There has always been an inconsistency in the combination of two electronic devices that go hand in hand. Consumer home video technology existed for years before somebody combined a VCR and television; the same went for DVD/TV combos. And when computer desks became overly cluttered with hardware, the printer/scanner/copier/fax machine combo was born. 3D printing has luckily caught up to the curve.

AIO Robotics has announced their plans to create a combination 3D printer/scanner/copier/fax machine. Resembling a sleeker version of a kitchen appliance, the device features an ARM-based computer that allows it to function free from your PC. The built-in scanner uploads images in HD to a cloud system, where the final 3D rendering is done.

As for its 3D faxing capabilities, AIO Robotics is leaving us in the dark for now, although we assume it will work the same way the scanner does. On a RepRap message board, they state that “it will be significantly cheaper than the Makerbot Replicator and Digitizer,” a setup which currently runs around $3,000.

The post Triple Play: Next-Gen 3D Printer Can Also Scan and Fax first appeared on Gajitz.

An animated short entitled ‘Talking of Tomorrow’ proposes two types of technology will be commonplace among executives of the future. Made in either 1960 or 1962, the cartoon lead works for an “interspace engineering company” and communicates purely through video phone. Crazy idea, huh?

Future-retro shorts like this one were common in the mid-20^th century. The thriving economy of the era led to manufacturing booms and rampant advertising, the two catalysts of the popular interest in innovation. Bell Telephone Labs were at the cutting edge of communication technology – at least according to this animated short.

The film speaks of “business materials” being transmitted via “telephonic machines.” This is presumably the precursor to the fax machine. The idea of video conferences presented by the short could be seen as the original Skype. Are shorts like this one prophetic or simply following the logical growth of technology?

The post 50-year-old Animated Short Predicts Modern Technology first appeared on Gajitz.

Fax machines ruled the office for a while, before being mostly pushed aside in favor of scanners and email. Still, the humble fax has had a big impact on the way people conduct business – and it’s been around for far longer than most people realize. Before the phone-line transmission most of us are familiar with, faxes were sent in a way similar to telegraphs – and later, they used radio waves. The first facsimile-type machines were developed in 1846, but it wasn’t until a century later, in 1946, that the world’s first color facsimile machine was invented.

This truly beautiful machine was developed by W.G.H. Finch. It used colored pencils (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) to recreate the colors of the transmitted images – and it did it using plain paper, not the slippery, thin rolls of fax paper.

The Colorfax was able to print a 7 X 10 inch page in 15 minutes – not bad for a full-color reproduction sketched out with colored pencils. The Popular Science article in which the invention appeared touted the Colorfax as the best way to get news, the Sunday comics and even educational materials delivered directly to your home. And amazingly, this technology was available even before there was a television in every home.

The post Just the Fax: World’s First Color Fax Machine From 1946 first appeared on Gajitz.