Canon faces new challengers

Canon has ruled the printer and camera categories for years, but it's now facing some stiff competition. Brother's printers are comparable with Canon's in reliability, according to readers' reports, but Canon retains the edge in customer support. Brother's rise toward the top began last year, when it made great improvements in reliability over its previous showing.

Hewlett Packard's printer division posts higher revenue

Hewlett-Packard’s printing division posted higher revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter, led by gains in printers and services sold to businesses. Called the Imaging and Printing Group, H-P’s printing business had revenue of $7 billion for the quarter, up from $6.5 billion for the same quarter last year. The company said ink and other supplies revenue rose 6 percent, commercial hardware revenue grew 22 percent. Consumer printer revenue was down 2 percent.

First photo printer for the iPhone

Emailing and Printing Coming To iBooks

A leak is going around that Apple is planning to offer some significant improvements to iBooks in the future. Users will be able to easily email PDFs from iBooks to anybody, not to mention the printing of PDFs via AirPrint

Wax-On Printer

If you’ve ever gazed at the printer on your desk and wished it was something a little more attractive – or even that it just took up a little less space – then you should check out the Wax-On Printer.
A concept creation by designer Faris Elmasu and showcased over on Yako Design, the Wax-On Printer is a solid-ink device that is designed to make printing simplier, prettier, and more space-efficient.

3D Printer Prints its Own Upgrades

The 3D printing scene is just getting weirder and weirder as more and more 3D printers get out into the wild. Today’s 3D printing development is a series of extendable clamps that allows the MakerBot 3D printer to print larger objects. This is not particularly strange on its own. The weirdness: The clamps can be printed by MakerBots.

Sharp announces Five New Copier/Printer Models

Sharp will introduce into the Japanese market two types of digital MFPs in three models specifically designed to deliver maximum performance using A4-size paper. The new Sharp MX-C312SC Digital Full-Color MFP and the MX-B382 and MX-B382SC Digital MFPs offer advanced features such as high-speed full-color and B/W output in a compact body size. The

Sharp announces three Digital Full-Color MFPs

Sharp will introduce into the Japanese market three new digital full-color MFP models. The MX-2610FN, MX-3110FN, and MX-3610FN all features a large 10.1-inch touchscreen color LCD in a lightweight, compact body. The Sharp MX-2610FN, MX-3110FN, and MX-3610FN models are equipped with a large 10.1-inch touchscreen color LCD and an easily mastered user interface that supports intuitive finger flick operation.

How to Make a Printer the Default Printer

Whether you install a new printer or already have multiple printers installed on your network, you have the option to choose which printer you want to use as your default printer so that Windows and your applications know where to print. If you are installing a new printer, follow the instructions on your CD. During installation, the Add Printer Wizard is displayed and you will be given the option to install your new printer as the default printer.

10 Printers that Work with Apple iOS 4.2 AirPrint

AirPrint, one of the eagerly anticipated features of Apple's iOS 4.2, which launched earlier today, lets iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users easily print documents or photos over Wi-Fi to a printer connected to the same LAN as their device without needing to use other software or apps. The catch is that, at launch, AirPrint only supports printing to 10 select HP printers.

OKI's LED Printers Receive "Fall 2010 BERTL's Best"

OKI Data Corporation, an OKI Group company specializing in the printer business, announced the receipt of the 15th Annual, Fall 2010 BERTL's BEST Awards for four of its new digital LED printers. The C530 and C330 color LED printers received the Best High Performance Color Printer Award and the mono LED printers, B431 and B411 received the Best High Performance Monochrome Printer.
“We're honored to receive the 'Fall 2010 BERTL's Best Award' for output quality as it acknowledges these products for their capabilities, easy-to-use and reliability through the unique LED technology”
.The Business Equipment Research and Test Laboratories Inc., (BERTL) is an independent testing laboratory whose purpose is to provide objective, independent product evaluation reports and comparative analysis on imaging devices and software workflow solutions. Their primary focus is the end user. Since 1995, the "BERTL's Best" Award recognizes the best device, software, and product lines in the digital imaging marketplace that were launched during the year. The categories are based on desktop, workgroup, departmental and production work environments. BERTL's analysts review them to identify the select group of devices and software that stand apart from the others.
The compact and robust color digital printers, C330 Series and C530 Series, are ideal for small workgroups requiring fast print speeds, flexible media handling and exceptional color output quality.
The B411 Series and B431 Series of mono LED printers provide exceptional performance to meet the needs of demanding workplace environments delivering fast print speeds, high consumable yields and duty cycles in a user-friendly compact design perfect for small workspaces.
"We're honored to receive the 'Fall 2010 BERTL's Best Award' for output quality as it acknowledges these products for their capabilities, easy-to-use and reliability through the unique LED technology," said Harushige Sugimoto, President of OKI Data. "The receipt of 'Fall 2010 BERTL's Best' is a true testament to OKI Data's commitment in providing innovative products and solutions that meet the various needs of our end users, at the same time, maximizing efficiencies. The awards for these products exemplify our mission of delivering the best balance of value, cost and performance.

