08 June 2009 | Uncategorized | bob

Print certainly isn’t dead, but the chunking, shuddering hunks of steel and plastic on our desks hardly seem the stuff of sci-fi dreams. Ever since inkjet and laser printers replaced dot matrix and daisy wheel printers, it seems that printer technology has stalled. Printer companies seem more interested in selling us pricey ink and toner cartridges. So where is the innovation?

You can find it by going back to the future with Jas Bhachu’s rubik’s cube-inspired font generator. Rubber stamps were placed on four of the sides in such a way that you can still rotate the rows and columns. By changing the configuration of the rubber stamps, you can create all sorts of symbols that you can then print by pressing them into an ink pad and then applying to a surface. It may be extremely manual, but it’s a very creative solution to a school project requiring students to create a visual representation of the word “move.”

If you’ve got a larger print project in mind, like an entire wall, you might want to check out Random International’s PixelRoller. “PixelRoller is a paint roller that paints pixels, designed as a rapid response printing tool specifically to print digital information such as imagery or text onto a great range of surfaces.” The end result is the ability to apply designs, words, or pictures quickly to almost any surface, using the same, easy back-and-forth or up-and-down motions you’d use with a normal paint roller.

However, if you’re more about sticking it to the man and fighting the powers-that-be, you might be more interested in the robotic innovations of the Institute for Applied Autonomy. Catering to todays busy anarchist who must avoid the ever-growing surveillance apparatus of the modern state, the Institute has developed a pair of graffiti-producing systems that allow you to get in, leave your message, and get out quick.

The first, and most fun, is the GraffitiWriter, a remote-controlled robot with an array of spray cans that are pre-programmed to print out your message in a manner very similar to the way old dot matrix printers used to spell out words.

For bigger jobs, the van-installed StreetWriter does a similar job, only at a much larger font size:

Again, the technology is decades old, but is being applied in novel ways that get beyond the usual fliers, pamphlets, and white papers that most of us use printers for. Just as the latest cellphones allow us to take the internet and all its networks of email, instant messaging, blogging, and Twitter with us into the outside world, these innovative printing technologies allow us to express ourselves in ways that are no longer limited to computer screens or 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper.