You can imagine our chagrin when we came across a stunt that was pulled recently to set a world record – “The Largest printout in the World unveiled at CeBIT.”

CeBIT is “the world’s largest trade fair showcasing digital IT and telecommunications solutions for home and work environments.”  It has been held annually in Hannover, Germany since 1986 and their key mission is to create an international platform for notes comparison and to showcase key findings.

At the 2009 conference, PrintDreams, a company based out of London whose main focus is taking a visionary look at eco-friendly printing, decided to create the largest printout in the world in a parking lot in Hannover.

The printout consisted of “15.5 trillion ink dots on 7,000 square meters of ordinary office paper… [a] full color, high definition image in an unprecedented format. While normal desktop output is best viewed at arm’s length, this record-breaking printout [needed] to be seen from the sky – or at least a couple hundred meters away.”

Take a moment to look at the printout below (no sound).

My first thought was “That’s a lot of paper.“  More than 110,000 sheets, to be exact.  I was immediately angry at this complete waste of ink and paper all for the sake of a record.  It seemed excessive for something so silly.

Appearances aren’t always as they seem.  PrintDreams created this display for an important environmental message.  They used RMPT™ (Random Movement Printing Technology) to create the advertisement and the benefits of this technology far outweigh the 30 trees that were sacrificed.

Raw Materials – Globally, adoption of RMPT™ could save up to 325,000metrics tons of raw materials which are enough to build 4 cruise ships.  It might not seem like much, but take the Titanic, add updated technology and then clone it 3 times.  That’s a lot of square footage and luxury.

Electricity – According to PrintDreams, printers annually use about 2% of the world’s energy consumption.  RMPT™ printers like the PrintBrush™ could save 291 terawatt/hours of electricity each year.  This is similar to the annual amount of energy used by Italy.

Shipping – Nearly 100 million printers are shipped throughout the world each year.  These printers require boxes, labels and packaging materials which add up quickly for medium to large sized printers.  RMPT™ technology is on a much smaller scale and would greatly reduce our shipping footprint.

Manufacturing – PrintDreams’ printers can fit in the palm of your hand.  You can take it with you on a plane, to church or to a fancy party.  Manufacturing is on a much smaller scale and reduces post-manufacturing materials.  Likewise, less energy is used, workplaces are safer and entry-level jobs more likely.

The technology is there to be environmentally friendly without compromising printout quality or printing speed.  The biggest drawback is large print runs, but for smaller jobs like printing out an e-mail, PrintDreams’ efficiency can greatly impact the world’s ecology.  We can only hope that they recycled those 30 trees so they can be used again.

Read the original article: The Largest printout in the World unveiled at CeBIT.

See our previous article about a printer that uses RMPT™.

The reason I bring this up is because one day, Dr. Parker told us how much he loved fonts. He continuously looked for new fonts and loaded them onto the printer in the main office of the department. (Back in those days, you had to install fonts on your machine and on the printer.) In fact, one day he installed one font too many and overloaded the printer, causing it to crash in biblical ways.

Dr. Doug Parker is a font collector. You know the type… a designer, graphic artist, independent publisher or just a geek who has well over 5,000 fonts and commonly downloads them just because they look cool knowing full well that they will never use the majority of them.

Font collectors are also the best resource to judge the look and popularity of a particular font. When you see thousands of them in a short amount of time, you start to lean towards those that have a particular look and shy away from others.

What is interesting is that the majority of font collectors (and there are many of them) tend to shy away from the same ones showing that there truly are fonts that should have never seen the light of day.

I perused the internet and created a list of those that seem to have the most negative effect on people.

1. Comic Sans – This font is so disliked, that since 2002, it has had its own hate website. It is a childish font that will probably never go away. Most annoyingly about it is that every once in awhile it is perfect for something that you are working on and you get sick to your stomach knowing that you are only perpetuating the problem.
2. Times New Roman – I was actually surprised to see how many people disliked this font, but I think I understand why. Studies have shown that serif fonts are very difficult for people to read on a computer. (The evidence is pretty overwhelming, but the head of your marketing department is going to continue ignoring the facts.) So I think a caveat needs to be placed on this one that while it is very disliked online, it is liked and sometimes even preferred in print materials.
3. Monotype Corsiva – This font is like the child of Old English and some weird pirate font. It had been around since the beginning of Windows, but it looks so cheesy. Have you noticed how many times it is used by religious and historical organizations? The want Old English, but they know that most of their readers will struggle to read it, so they switch to Monotype Corsiva. And don’t even get me started about how awful it is in all caps.
4. Papyrus – When this font first came out, I was a big fan. It was easy-to-read with a touch of the Holy Land making it perfect for holiday cards, weddings, bar mitzvahs and self published books about the Old Testament. But after a couple of years, it became fairly tiresome. It is still used by many people, but it should be used with more care.
5. Fonts that drip with blood – From October 15 – November 2 each year, these are overused. We get it… you like pretending that you are going to massacre your guests at a party at your place on Halloween. Do you have to tell us all about it? There was a time when people kept that a secret. Seriously though, try to find some other fonts that give off a gothic or creepy feel rather than immediately making your fonts look like they need a transfusion.

If you use any of these fonts frequently, PLEASE search for alternatives. Many people will love you for it and you might find that it helps you to move in different creative directions.

And what happened to Dr. Parker? The Classics Department purchased a brand new, high-end printer for him so he could collect to his heart’s content without having to worry about the consequences.

I started by checking out books in the library in elementary school.  In middle school, I became a librarian aid so I could check out more books than was allowed.  In high school, I started asking for books as Christmas gifts and I began to reread them at a rapid pace.  Now, at 40-years old, I get books anyway I can whether it be freebies at sci-fi conventions or buying many from the trunk of my local dealer.  It is an expensive addiction and my husband has even had to have an intervention with me about spending the money on bills instead of hardbacks.

Now, I sneak around behind his back to get my fix, but at night when I want to read something new and all of the bookstores are closed, that is when the literary shakes are the worst.  What’s a smart girl like me supposed to do at one in the morning?

Luckily, someone is looking out for my future.

OnDemandBooks has created the Espresso Book Machine^® also known as EBM.  Imagine taking the machines that publishers and printers use and compressing it to fit in in a smaller machine that is slower, but more effective for a single publication.

The EBM can print cataloged books that have a soft copy available.  (No hardbacks just yet.)  Printed books include the pages, covers, binding and cutting.  Basically, an exact duplicate of what you would get in a bookstore.  The catalog is extensive… over 3.3 millions books and growing everyday.

Pricing is extremely economical… about a penny per page with a maximum of 830 pages.  That amount is for the “paper, coverstock, toner for the interior, ink for the cover, and glue for the bind”.  It takes about a minute to transfer the book from the catalog to the machine  and a few minutes to print out average paperbacks.  (Watch the demo below to see an example of printing and speed.)

There is another benefit to using this technology.  It is environmentally friendly and they offer many benefits to publishers, writers, libraries, retailers and readers.  Another benefit is that independent publishers and writers will reach a wider audience.

The one drawback is that there are very few of these machines in circulation at the moment, but that will soon change.  Until then, I’m going to have to cure my cravings by rifling through the novels at 24-hour gas stations and airport gift shops.

>> Read more EBM specs and FAQs

Two of the computers ran Vista and two were still running XP. With all of the good things that I had heard about Windows 7, I thought that an upgrade for all of the computers made sense. All of the installs actually went fairly painlessly, but one of my biggest concerns was making sure that all of my networked printers were still accessible.

I did research before the OS installs and discovered that as of the release date of Windows 7, there were updated drivers available from HP and Brother for all of our printers. The updated drivers were bundled with Windows 7, available through Microsoft Update or could be downloaded directly from HP and Brother.

So how did it go? After all OS installs, here’s what happened, including my grading of ease of installation from a 1=Horrible to 10=Flawless:

The Brother HL-2170W printer, connected over a wireless network, was usable from all computers right out of the chute. No muss, no fuss. I believe the drivers were on the Windows 7 disc and there were absolutely no problems associated with using the printer afterward including the “manual duplexing” option. I was actually very surprised, and pleased, that the Brother printer worked that well.

Ease of migration = 10

The HP Photosmart C7280, also connected wirelessly, worked flawlessly immediately. It is only usable from one computer, a laptop which was running Vista with which I use the HP Solutions Center software extensively for scanning documents using the automatic document feeder. As any student of HP printer software knows, installing an HP printer driver typically brings along another 600MB of additional software. In some cases, it’s OK, but in others it can be useless, buggy or just plain junk. I found the HP Solutions Center for this printer to be rock solid on Vista, do I was a little worried that it wouldn’t easily transfer to Windows 7. Again, I was very pleased that not only new versions of drivers were installed, but also a new version of HP Solutions Center.

Ease of migration = 10

The Photosmart Pro B9180, connected over a wired network, is used for fine art printing from our desktop computer which was running XP. This printer uses pigment based inks to print on a wide variety of fine art papers and produces prints of stunning quality. I use Adobe Lightroom to manage my photography and printing to the printer also involves the use of ICC profiles for the different papers. After the OS install (a clean install of Windows 7 with migration assistance from PC Mover), the printer would print, but it had only a basic driver. I went to the HP website to download the Windows 7 version of the driver and installed it. I had a bit of a problem when the software wouldn’t detect the printer over the network, but a few adjustments fixed that. I reinstalled the ICC profiles for the papers I use and the printer was back to working beautifully from Lightroom.

Ease of migration = 7

The Photosmart 3210, also connected over a wired network, was another issue entirely. This printer is a print/scan/copy unit and, to be quite honest, its usability suffered under Windows XP because of the lousy quality of the HP software that came with it. Like the C7280, it also has HP Solutions Center to allow you to configure the actions of front panel buttons and to take advantage of special scanning, copying and printing options. However, the HP Solution Center for this printer was nothing less than horrible. The Solution Center would regularly “lose” the printer and claim that it was not connected. The actions of the front panel buttons would regularly be “lost” as well and wouldn’t activate the right software on the computer. I tried for several years to install updates, reinstall software and troubleshoot until I just gave up and stopped using some of the advanced features of the printer.

Under Windows 7, there was no difference. After the OS install, there was a basic driver installed, but I went to the HP web site to download the “full feature” driver and software. Suffice to say that over a two week period, I uninstalled and reinstalled five times, ran printer and network diagnostics and solicited the help of HP experts in their forums. At the end of that time, I decided that once again, I would abandon the use of the HP Solutions Center for this printer. Basic and photo printing worked just great, but none of the advanced features available through the Solution Center work. Ease of migration was a 1 for advanced features, but a 10 if all you wanted to do was print.

Ease of migration = 1 for advanced printing, 10 for basic printing

On a side note, I found out shortly thereafter that Windows 7 Home Premium includes the Windows Fax & Scan application. It works flawlessly to allow you to scan documents on the printer and then save or fax them. It always “finds” the printer, where the HP Solution Center insists that there is not a Photosmart 3210 on the network! Go figure.

Oh, and for anyone still sitting on the fence about upgrading from Vista or XP to Windows 7, I say Just Do It. There’s nothing to think about. The reliability and usability improvements made with Windows 7 are great. I especially like the Homegroup, which allows for easy sharing of content among all computers on the network. Quite simply, it just works.

But back in the 40s, it was much harder to print an ad.  Remember, they didn’t have neato cool computers where they could load a graphic and print it out on paper within seconds.  They had to do things the hard way.

However, World War II added a great deal of fire to the technological process of printing.  The government printed bonds, posters to advertise bonds, posters to encourage people to join the armed services and anti-German propaganda.  Printing became another war machine for the States and, like airplanes and gunnery at the time, it was constantly in a state of updating itself as it tried to beat the Germans in the propaganda race.

Offset Printing

Offset printing was actually invented by accident in 1903 by Ira Washington Rubel, but it didn’t really gain steam until the 1940s.  (It gained even further popularity in the 1950s due to improvements in ink, paper and plates.)

According to Wikipedia, “Offset printing is a commonly used printing technique where the inked image is transferred (or “offset”) from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface. When used in combination with the lithographic process, which is based on the repulsion of oil and water, the offset technique employs a flat (planographic) image carrier on which the image to be printed obtains ink from ink rollers, while the non-printing area attracts a water-based film (called “fountain solution”), keeping the non-printing areas ink-free.”

It’s very easy to tell if something has been created using offset printing.  If you look at a newspaper and see a page that has images where they don’t quite seem to line up, that is because one of the printing plates was a little off when they were laying down a color.

It is still in use today and is a great way for printers to make cost effective prints.

Lenticular Printing

Another form of printing that was popularized in the 1940s is lenticular printing by the Vari-Vue company.  They used this process animated  political badges and animated cereal cards.

Wikipedia says that lenticular printing is “a technology in which a lenticular lens is used to produce images with an illusion of depth, or the ability to change or move as the image is viewed from different angles. Examples of lenticular printing include prizes given in Cracker Jack snack boxes that showed flip and animation effects such as winking eyes, and modern airport advertising graphics that change their message depending on the viewing angle. This technology was created in the 1940s but has evolved in recent years to show more motion and increased depth.”