Office supply mogul touts premier service

Need a refill for a Montblanc pen in less than two hours? Sheldon Lehman says he can make it happen. Lehman is president of Premier Supplies, a nationwide office-service company he founded with a college friend, Mitch Werglies, in 1992. Premier, based in New York City, serves clients in the tri-state area out of a 22,000-square-foot warehouse in Carlstadt

Staples tops Street on cost cuts

Top U.S. office supplies retailer Staples Inc reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit on Thursday, boosted by tight cost controls and market share gains. Smaller rivals Office Depot Inc (ODP.N) and OfficeMax Inc (OMX.N) also relied on cost cuts to offset tepid sales

AirPrint on steroids

When Apple removed AirPrint shared printer support from Mac OS X 10.6.5, it created a functionality gap that developers moved quickly to fill. TUAW took a first look at FingerPrint, an AirPrint solution that enables iDevice printing to many Mac OS X shared printers. Today, we have an exclusive first peek at Printopia, a competing product from long-established Mac developer Ecamm.

Adobe update tackles PDF peril

Adobe released an unscheduled update to Reader and Acrobat on Tuesday that addresses a variety of security bugs in its PDF software, including an unpatched flaw that has become the subject of hacking attacks over recent weeks. Updates of Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.4 for Windows, Macintosh and Unix address a critical flaw in the way the PDF software renders Flash files.

ViewSonic rolls out digital photo copier

For those of you with boxes of old-school print photos collecting dust and becoming forgotten, ViewSonic has debuted the 8-inch DPF8-CAM Digital Photo Copier. Converts analog print photos to digital format, the DPF8-CAM also doubles as a digital photo frame with the other standard features found on the ViewSonic 3DPF8. On paper, the DPF8-CAM Digital Photo Copier sounds like possibly the better deal of the two. (MSRP: $149.99

HP Ushers in Holidays with Tech Gifts that Offer Style and Convenience

This holiday season, HP offers a selection of PCs, printers and online solutions to satisfy every consumer, from music and entertainment enthusiasts to busy, on-the-go families. The model highlighted is the HP ENVY(100)e-All-in-One is an ultra-slim, stylish web-connected printer that features HP ePrint, whisper-quiet operation and a large retractable touchscreen display. The ENERGY STAR qualified e-All-in-One is also the planet's first PVC-free printer.

Utility Gets More Out of Old Epson Printers

Over the years, ink prices have dropped from the absurd to mostly affordable, but not before spawning an entire industry based on lowering those ridiculous ink costs--with cheaper cartridges and ways to refill old ones. It's the latter practice that spawned SSC Service Utility. This free program that allows you to reset various parameters on Epson Stylus printer cartridges, including the ink counters that generate out-of-ink messages.

Italian printer picks Goss M-600 for first web offset press

Commercial printer Poligrafica Industriale of Naples, Italy is investing in a new Goss M-600 web offset press to improve its competitive edge in the marketplace. The move from exclusively sheetfed production will enable Poligrafica Industriale to offer customers faster turnaround and new products.
Scheduled for delivery in March 2011, the four-unit Goss M-600 press has been specified with a Goss JF-55 folder and a Goss Ecocool dryer. The new 16-page press will complement the services of four 40-inch (70 x 100cm) sheetfed presses producing 300,000 sheets per day. Poligrafica Industriale plans to exploit the capabilities of the new press to achieve extensive penetration of the high-quality catalog printing market.

Track Web Traffic From Your Printer with Lexmark’s Google Analytics App

Ever felt like checking your website traffic from your printer? PCMag.com reports that if you own a web-connected Lexmark touchscreen printer, you can download a Google Analytics SmartSolutions web app to check web traffic stats on your touchscreen and print them out. In case you didn’t know, Google Analytics is an application that tracks visits to your website. You sign up for a free account, register your site, get some tracking code, and then insert that code into the HTML of your website. Once Google Analytics starts collecting stats, you can get insight into how many people are visiting your site, which pages they’re visiting, how they’re getting to your site, and more.

Will 3D Printing Spark a Home Manufacturing Revolution?

It may sound like science fiction, but some of us may soon be manufacturing products right in our very own homes."Think about collectibles, customized gifts, interior decorating elements, customized headphones or earphones for cellular devices. Think about lighting fixtures—you might want to start a design shop," says Abe Reichental, CEO of 3D Systems. "The limit is really only your imagination."

Everybody hates printers

The printer ate your TPS reports, but no excuse matters when you're rushing off to meet clients empty-handed. No wonder everybody loves to hate printers. When you need them most, they'll display a stupefying error message and create a hot mess of jammed paper and spilled ink.

