MEMJET PRINTERS ON THE WAY

[Anonymous]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4813681a18335.html
MEMJET printers on the way
Home
printers capable of spitting out a colour page in a second are expected
to be released around the world this year, made possible by technology
developed by a research firm in Sydney.The new Memjet technology was
developed by Silverbrook Research, based in Balmain.The research
company has licensed the technology to Memjet Home and Office, which is
working with printer manufacturers to integrate it into new printer
models. A working prototype is on display at the 2009 Consumer
Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Kim Beswick, Memjet’s VP of
marketing, said that, despite some delays, printers using Memjet
technology would be on the US market later this year, before coming to
Australia in early 2010.”We’ve had inkjet and laser for 25 years and
Memjet is essentially a new generation of printing,” she said.”It’s a
second per page and there’s almost no warm-up time, and it prints that
continuously – there’s no difference in how fast the first page prints
versus the fifth page.”Existing colour printers capable of printing a
colour page every second are large enterprise models costing in excess
of $10,000.

Beswick said Memjet allowed printer manufacturers to
produce compact home models with similar speeds in the US$300-US$500
(NZ$500-NZ$850) price range.She said they were ideal for home users,
particularly those who frequently made prints of their digital
photos.Silverbrook Research began developing Memjet in 1994 but was
only ready to commercialise it in 2006.

Memjet has been
criticised for taking too long to reach the market but Beswick insisted
printers would be on sale this year and deals with manufacturers had
been signed.”On a traditional inkjet head the head scans back and forth
to create the page, but with Memjet the print head is fixed in the
printer and the paper just runs underneath it, so you essentially avoid
the scanning back and forth, which improves the performance
dramatically,” she said.

[Author]

January 12, 2009 at 3:45 PM