Like offset printing, lenticular printing is still used today and are very popular in printing large sizes due to enhancements in oversized lenses.  You may recognize the billboards that have one image on it that changes to another image as you drive by.

Golden Age

Another publication that helped to revolutionize printing techniques in the 1940s was comic books.  What is known as the Golden Age of Comic Books took place from the 1930s to the 1940s and was an inexpensive form of entertainment to kids, teenagers and adults alike.

In World War II, the comic books and the government saw a great opportunity for their propaganda machines to reach the minds of the youngest of readers.  In March 1941, Captain America was born and his nemesis, Red Skull, a American who became a saboteur for Germany.

Comic books used offset printing (you can see it sometimes when there seem to be double or triple images on the page) and inexpensive paper to capitalize on this broad reaching art form.

This time period really defined the hero and the bad guy.  The comic book character Spirit also got its start in the early 40s and he had several similarities to the everday man including the same flaws, but he still prevailed over evil.

Conclusion

Printing had to come a long way before it got to the ease with which we can print today, but you can still duplicate the look of some of these old printing styles.  Take a gander at the sites below to see how some people try to recreate the look and feel of 1940s printing and also look at the two videos to get a better idea of how important printing was during and after the war.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3rlsj-KEZE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy1J3vBGxu4
http://www.hotcards.com/run-a-vintage-print-ad-campaign
http://www.instructables.com/answers/how-do-I-fake-a-color-offset-print-of-a-1940s-pul/

Coming to a coffeehouse near you in the unforeseeable future is the Latte Art Printing Machine.  It is exactly what is sounds like.  This printer, designed by Oleksiy Pikalo in Boston, MA, gives you the ability to print anything you want on the foam on top of a latte.  It uses flavored inks, so no worries about getting some weird ink poisoning.  And it doesn’t take too long; the original design took about 2 minutes for a complex logo.  Watch the demo below.

Two minutes might be too long for the big coffeehouses like Starbucks or Seattle’s Best Coffee, but it isn’t too long for the smaller, independently owned coffeehouses that are right down the street.  And they wouldn’t have to be just for advertising, but could be used for holiday greetings, funny jokes or cartoons, and flash fiction.  This would be a great way to support the arts community in your neighborhood.  The newer version is much faster, by the way.  Take a look at this demo.

However, you can see that this would be great for advertisers and it might give some valuable income to little coffee shops that are struggling in today’s economy.  And why stop at lattes?  What about printing on whipped cream?  Danishes?  The sky’s the limit.

This really is one of the coolest, most innovative use of a printer I have ever seen and the creator had no idea it was going to be as big as it became.  What started out as a little project has now become a company, OnLatte, Inc.  You can pre-order one of these machines, but the pricing hasn’t been decided on yet.  They expect for the price to be somewhere in the $500-$1,500 range and to date, they have more than 355 pre-orders of an initial product run of 1,000 Latte Art Printing Machines.

To find out more about this new look to an old technology, check out OnLatte, Inc.

Realms of Fantasy closed on January 27, 2009, but was soon purchased in March 2009 by Tir Na Nog Press and resumed publishing in July of that year. But not all publishers have been so lucky to have someone save them and before the economy gets better, we might see some small press having to shut down.

What is going to happen when the economy picks up? We have asked some current luminaries in the field to tell us their opinion of the Future of Publishing.

"One of the mediums for books which I think is being underserved is audio books. Folk who won’t read a paper book or an e-book, for a variety of reasons–time being chief among them–often get most of their reading done with audio books. At the moment, the books which get translated into that format tend to be solely bestsellers. I think that’s something which could change, and prove profitable for audio publishers." Louise Marley, award-winning author, Seattle, WA

"Physical books will remain near and dear to readers’ hearts — and publishers’. And authors’. That said, I see the biggest change due to electronic editions and the internet as a whole being to the relationship between author and reader. We’ve come a long way from the days of glimpsing celebrity authors at a distance. Look at Neil Gaiman, who invites the world of readers into much of his life. How far will this go? From a commercial side, there are TV shows whose success is due to writers who interact with viewers about content. Will readers come to expect not only information about their favorite authors, but input into upcoming novels? Will authors run or embrace this?" Julie Czerneda, award-winning author, Orillia, Ontario, Canada