Smallest multi-functional laser printer from Samsung

Hmmm, when we hear of superlatives like "smallest", "biggest" and "most expensive", chances are we wouldn't have third world countries in mind. Well, India can lay claim to having the smallest multi-functional printer in the world thanks to Samsung India's launch of the SCX-3201.

How to add iOS printer sharing back to Mac OS X

Experimenters have discovered the configuration files Apple removed from the public release of Mac OS X 10.6.5; adding them back restores the ability to print from iOS devices to shared printers on the Mac. AirPrint for shared printers on Mac OS X works using a CUPS filter. CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) is an open source package that serves as the printing architecture for Mac OS X, Linux, and other Unix-like operating systems. Apple adopted CUPS in 2002, and since 2007 has owned the code and maintained the CUPS open source project.

DOT Worker Allegedly Stole Office Supplies

Know what print toner cartridges are good for—besides being used in bomb plots? Easy money! The Department of Investigations says a Department of Transportation employee raided a DOT storage facility for various office supplies—and then reselling them.

HP launches ePrint-enabled printers in Malaysia

HP MALAYSIA has followed through with the successful launch of its consumer ePrint- enabled printers by introducing a similar range of printing solutions designed for the business community. The new line-up includes a broad portfolio of ePrint-enabled printers that spans across the Officejet, Laserjet and Designjet categories.

Confusion over AirPrint support on Mac OS X 10.6.5 has everybody guessing

Apple released Mac OS X 10.6.5 today and one of the most anticipated features was support for AirPrint, Apple’s method of sending print jobs from iOS devices to printers. However, Mac OS X 10.6.5 release notes mention nothing about AirPrint. Speculation exists that Apple removed AirPrint support for Mac OS or Windows shared printers due to licensing and patent issues.

Must-Have Printer Downloads

When it comes to hard copy, most people are fine with the results of simply clicking the Print button. But if your life revolves around the printed page, the shortcomings of this approach soon become apparent. Some of PCWorld's favorite printer utilities not only make your life with paper easier, but lessen printer technology's impact on the ecosystem. Most of them are free--and none of them cost much money.

If something doesn’t work, suspect the driver first

I get e-mails such as, “Yikes, my printer is dead.” Or "my network is toast," "my scanner is fried. ..." Don’t panic. The first thing a repair person would check is your drivers. They are little programs with a big job, bridging your computer with an external device. And yes, they go haywire.

Office Depot Takes Care of Business with Global Crossing

Applying the value of its network reach, its products and its people, Global Crossing announced that it is providing Office Depot (NYSE: ODP), a leading global provider of office products and services, a strategic Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) network that supports data and voice services to more than 100 Office Depot warehouse distribution centers and large customer sites in the U.S., Europe, China and Israel.
The three-year, multi-million dollar contract supplies Office Depot with a strategic alternative network, in addition to their existing service provider, that provides them the benefits of Global Crossing's Internet Protocol MPLS infrastructure to streamline communications among key Office Depot locations around the world. Global Crossing also deployed a flexible usage-based billing model for Office Depot that helps the customer manage the network throughput more efficiently and cost effectively.

U.S. Bans Large Printer Ink, Toner Cartridges on Inbound Flights

In a predictable move, as part of a United States Homeland Security directive after the discovery of bombs hidden in laser toner cartridges aboard two airplanes in late October, the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) has banned the shipment of large ink and toner cartridges aboard overseas flights bound for the U.S.

Comparative look at the offer price

These days, low-cost, entry-level printers are hip. Many entry-level buyers are students who find a basic printer a necessity to complete their assignments. But not all printers are created equal, and if you buy a cheap printer without considering the running costs, it can turn out to be a very expensive proposition.

HP quits supplying printers to Dell

Hewlett-Packard plans to stop supplying printers, cameras and scanners to Dell Computer, citing that company's intention to enter the printer business. HP spokeswoman Diane Roncal told CNET News.com that the company notified Dell of its plans on Tuesday morning. "The basis for the relationship is no longer valid, given the company's intent to sell Dell-branded printers," Roncal said.

