Mini Marvel: Mouse-Size Printer Puts Your Mark on Anything

The image quality of printers has increased impressively in a short time, but the one major drawback has always been the fact that the surface on which they print has to be very thin. Transferring an image onto a thicker surface like wood, plastic, furniture or clothing usually requires a few extra steps. The PrintBrush would eliminate this hassle by allowing you to print on just about anything.

Alex Breton, a Swedish engineer, came up with this brilliant tiny handheld printer. It weighs just 8.8 ounces and prints perfect inkjet images with nothing more than a few simple swipes of the hand. It uses laser sensors to track the printer’s position on the surface and ensure that the correct pixels are being printed at the perfect time and speed.

The only downside is a rather gigantic one: the PrintBrush costs an astonishing $10 million. Obviously, quite a bit of development is needed before this becomes a viable consumer produce. Breton hopes to eventually integrate a digital camera into the device, making it an all-in-one image reproduction machine.

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See more in Various Gizmos or under Gadgets. June, 2011.