The pocket-sized printer that moves across pages

By David Nield April 13, 2014

pocket sized printer moves across page zuta — Image used with permission by copyright holder

If you’ve spent any time on Kickstarter you’ll know it’s home to a wide range of innovative ideas and prototype products hoping to make the leap from garage bench to full-scale production. One of the most intriguing bits of kit to appear on the site recently is the Mini Mobile Robotic Printer, a pocket-sized printing device that squirts out ink as it trundles across the page.

The key benefit is of course portability — you can take it with you anywhere and print out on demand from a laptop, tablet or smartphone. It’s also an attractive proposition for those who only use a printer occasionally, and don’t want to waste desk space on a fully fledged all-in-one unit. At the time of writing, the campaign is well on the way to reaching its $400,000 target, with 26 days of fundraising left to go.

Essentially, Israeli makers Zuta Labs have stripped out everything except the print head, allowing it to roam free across the page. “We have created a mobile printer that is easy and fun to use, can be taken anywhere, prints from any device (laptop, tablet, smartphone, you name it!) on to any sized page,” write the team on the Kickstarter campaign page.

For now, the printer is monochrome only and is fairly slow — the initial prototype has been reaching a speed of 1.2 pages-per-minute — but it’s nevertheless an idea that has plenty of potential. You can pledge your support and get your own Mini Mobile Robotic Printer by donating $200 or above, with shipping expected in January 2015. The funds raised from Kickstarter will be used to refine the prototype devices that Zuta Labs has created and then get the hardware ready for mass production.

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Dave is a freelance journalist from Manchester in the north-west of England. He's been writing about technology since the…

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