Quad/Graphics Acquires HGI Company

Quad/Graphics, the second largest provider of print, digital and related services in North America, today announced it has purchased HGI Company, an award-winning, full-service, multi-faceted commercial and specialty products printer, building on the strategic partnership the two companies established earlier this year. The acquisition brings together HGI's expertise in the commercial and specialty products segments with Quad/Graphics' industry-leading technology and innovation to provide quick-turn, customized and value-added solutions on a global scale.
HGI -- which had been majority owned and led by Craig C. Faust and his team of print industry professionals -- will operate as a division of Quad/Graphics. Mr. Faust will serve as the division's President, guiding the profitable growth of commercial products and services, including short-run books, catalogs and directories; marketing collateral; print-on-demand custom publications; and specialty binding. He will also oversee the advancement of the company's specialty products offering such as retail point-of-purchase (POP) displays and materials through its Tempt brand.
"HGI is a premier printing company that has earned a stellar reputation for quality, flexibility and reliability," said Joel Quadracci, Chairman, President & CEO of Quad/Graphics. "I look forward to Craig joining my management team and expanding on HGI's strong commercial and specialty print offering, which includes some of the newest, most advanced equipment anywhere in North America. Our goal is to offer a broader, more complete suite of differentiated products and services that advance our clients' business goals and help drive Quad/Graphics' immediate and long-term growth."

Versatile solution for scanning large numbers of documents

In response to the growing demand for fast, compact, and reliable scanning solutions, Canon announced the addition of the imageFORMULA DR-6030C document scanner to its award-winning lineup. The Canon DR-6030C is a versatile solution for scanning large numbers of documents.

Do they think we're printing money?

How can it cost more to fill a printer with ink than it does to buy it in the first place? Most cheap printers gobble up ink, while the ones that don't almost always cost several times more, a recent survey reveals. It suggests that the murky ink-onomics of the printer industry seems to be based around flogging printers for low prices and then making customers pay through the nose for refill .

Google Docs to get cloud printing

Google Docs has undergone some nice changes in the past year. However, none of those changes compare to what Google seems to have in store for its cloud-based office suite. Google Operating System, a website dedicated to uncovering the latest and greatest Google news, has found something interesting in the Google Docs source code.

PROSTEP and Tech Soft 3D Announce 3D PDF Partnership

PROSTEP, which recently took over development, worldwide sales and support of the PDF Generator 3D product from Adobe Systems Incorporated, has also licensed underlying CAD-to-3D PDF Conversion technologies from Tech Soft 3D as part of this transition. This partnership combines Tech Soft 3D’s expertise converting 3D geometry formats with PROSTEP’s competence in PLM integration.
The cooperation between the two companies aims to incorporate the growing demand of customers from the manufacturing industry regarding the quality and scope of 3D data in development and other related areas. Furthermore, PROSTEP and Tech Soft 3D will jointly support the effort to establish 3D PDF technology as the ISO standard for communicating 3D data throughout the manufacturing industry.
Using Tech Soft 3D’s HOOPS 3D Exchange technology, PROSTEP’s PDF Generator 3D delivers a robust PLM-integrated PDF solution that quickly and accurately converts complex CAD data into 3D PDF files.

First 3D Printed Car

3D printing has grown in popularity partially because 3D printers have become inexpensive in recent years but also because of how easy it can be to put in raw materials like wood or metal, turn on the "printer" that cuts the pieces or entire product you need out of the material, and come out with a working mechanical device that requires minimal assembly to function. One enterprising design group, led by Stratasys and Kor Ecologic, wanted to use the technology to build a fully-functional automobile that would qualify for the 2010 Automotive X-Prize Competition.

Wireless Printers: A Technology That's Going to Waste?

More than half of all printers sold at U.S. retail are wireless-capable, but nearly three-quarters of consumers who have access to those printers aren't taking advantage of the increased access to print from multiple devices according to the new Wireless Printing Study, from leading market research company The NPD Group.

Printer Cartridges Full of Living Tissue

This is no horror movie, this is part of a recent presentation at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress, where Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine researchers had a super fun time showing off their results from a printer that uses living cells instead of ink. Fluid based inkjet technology used in the very printers you’ve got in your home or office is used to lay down cells, printing large sections of living tissue down on cut up or damaged areas of the body.

Office Supply Retail Stocks: Buy or Sell?

Office supply retailers reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings, sending shares in the sector rallying. Is this a good time to get in on the group? Currently, while the office space continues to post incremental improvement in sales, there hasn't been a significant acceleration into positive territory, J.P. Morgan analyst Christopher Horvers, wrote. The sector is generally seen as a good gauge for the recovery of the business sector, especially small business, as companies cut back on spending on office supplies amid the recession.

10 best photo printers: which is right for you?

It always pays to look good on paper but, when it comes to the best printers, it also pays to choose wisely, Techradar writes. Some models are aimed at hard-nosed business printing, based on a four-ink system for generating polished documents, spreadsheets and the like, quite often with fax facilities on the side, or at least on top, as part of the current vogue for the best all-in-one printers that feature a built-in scanner.

World Paper Free Day

Strength of Inkjet Printer Sales Narrows Kodak’s Loss

Eastman Kodak narrowed its third-quarter loss to $43 million, lifted by inkjet printer sales and a big licensing deal with a digital camera business. Its earnings handily beat Wall Street expectations, driving its stock up more than 10 percent on Thursday.