HP releases eco-friendly printers

Hewlett-Packard has released two monochrome printers that make use of energy and paper saving features, along with new solutions to reduce the impact of printing on the environment, reports PCMag.

The HP LaserJet P2055 d/dn are monochrome, networked Energy Star-qualified printers geared to small and medium businesses. According to HP, their instant-on technology provides up to 50% energy savings over traditional fusing technology.

Both printers support automatic two-sided printing and use recycled paper at a rated print speed of up to 35 pages per minute.

Xhead = £5m grant for ink-jet research

A consortium led by the University of Cambridge has been awarded a multi-million pound grant to investigate how ink-jet print technology could revolutionise the manufacturing process, says Cambridge Network.

The £5 million (R61 million) award will support a five-year research programme to study the formulation, jetting and deposition of specialist printing fluids, and develop an overall process model. The work is set to improve the robustness of industrial ink-jet printing and help companies develop new applications for the technology.

Ink-jet technology is currently used for printing pictures and text but can be used to manufacture high-value, high-precision products like flat-panel displays, printed electronics, and photovoltaic cells for power generation.

Intel has debuted the Intel Reader, a mobile device that converts printed text to digital text and reads it aloud to the user, reports ChannelWeb.

The Intel Reader is roughly the size of a paperback book, includes a 5-megapixel camera, and runs on Intel's Atom processor. Users point the reader at a sheet of text and it captures the text and through text-to-speech reads it back to the user.

The reader is geared to users with disabilities such as dyslexia or blindness, but Intel also sees potential use for English-as-a-second-language users and anyone who has trouble reading printed text.