Printers have shrunken dramatically in size since the days of the first inkjets, but they are still unattractive boxes that we have to deal with. To add insult to injury, there are so many things that can go wrong with a printing job – paper jams, ink smears, a total refusal to do the one thing it’s supposed to do – that office workers genuinely hate having to use this unfriendly piece of office equipment.

Design graduate Mugi Yamamoto came up with a simpler and more fun design for his diploma project. It’s called Stack, and instead of feeding paper into a little tray over and over, you set the whole machine on top of a big stack of paper. As you print, the Stack feeds paper through the bottom and spits out your finished projects onto the top, creating a new stack.

While Yamamoto’s goal was to create a functional and less ugly printer, the machine is also surprisingly entertaining. As it eats its way through papers, you have to wonder whether the stack of paper is going to tip over and spill printer guts everywhere. For those of us who have ever felt the need to go all Office Space on an inkjet printer, this new idea could prevent a lot of appliance-based violence.

The post Simplified Printer Eats its Way Through Stacks of Paper first appeared on Gajitz.

Remember the days before digital? We shared objects and ideas by actually handing over a physical item like a cassette tape, a hand-written note or a photograph. Oksu is a concept that brings back the idea of exchanging physical objects by printing out physical representations of links, songs, articles, movies and letting you pass them on to friends.

Oksu was designed by Alex Zhulin to give people a way to share their favorite things digitally….but with a whimsical physical element. The little cubical printer spits out small speech bubble shaped pieces of paper that include both physical and digital cues to represent whatever you want to share. The physical part of the paper is printed without ink using Z-Ink technology, in which the color pigments are already present within the paper just waiting to be activated by the printer.

When you find a link, story, photo, video or other bit of data that you want to share, you print it out on the special paper which includes an NFC (near field communication) chip in the middle. The person who receives the printout can view the data by placing the printout near any gadget that can read the NFC chip. The printout can then be kept as a permanent physical reference to call up the data again and again, or just to serve as a reminder of some fun thing once shared by a friend.

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Despite the miniaturization of most technology objects, printers still seem to be big, bulky, ugly machines that take up way too much room on desks. The Circle printer is a concept from Yang Jae Wook that would let casual home users print the occasional document without completely overpowering the home office.

Rather than the traditional boxy appearance, the Circle is sleek and cylindrical. It stands on its side, so it takes up far less room than any other printer. And maybe best of all, it looks like a high-end vase or piece of art sitting on your desk.

The Circle is clearly not for heavy-duty users – it can’t hold more than a few sheets of paper at a time. But for home users it would be so much nicer to look at than the typical printer.

The post Petite Printer Concept Looks Like a Piece of Fine Desktop Art first appeared on Gajitz.

As businesses go ever more mobile, they have had to adapt existing technology and adopt new gadgets to keep things running smoothly. The SM-T300 mobile printer from Star Micronics is the next step in increasing business mobility. It communicates via wi-fi or Bluetooth with a smartphone, iPad or Android device to print receipts and delivery confirmations even when the office is miles away.

Thanks to its integration with a number of devices, the mobile printer could take the place of the invoices, receipts and work orders that are now written out by hand. The SM-T300 is waterproof, dustproof and can withstand drops of up to 1.5 meters, making it tough enough to handle being taken on the road. The printer even comes with a built-in magnetic credit card reader so it can issue receipts for credit card payments at trade shows, flea markets and festivals.

The post Business to Go: Ultra-Tough Mobile Cell Phone Printer first appeared on Gajitz.

Photo booths have enjoyed a recent resurgence in popularity, making appearances at weddings, proms, bars and parties. Even more popular is the ever-present cell phone camera documenting every moment of a fun time. The Instaprint is a product that combines the best qualities of both, giving revelers a quick and easy way to print instant hard copies of party pics.

Instaprint is considerably easier than taking your phone home and printing out all of your photos on a photo printer – plus it offers instant gratification. The wall-hanging gadget (which looks a bit like a paper towel dispenser) is paired wirelessly with your phone and programmed to look out for event-specific hashtags. When you snap photos and tag them appropriately, the Instaprint spits out hard copies of those pics.

One of the most interesting aspects of this Kickstarter project is the paper on which the pictures are printed. Rather than using expensive and quickly-exhausted ink cartridges, the Instaprint uses special inkless paper. The colors for the pictures are pulled directly from the paper itself, making the printing process somewhat cheaper and less wasteful than it would be with ink cartridges and photo paper.

The post Instant Mortification: Wireless Printer Spits Out Party Pics first appeared on Gajitz.