is in charge of HP's iPhone apps and talked with us about their HP12C and HP12C Platinum financial calculator apps, the HP15C scientific calculator app, the HP MediaSmart Server iStream app, the new Snapfish app, and the revised HP iPrint Photo 2.0 app. If you're in the market for a large-format printer, HP also showcased the DesignJet Z2100 24" Photo Printer. With 8 color cartridges, custom color profile capabilities, and a wide range of media (from paper to canvas) to print on, the DesignJet Z2100 is a power tool for design professionals. Check out the HD video of our tour by clicking the Read More link. Many thanks to our ace videographer and editor, Chad Mumm.
Apple releases updates improving printing, scanning, iSight cameras and QuickTime
Over the past few days, Apple has been releasing updates for printer and scanner drivers in Snow Leopard, iSight cameras in LED Cinema Displays and QuickTime 7 for Windows. First, Apple released printer driver updates for Snow Leopard for Lexmark printers and Brother, Canon and HP printers and scanners. Next, Apple released a firmware update for the iSight camera that's built into the Apple LED Cinema Display. According to Apple, this firmware update corrects an issue with the built-in iSight camera on the LED Cinema Display where the camera may not be recognized by applications. Finally, Apple released QuickTime 7.6.5 for Windows, which fixes an issue where applications weren't reliably loading libraries required by QuickTime at startup and the incorrect display of QuickTime movies embedded in a webpage using custom scale attributes. All of these updates are available from the Apple Support downloads page and Software Update.
Apple lists Snow Leopard-compatible printers and scanners
I'll come right out and say that I don't like scanners. Granted, I haven't used any high-end models, but in my experience, scanning a simple image to my Mac was akin to piloting a space module. As a chimp. While Mac OS X Snow Leopard includes a great number of scanner (and printer) drivers, some readers are reporting trouble with their particular machines. This week, Apple has published a list of both scanners and printers that are known to work. You can read it here. I've got an Epson R300, and luckily it's covered. Heck, even my beloved HP 952c still works under Snow Leopard. It's a comprehensive list, and we're hoping your machine is there. Of course, if your peripheral stopped working after installing Snow Leopard, you ought to visit the manufacturer's website for an update. And by "visit" we mean "pester." [Via Victor Cajiao]
Figureprints in the EU
Our buddies over at Figureprints, the company that makes custom 3D printed sculptures of your WoW characters, have expanded their business yet again -- this time, they're opening the doors to you EU players. Ed Fries, who we have spoken with twice now, says that they are finally ready to expand overseas, and EU players can now order their own custom figurines through the website.There is a small catch, however -- at this point, while there is no lottery as far as we know, they are charging European customers €129.95, which ends up being about $166, or about $30 more than the US price of $129.95. And obviously shipping overseas from the company's HQ here in America probably won't be too cheap either, and shipping is extra no matter where you're buying the figures from. It looks like Figureprints just figured they'd charge "129.95" to both sides of the world, but thanks to the exchange rate, EU folks are actually paying more.But then again, we're guessing that people who have been waiting for their chance in the EU to pick one of these up will probably go for the higher price anyway. Figureprints started out a little rough with their limited production capabilities, and a few early bumps in quality, but lately it seems like they're rolling along better than ever.
Better printing with Gutenprint
Gutenprint (formerly called Gimp-Print) is an open-source package of improved printer drivers and utilities that can be installed on Mac OS X to enhance printing functionality and add additional support for older printers. It has driver support for over 1300 printer models, and adds a GIMP plugin for better print customization and color adjustments. Since I do a lot of Mac system imaging and deployment, I don't like to install a bunch of separate print drivers on a seed image. I initially just used Leopard's built-in generic Postscript or PCL driver, but I had many issues with printing speed (the speed of spooling and job submission, not the speed of the physical printing process) and print quality. So I installed the Gutenprint package, switched all printers to the Generic Gutenprint PCL driver, and the printing issues subsided. To use Gutenprint, simply download the .dmg (5.2.3 is the latest version) and install the package. All of the necessary PPD's and drivers will be copied to your computer, and you will be able to select Gutenprint drivers when adding printers. If you have an Epson Stylus Inkjet printer, you will then also be able to use "escputil" from Terminal to do printer maintenance like head aligning and cleaning. Update: Thanks to Charley and Olligarski for commenting that Gutenprint drivers are now included in Leopard. I have used Gutenprint for a while but failed to check if it was installed before I started using the package. It's still worth the install if you're a Tiger user, but the latest version requires at least 10.3 Panther.
Apple posts Canon/Brother print driver updates
Yesterday Apple posted Brother Print Driver 1.1. Apple says that the update includes updates for "drivers for printers on your system." Apple also posted an updated for Canon printer users. Canon Print Driver 1.1 provides updates for "drivers for printers on your system." You can download these updates by opening Software Update (Apple menu > Software Update). Apple also notes that these driver updates will only be available if you have version 1.0 of the drivers installed already, the printer is connected to the computer, and a print queue is created.