"For as long as I’ve been reading, there have worries about doom and the end of books. In the 1820’s, with the introduction of stereotype printing, the elite were horrified that as a result anybody was able to buy books. In 1983, I heard a talk by Christopher Cerf that hardbacks were getting too expensive to produce and would soon be replaced by trade paperbacks which no doubt echoed the laments in the 1940’s that the mass market paperback would ruin hardback sales. In 1979, I read essays about how the vertical consolidation of mass media would mean that any day now, there would only be 4 or 5 sources for all of our books, movies and TV shows; thus, the end of civilization as we knew it. By the early 1990’s, as the web began to take hold, the worries that soon nobody would publish real books because they would be online began to arise. Soon we had the first attempts at portable electronic book readers… which would also lead to the end of publishing as we know it. Reading for pleasure is a rare genetic quirk that will lead people to read in whatever mode is convenient for them. I, for one, don’t think the new fangled eBooks, whether online or in an eBook, will catch on until the texts can easily and conveniently be read in Bed, on the Bus (plane, etc.), at the Beach (backyard, etc.) and in the Bathtub. The Four B test. Those are the locations most people read for pleasure. Until information no longer has to be parsed in symbolic character strings of words and paragraphs, we will continue to want to find that in a convenient manner. There will be the occasional economic disruptions as business cycles cycle and new methods of production and marketing are marketed. In spite of efforts like Wal-Mart trying to reduce mass market paperbacks to only those titles per month they are willing to fit on their rack space or Amazon trying to only sell those self published books they printed, there will be an infrastructure providing needed reading matter that is edited, promoted and sold in easy to read containers for consumption by the 17% of the population that will admit to reading novels because they want to. I, for one, will continue to want to." Willie Siros, owner of Adventures in Crime and Space, Austin, TX

"As the cost of production and the impact the existing system has on the environment become even more untenable than they already were, the mainstream publishing is slowly leaning toward a business model a number of independent presses have been using for a decade or more. On-demand printing, eBooks, the Espresso Book Machine and the increasing number of authors who aren’t willing to spend all their advances and royalties–and more–on marketing and promotion can’t help but lead to some significant restructuring." Elizabeth K. Burton, writer, editor and partner of Zumaya Publications, Austin, TX

"There will be more and more ways to read books. There will be hard copies, electronic copies, audio files (that exist without physical CDs), and print on demand. This will be great for established authors who already have a following. But it will be harder and harder for new authors to grab readers and make an impact. Sure, they can self-publish electronically at very little cost to themselves, but it will be very hard for them to gather any attention in an overcrowded market. More and more people WILL self-publish as the publishing houses conglomerate and become more risk-averse and publish fewer and fewer authors in fewer and fewer genres. But all those independent authors making their stories available through Lulu and Kindle will find it harder and harder to get the attention of the reader who is offered an ever more bewildering array of choices. It will still be possible for someone new and fresh to catch the attention of the public. The next Stephenie Meyer and JK Rowling will benefit mightily from the social media that can turn a word-of-mouth campaign into an astonishing overnight success. And, because an electronic book can stay in print forever and not cost the author or the publisher anything, it will still be possible for small, overlooked books to slowly develop a following (the "long tail" you might have heard about). I just don’t think this will happen as often as aspiring writers would hope. I think the printed book will become rarer and rarer. I don’t think it will happen in my lifetime, but I do think eventually books will only be available in electronic form or POD." Sharon Shinn, award-winning author, St. Louis, Missouri

As a bookworm, what do I think?

It’s clear that the younger generations are truly embracing wireless readers and with their propensity to try the next big technology whenever it comes out isn’t going to go away. I think that in the future, there will be fewer books published, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for all of those trees out there. However, I do not think that story writing and editing is going to go away. People just love disappearing into a different reality too much.

In the end, there will always be books. I like to curl up in a chair and flip the pages while a thunderstorm is going on outside and a cat is purring on my lap. I always think of what some science-fictions stories have told us. Books become a rarity in the future and therefore, they are a prized possession. Remember, Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the starship Enterprise always held onto a few books and took great pleasure in reading them over and over. He could have just brought them up on the ship’s computer, but he loved the feel of the book in his hands as his tea cooled on the table.

Maybe Picard’s love for books is a sign that hardbacks, paperbacks, graphic novels, trade paperbacks, fiction magazines and anthologies are never going to go away. They are just going to evolve.

Sound crazy doesn’t it?

