Canon adds several new printers to lineup, including budget wide-format model

Canon adds several new printers to lineup, including budget wide-format model 

 

Canon introduced several new printer models last week at CES. While most are general upgrades from previous models, there are two affordable wide-format printers for home and small office users who need to output documents onto larger paper. In addition, there’s also a new laser printer in Canon’s ImageClass series.
The Pixma iP8720 is a 13 x 19-inch wide-format printer that uses six ink tanks for a max resolution of 9600 x 2400 dpi. The iP8720 is for the home user who wants to print large photos or photo-based craft projects, and at $300, it’s more affordable than the models in Canon’s Pixma Pro series – not to mention more compact and lighter. For the office environment, there’s the Pixma iX6820. This wide-format printer uses five ink tanks instead, since the thinking here is that this user prints text and graphics, not purely photos (a high-yield black cartridge is an option). The iX6820 sells for $200.
In the Pixma multifunction series, there’s the MX532 ($150) and MX472 ($100). Both have office-friendly features like automatic document feeders and fax, in addition to color ink printing for graphics and photos. Canon told us that both models are the same as their predecessors, the MX522 and MX452, in terms of performance and features. The difference being support for the Pixma Printing Solutions platform in the MX532, which lets you print from cloud solutions and social media sites such as Dropbox, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Picasa, Evernote, Photobucket, and Canon’s own ImageGateway service. The MX472 has enhanced wireless connectivity, but no PPS here.
To the contrary, the Selphy CP910’s name does not reference the popular photo trend, but the name of Canon’s series of portable compact photo printers. These printers utilize cartridges that contain a finite amount of both ink and paper. What’s new with the CP910 is wireless support for cameras and smartphones via Wi-Fi. Smartphone users can use the Easy-PhotoPrint app for iOS and Android to print photos, but there’s also the old-school solution of plugging in a USB cable or inserting an SD card. You can also add creative touches to the photos before printing, editing them on the small LCD. 

Finally, there’s the ImageClass LBP6030w. Nothing special here, but if you’re looking for an affordable black-and-white laser printer for your office or as a secondary printer at home, it costs $159. It prints up to 19 pages per minute and has a capacity to hold 150 sheets. There’s Wi-Fi for wirelessly connecting to a network, but no support for some of the convenient Wi-Fi features found in the Pixma printers.

3D-printed prostheses give hope to amputees in war-torn Sudan

3D-printed prostheses give hope to amputees in war-torn Sudan

 

While 3D printing technology has emerged to serve a wide variety of purposes, few appear more worthwhile than that of US-based company Not Impossible Labs. Through its Daniel Project, the company has not only provided 3D-printed prosthetic arms for amputees in war-torn Sudan, but empowered the local community to continue the initiative in its absence.

The origins of the project date back to 2012 when Daniel Omar, then aged 14, was attending to his family's cows when a bomb was dropped on nearby rebel forces. Seeking cover behind a tree, Daniel was able to to save his life, but not his hands, losing both to the blast which ultimately left him with two stumps for upper arms.
After hearing Daniel's story, Not Impossible co-founder and CEO Mick Ebeling says he was compelled to act. Feeling invigorated following the success of his EyeWriter project, which enables artists with paralysis to draw using their eyes, Ebeling crowd-sourced a team of innovative experts from various fields to tackle his next venture.
Comprising the creator of the RoboHand Richard Van As, an Australian MIT neuroscientist, and the owner of a Californian 3D printing company, the team set to work in designing an arm that was effective and relatively cheap compared to traditional prostheses. The end result was a 3D-printed prosthetic hand that enabled Daniel to feed himself for the first time in two years (he ate three brownies).
In keeping with Not Impossible's slogan, "Help One. Help Many," Ebeling and his team set up a workshop in a local hospital and trained local clinicians to print and build the prosthetic arms themselves. "Teaching a man to fish" appears to have been an effective approach, as the company says that within one and a half weeks of departing Sudan, the local workshop had already created four prosthetic arms.

Not Impossible says that the technology behind the 3D-printed arms is and will remain open-source, in the hope that it will inspire similar projects and bring assistance to what it estimates are 50,000 amputees in South Sudan, as well as others around the world.
"We're hopeful that other children and adults in other regions of Africa, as well as other continents around the globe, will utilize the power of this new technology for similar beginnings," said Ebeling. "We believe Daniel's story will ignite a global campaign. The sharing of the prostheses' specifications, which Not Impossible will provide free and open-source, will enable any person in need, anywhere on the planet, to use technology for its best purpose: restoring humanity."

 

First food 3D printer launched by 3D Systems

News: American manufacturer 3D Systems has unveiled the world's first3D printers for food at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The Chefjet and Chefjet Pro are the first professionally certified, kitchen-ready 3D food printers, on display at 3D System's stand at CES this week.

The machines were launched with the pastry chef in mind, and so far they can print in milk chocolate or sugar in three flavours: mint, cherry and sour apple.

"The machine uses an ink jet print head that's just like the one you would find in your desktop 2D printer," explained 3D Systems' Liz von Hasseln. "It spreads a very fine layer of sugar then paints water onto the surface of the sugar, and that water allows the sugar to recrystalise and harden to form these complex geometries."

A "digital cookbook" will allow those unfamiliar with CAD modelling to generate and print complex objects with ease.

The ChefJet is aimed at the domestic market and will retail at under $5000 (£3000). It produces single-colour edible prints for items like sugar cubes and cake decorations.

The ChefJet Pro will be priced at under $10,000 (£6000) and produce full colour prints with a larger build volume. Both will be available in the second half of 2014.

The launch by 3D systems grows out of its acquisition of The Sugar Lab, the 3D-printing cake decorating business founded by architecture graduate von Hasseln and her husband, Kyle von Hasseln.

In 2011 the husband-and-wife team wanted to try and "print" a birthday cake so they hacked a 3D printer and, after much trial and error, successfully printed a mini cup cake with cursive sugar script. The couple, who both have backgrounds in molecular biology, then launched The Sugar Lab in July 2013 and it was acquired by 3D Systems in September 2013.

3D Systems' creative director Janne Kyttanen told Dezeen that the company was working on 3D printed food when we interviewed him for our Print Shift publication this time last year. "Food is the next frontier of 3-D printing," he said. "We're already printing in chocolate, so a lot of these things will be possible in the next few years."