Researchers looking to print living cells in 3D
Inkjet printers have long been used to print out all sorts of unusual goods, and while we've heard of scientists utilizing said technology to print stem cells, engineers are now exploring ways "to print 3D structures of cells." According to Paul Calvert, a materials scientist at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, printing out these cells in three dimensions "is like going from a black-and-white to a full-color [TV]," and he also states that moving the process forward could help "unravel the mysteries of cell-to-cell communication and, perhaps in the distant future, manufacture human organs from scratch." Notably, it was even suggested that the technique could potentially be used to "print out miniature organs for medical tests such as drug toxicity," and in an ideal world, to crank out "implantable human organs on demand."
Network Magic: Simplify Mac and PC networking
The Mac and PC networking challenge is legendary. If you have both on a home or work network, it can be an adventure to get these two machines to see each other, share files or printers. Fortunately, Pure Networks has an app for both Mac and PC called Network Magic which hopes to change all that, as it allows you to easily set up file and printer sharing, diagnose slow networks and more. It offers what looks like a simple interface for managing all this, though I should note that printer sharing only works with the list of printers that Apple officially supports and provides drivers for right in Mac OS X (i.e. - if you can plug a printer in and it works without having to install extra software). While the Windows version is a bit more powerful than the Mac component, folks who need to maintain a mixed network and are after the primary features mentioned here will likely be happy with Network Magic, though licenses are sold at a slight disadvantage for Mac users: packages of licenses begin at $29.99 for 3 PCs (5 PCs for $39.99, etc.), but it's $19.99 for each Mac you want to add to the package. Still, Network Magic looks like one of the easiest networking tools I've seen in a while, and perhaps if its popularity among Mac users grows over time, licensing can become more fair for both operating systems.[via MacMinute]
Cryptography Research looking to curb ink cartridge piracy
Granted, we've never had too much luck with those knockoff ink cartridges ourselves, but that doesn't mean that printer (and therefore, ink) manufacturers aren't looking to halt sales of the profit stripping units in any way possible. Aiding them in their quest is Cryptography Research Inc., which is currently developing "chip technology aimed at helping printer manufacturers protect this primary source of profit." Essentially, the CryptoFirewall chips would make it harder for printers to utilize counterfeit or "off-brand" substitutes, which leaves consumers stuck sans a choice and left to pony up whatever they must in order to get that essay turned in the next morning. The company claims that its technology will be ready to cripple new printers sometime next year, but hey, the hackers in the crowd are just salivating for yet another challenge.[Via Slashdot]
HP unveils Edgeline printers, isn't selling them
HP is starting to see the first fruits of its $1.4 billion investment in next-gen print technologies with the debut of its new Edgeline enterprise-class color printers. The new printers squirt special fast-drying inks out of dual stationary print heads that run the entire width of the page, a system that offers the color quality of traditional inkjets at laser-like speeds. But as with all good things, there's a catch -- the printers aren't being offered for sale. The Edgeline system is apparently so ink-efficient that HP can't sell the units at competitive prices and make up the difference on consumables sales like it does with its inkjet and laser products. Instead, HP will rent the printers to high-volume customers, with a typical contract running for four years at 20,000 pages per month. That's it for hard details, though: HP hasn't disclosed how much the printer rentals will actually cost, only that average customers will see a 30% drop in printing costs by deploying the new machines. (We've seen estimates of about $25K.) That estimate probably doesn't account for discount third-party ink, however, a cottage industry for which HP has never had much love. We'll see how this lame rental model affects HP's ink business -- it's still certainly better than having the cartridges programmed to expire.[Via ArsTechnica]
Kodak's cheap inkjet claims all talk?
We were pretty stoked to hear Kodak was planning on running full tilt at the current status quo of "loss leader" printer tactics, that has unwitting consumers picking up inkjet printers for a dime, and spending a fortune on printing supplies. Unfortunately, it looks like Kodak hasn't come upon any magical printing techniques to pull this off yet, since its new printers didn't do so good up against the likes of Epson, HP and Canon. Kodak is marketing its printers as capable of producing 10 cent prints, which would indeed be a great deal. Tests show that an $18 pack of paper and ink results in about 165 borderless prints, about 11.5 cents per print. Unfortunately, the prints were basically "draft" quality, maybe fine for certain budget-minded consumers, but hardly comparable to "lab quality" photos. To boost the quality you'll need pricier Kodak paper, which ends up at about 35 cents per print, and renders the whole exercise pointless. The testers recommend the $150 Epson Stylus Photo RX580, for super good prints and great speed. Might want to leave that $200 Kodak EasyShare 5300 on the shelf for the time being.
Fade resistance test takes a look at photo printers / paper
Although we've already seen that truly fade-free inkjet prints just aren't really attainable with modern technology, a thorough (albeit unscientific) review of some six photo printers and seven types of photo paper literally showcased how close we can come. The test consisted of hanging the prints on a window facing the sun for 11 solid months, whilst the control photographs stayed under wraps to use for comparison. In what was easily the worst performer of the bunch, Samsung's SSP-2040 (pictured above) was nothing short of dreadful, while Kodak's EasyShare PP-500 and Canon's Selphy DS810 delivered only marginally better results. Epson's Picture Mate 100 did a fair job of wowing the critics after looking at the previous attempts, but the real winners came when HP's PhotoSmart 385 and PhotoSmart Express kiosk stepped up to the plate. Of course, results were judged with mere eyes, but the folks at PixInfo couldn't tell a difference between the original and the sun-blasted copy on either of these machines, and while it does sound a bit too good to be true, make sure you click on through for the stunning proof. Still, it's doubtful that any of these devices can produce shots that last for decades on end without any hint of fading or discoloration, but if you're looking for the best money can buy this day in age, be sure and hit the read link for the full skinny.
Sony debuts LCD-equipped photo printers, spiffed up voice recorders
No, Sony naturally wasn't content to merely deluge us with cameras, TVs and every other home entertainment device under they sun today, they had to push it one step further with some new PictureStation printers and a bunch of voice recorders. The new DPP-FP70 and DPP-FP90 might not spin a Blu-ray disc, but at least they're no slouches in the display department, with the FP90 sporting a 3.6-inch LCD, and the FP70 not far behind at 2.5-inches. You can administer all manner of digital effects on your photos using the LCD, or just go right ahead and print the photo -- it'll take about 45 seconds for a 4 x 6 print when working with a Memory Stick. Of course, SD and CF work too. Photos will about 29 cents per print with both printers, and the FP90 and FP70 will be out in March for $200 and $150, respectively. As for voice recorders, there's nothing much to get excited about. Sony has six new models, all with up to 256MB of flash memory and various unlikely claims about voice quality. The flagship ICD-SX57 goes for $200 and includes a backlit display, along with a triple microphone array for optimal recording. The ICD-SX57DR9 version comes with Dragon NaturallySpeaking bundled. The ICD-P520 and ICD-P30F tone down the excitement, and keep it cheap at $70 and $80, respectively, while the $50 ICD-B500 and $60 ICD-B510F run on AAA batteries, and are designed for "PC-free" use.Read - PictureStationsRead - Voice recorders%Gallery-1829%
HP accused of spying on Dell: like the movies, only lame
We're sorry, but what's the good in corporate espionage if there aren't any high speed car chases, or innocent bystanders getting killed in the crossfire? Not much good, that's what. That's why we're a bit let down by this whole HP / Dell situation -- spying on Dell in hopes to unveil printer business secrets just doesn't quite have a blockbuster ring to it. All the same, there's plenty of drama in this situation to be getting on with. See, Karl Kamb got sacked by HP for purportedly founding a competing business while on the job -- Byd:sign, a flat-panel TV outfit -- and syphoning off HP resources and R&D to do it. He's being sued by HP for $100 million, and has now countersued HP, claiming that they hired him in 2002 to spy on Dell, a former employer of his, and of course asserting that all that "siphoning funds" stuff was off the mark. Just to make it all the more dramatic ('cause helping out HP anticipate a Dell launch into the printer business still isn't cutting it for us), Kamb is also asserting that HP obtained his private phone records via pretexting, a little practice that HP got into a heap big amount of trouble for last year. No telling at this point who's telling the truth: on the one hand, HP doesn't really have the best track record with pretexting and such, but at the same time it seems quite the convenient out for Kamb, to mark up HP's wrongdoings towards him as another case of pretexting. There's plenty more drama under the surface here, so we recommend hitting up the read link for more info -- before we start talking sequels.[Via Slashdot]
Researchers create a 1,000 page-per-minute printer
If you're like us, the few times a year that you do have to print things out often involve stressful moments -- like when you're running late for your flight and the 30 seconds that it takes to print out your boarding pass feel like a lifetime. We're here to tell you that new printer technology is on the way that may make those harrowing 30 seconds as obsolete as that ImageWriter II that you had back in 1987, if a new technology makes it out of the lab and onto store shelves. Two Israeli researchers at The College of Judea and Samaria have come up with a new type of inkjet printer dubbed the JeTrix, which they hope will be to the inkjet printer what the ink-jet was to dot-matrix devices. Moshe Einat, one of the engineers involved, described his invention as being "like an 'ink-emitting screen,'" in the sense that ink would flow point by point -- and all at once -- instead of waiting for the cartridge to fully scan line by line -- theoretically reaching a speed of 1,000 pages in a single minute. Einat says that the printer should begin commercial production within two years, but don't expect them to come as freebies with your PC purchase anytime soon.