Late 2009 or early 2010, you will be able to do just that.  A company based out of London called PrintDreams has created a printer that fits in the palm of your hand.  It is called the PrintBrush™ and is easy to use and extremely user-friendly.  They tout it as the “world’s smallest printer device” and it can print A4 or letter sized documents.

Need to print out an e-mail?  No problem.  Map to your next destination?  Simple.  Address label for an envelope?  Easy.  Check out their demo video to see how it works.

Notice how the user wipes the information onto the paper almost like a brush.  This kind of technology is similar to the cloning tool in Photoshop or even a stylus tool.  The PrintBrush™ remembers where it is located on the page to make sure it prints out the entire document.  If you miss a spot, simply move the printer up to that area and wipe it.  Based on the demo, it looks to me that you need to do this before you lift the printer from the document.

It can even print out a logo on a cardboard box as evidenced by this demo.

There are other pros to the PrintBrush™ as well.

“In many ways it will be even better than stationary printers or other so called “mobile” printers.  For example, it will be possible to print directly in notebooks or other media that would never fit into a conventional printer device.  It will also be completely silent allowing you to print during ongoing meetings, etc. On top of all that, no wires, no cables, no mess!!” – PrintDreams.com

Another plus to note is that it is 600dpi, allowing you to print good quality graphics.  It weighs a little over 8 ounces and it runs on a Lithium-Ion battery.  The preliminary price is not cheap… $199 dollars.  But the ease it brings to your day is worth the money.

There are two things about the PrintBrush™ that could be issues.  First, how big is the ink cartridge and how long does it last?  Is it going to be widely available or do you need to special order it from PrintDreams?  How expensive will it be?

Second, the PrintBrush™ only prints in monochrome, so no printing out something that is colorful.  I am hopeful that they will figure out a color version in the future, but my guess is that it would be bigger to fit a larger ink cartridge.  However, a printer twice as big as this one would still be super convenient.

Keep your eyes on this printer.  It could revolutionize the way we do things.

You can find out more about the PrintBrush™ at the PrintDreams website. Can’t wait that long? Go to Printer.com and do a search for the best printer for your needs.

Most people don’t know how they can reduce their carbon footprint by making changes to their printing habits. Women appear to be more concerned about the impact of their actions than men. Moreover, more women tend to purchase from a printer manufacturer who claims that they embrace technology recycling.

This information comes from a global survey conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Lexmark International in March and April, 2009.

The report describes that 75% of the participants indicate they feel guilty when printing unnecessary pages. Also, 64 percent INCORRECTLY think that the disposal of ink cartridges is the largest cause of pollution from printing.

Paper or Ink?

Another recent Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study, also sponsored by Lexmark, indicates that the quantity of paper that consumers use in their laser or inkjet printer is the most important contributor to the ‘carbon footprint’ impact.  In fact, the primary step users can take to reduce their carbon footprint is reducing their overall paper usage in printing, by printing only the pages they need, and by using double-sided printing wherever they can.

The great challenge of our time is getting people to become aware of the impact that their daily activities have in the world. The same goes for our global printing behavior, not only because of the cost but also because of the effects on the global environment. Objective information, knowledge, behavior changes, new technologies and recycling play an important role.

Companies like Printer.com can help you make balanced choices when it comes to printers and cartridges. This is an easy way to start reducing your carbon footprint and referring your friends and co-workers can get them moving in the right direction as well.

Souvenir Waste?

Another carbon footprint issue concerns souvenirs.  You may not think about it, but all of those gift shops on your vacation that are stocked with tourist items put a huge impact on the environment.  The items are usually made in a different country and then shipped to the shop only to be sold and finally arrive at its final destination.

Designer Hector Serrano has come up with an ingenious idea intended to reduce the amount of miles souvenirs have to travel, not to mention their shipping and packaging costs.  Instead of purchasing a physical product, you purchase it virtually.  The person who is supposed to receive the gift gets an e-mail that allows them to print a personalized souvenir on a 3D printer.  While still in its infancy, this concept could do wonders to help everyone reduce their carbon footprint and it wouldn’t have to stop with gifts.

What if you needed to send a fossil from Africa to the UK?  If you could do a high resolution scan of the bone, the UK office could print it out in a short period of time.  This would also reduce the chance that the original might be damaged.  Waiting on an out-of-state piece for your architecture presentation?  No worries.  Just send it via e-mail and print it out.  The sky is not only the limit, but also what might be saved in the long run.

