Digital Trends
Colin Willems at the Netherlands-based company Spranq had an idea one day: what if an everyday font could be more eco-friendly by consuming less ink than traditional desktop typefaces? Sure, the amount of ink and toner saved on a letter-by-letter basis is miniscule, but across thousands of letters—and thousands of pages, and millions of users—the impact could be substantial.
The iPhone is finally patched, or at least we think so, possibly, we’re pretty sure… OK, we wouldn’t bet our lives on it. The 3G iPhone, surrounded by complaints and lawsuits, was hardly Apple’s best effort. But even so, it remains one of the most popular phone products ever created. It amazes me that the phone manufacturers weren’t able to come up with truly competitive products. That is until now.
Of course, if we actually ask a numbers firm, we find out that the iPhone (despite all the hype) is still a niche player.
The days of paying half the price of your printer just to replace its ink cartridge may finally be over. Following Eastman Kodak’s dive into the market for cheap ink, printer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard has announced today that it will also be mixing up a new strategy for selling inks with an upcoming line of cartridges.
The most significant change will be cost. According to HP, its newest cartridges will sell for as little as $14.99. This will make them a huge leap from the company’s current cartridges, which generally tend to hover around $30.
Just how much pollution can ink cartridges produce? To give you a rough idea, HP is predicting that by redesigning their print cartridge package alone, the company will reduce greenhouse emissions by an estimated 37 million pounds in 2007 – that’s the equivalent of taking 3,600 cars off the road.
So what makes this new packaging better? According to HP they are smaller and lighter and reduce the carbon footprint of each cartridge in addition to reducing the freighter transportation traffic required to ship them. The new HP inkjet cartridge multi-packs and photo value packs will now be made with recycled paperboard instead of PVC.
Seiko Epson filed a fresh complaint with the U.S. International Trade commission last week, accusing 24 new companies of manufacturing, distributing, or importing after-market ink cartridges which infringe on Epson’s intellectual property. The complaint asks that the companies be banned from importing or selling the products in the United States. Epson has filed a separate suit against the same companies in a Portland court seeking damages.
Under the terms of the agreement, InkCycle must re-formulate a new set of inks which will not infringe upon the HP ink products. InkCycle will also pay HP an undisclosed sum of money as part of the resolution.
The lawsuit was filed earlier this year with HP alleging that InkCycle was selling refillable ink for HP printers at several Staples stores. While HP has stated they will aggressively protect their products, InkCycle is taking a more positive spin on the courts decision.
Quote from the review:
“The breadbin-shaped PIXMA iP4000 is Canon’s latest A4 inkjet printer designed for all-round usage. Besides the attractive grey-and-silver enclosure, the printer uses Canon’s ContrastPLUS technology – a five tank ink system that includes an additional dye-based black ink for sharper contrast. It also sports a tiny 2-picolitre ink droplet size, which helps it to output good looking prints on high-quality paper. However, prints on regular paper are very disappointing, with text appearing fuzzy and uncontrolled and images suffering from severe banding. There’s also no built-in memory card slots, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Nevertheless, for just £109 (ex. VAT), you do get dual paper trays, automatic duplex printing, CD-R/DVD printing functions, as well as impressive output quality on high-quality paper, making the PIXMA iP4000 a good value offering if you intend to print mostly 6×4in. documents.”
The Dell Laser Printer 1700 and 1700n are a series of monochrome laser printers available in non-networked and networked (n) versions for $199 and $299, respectively. With speeds of up to 25 pages per minute (ppm) and 1200 x 1200 dots per inch (dpi) resolution, these printers are attractive choices for home and small workgroup printing.
The 1700n delivers workgroup-level performance at a price as much as $700 less than other vendors’ comparable small-workgroup laser printers. Additionally, the 1700 series’ high-capacity toner cartridge, priced at $89 for up to 6,000 pages, offers up to a 35 percent cost-per-page (cpp) savings when compared to the cost of toner cartridges from the competition, giving small workgroups and businesses the low total cost of printing typically experienced by larger offices.
Priced at $179 after a $20 instant rebate ($199 pre-rebate price), the new Dell Personal All-In-One Printer A960 also makes easy work of printing in color, photocopying and scanning, said Tim Peters, vice president and general manager of Dell Imaging & Printing.
“The Dell A960 is the perfect machine for small businesses and home offices, where professional quality imaging products are needed,” said Peters. “It will do everything needed to help run a business or to work from home without breaking the budget.”
The EPSON Stylus C84 can meet the challenges of today’s busy customer. It prints documents and text quickly; produces beautiful, frame-ready, borderless photographs; and provides output that will resist light, water and smudges. This printer replaces the popular EPSON Stylus C82 and becomes Epson’s new flagship, all-purpose ink jet printer, available for $79 (after a $20 mail-in rebate). The EPSON Stylus C84 boasts Epson’s renowned DuraBrite ink for long-lasting output.
The EPSON Stylus C84 is the fastest Epson desktop in the product line, delivering up to 22 pages per minute (ppm) in black and up to 12 ppm in color(a). Not only is the EPSON Stylus C84 able to print quickly, but the printer also does it quietly. Epson engineers have created a new engine and mechanism for this printer, which has resulted in quieter printing of output from the start to the finish.
This printer offers 5760 x 1440 optimized dpi with ultrafine three-picoliter ink droplets for sharp, vivid images and photo-quality results. The EPSON Stylus C84 also takes advantage of a convenient and cost-effective individual ink cartridge system along with true black printing on glossy media for more realistic and sharper images.
“Whether a customer is printing a document on plain paper or printing a photo of the family’s summer vacation on our new DuraBrite Ink Glossy Photo Paper, this printer ensures that precious memories are printed on output that is durable and will stand up over time to light, water and smudging,” said Rodrigo Catalan, product manager, consumer ink jet printers, Epson. “Knowing that their output is printed on the Stylus C84 with DuraBrite ink provides a level of confidence and security for our customers that no other printer in this price range can offer today.”
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