>> Find out more about Reduced Carbon Footprint Souvenirs

ABOUT THE SURVEYS: Lexmark’s “State of Printing” survey was conducted from March 12 to April 6, 2009, by Ipsos, and queried 10,507 people age 15 and over who use a computer at home, across 21 countries. There were at least 500 interviews per country, of national representative samples* of the target, in each of the following countries: Austria, Canada, Denmark, USA, France, Australia, Germany, Brazil, Italy, China, Netherlands, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Poland, South Africa, Romania, Turkey, Spain, United Arab Emirates (UAE), U.K.   The LCA study is a “cradle to grave” approach, taking into account all natural resources and energy used to extract the materials in the printer, to manufacture and distribute it to the customer, to use during the lifetime (including paper and cartridge manufacturing, use and disposal), and to recover and recycle the printer at the end of life. Three environmental indicators were chosen as the benchmark including non-renewable resource depletion (fossil and mineral resources), non-renewable primary energy (oil, coal, gas and nuclear), and global warming. The two Lexmark printers involved in the study were the Lexmark X646dte monochrome laser MFP2, which is used in business environments, and the Lexmark X7675 Professional inkjet all-in-one3, which is consumer oriented.

Implants, Orthopedics, Maxillo-Facial

3D Ventures, a company based out of Lubbock, TX, has been helping hospitals in the operating room.  By sending a MRI/CT scan to their office, they can quickly print out a medical model or send a 3D print to the hospital.

“3D Printing medical models is rapidly taking hold.  Take a jawbone reconstruction surgery for example.  A patient’s MRI is taken and 3D printed into a 3D medical model, a plate is created with a perfect fit before O.R. reducing time in O.R. by 45 minutes!” (from the website)

This technology has been beneficial to orthopedics, implants and plastic surgery.  Imagine being able to easily customize a hip joint to your body so that you can more easily get through your physical therapy.  Car accident?  3D Ventures can quickly print a metal replacement for your crushed skull using a special metal powder that fuses to itself.

>> Read more about the exciting work being done by 3D Ventures

Printing Skin Tissue

Another use in the medical field is printing skin tissue.  Yes, you read that correctly, and it turns out that it isn’t all that hard to do.

Normally, a hospital would take some healthy skin cells, grow them and then put them close to other skin cells to quickly create a patch of skin.  The only drawback is that the resulting skin isn’t very thick due to the lack of blood vessels and pores.  No blood vessels means that blood can’t get to the deeper cells.

“But creating intricate solid structures layer by layer is easy for a 3-D printer. So researchers have adapted old inkjet printers to hold a suspension of human cells in one reservoir and a gel-like substrate in another. Each pass of the print head lays down a pattern of cells held in place by the gel; when the next layer is applied, the adjacent cells begin to fuse to the layer beneath. If, for example, each layer contains a circle of cells in the same location, the result will be a tube—in other words, a structure very much like a blood vessel. A printer could in fact hold different kinds of cells in an array of ink reservoirs (like those used by color printers), theoretically enabling the creation of entire organs.”

>> Read more about human tissue printing

This technology is still under development, but the Clemson University brains behind the idea are seeing some great results and organ printing isn’t far behind.

Dental Implants

Hospitals aren’t the only places finding new uses in 3D printing technology.  Dental offices are also able to use these printers to help them with many different procedures including implants and molds.  The InVision™ DP 3-D Printer by 3D Systems Corporation has made this a reality.

“We are delighted to be able to deliver to our dental lab customers a revolutionary new rapid manufacturing solution designed to help them improve their bottom line,” said Abe Reichental, 3D Systems’ president and chief executive officer. “What dental labs need today is the ability to increase their productivity and improve the quality, consistency and delivery of their product to dentists’ offices. Our comprehensive, turnkey InVision™ DP system solution harnesses our extensive rapid manufacturing experience to enable dental labs to transition smoothly from current legacy techniques to the digital mass customizing age.”

This new technology will also help patients keep their costs down. Currently, about 55 million prostheses are created annually in the United States and that amount is expected to increase. The InVision™ DP 3-D Printer can produce “readily castable customized master patterns” in less than 6 hours. This will save hundreds of thousands of dollars in labor and wear-and-tear on equipment.

Think about it.  Instead of a week going by while your dentist waits to get new veneer made from your mold, you could feasibly pick it up later the same day.

>> Read more about the InVision™ DP 3-D Printer