Samsung's Multifunction Color Printer for Corporate Offices

Samsung Electronics America Inc. recently announced a premier color laser multifunction (MFP) printer called the MultiXpress CLX-8540ND. Samsung is currently offering the CLX-8540ND with an MSRP of $8,249.00 and is recommended as a heavy duty solution to corporate businesses.

“The CLX-8540ND is our flagship hybrid printer designed as a printer-copier solution for workgroups in large corporate environments and for copy-intensive small-to-mid sized businesses. Along with being one of the fastest digital color printers on the market, the CLX-8540ND also bridges the gap between Letter/Legal verses Ledger printers by including advanced printer and copier features usually only found on larger machines. What we’ve done is simplify the selection process for IT managers who are looking for a truly multifunctional printer.” - Doug Albregts, Vice President of Information Technology, Samsung Electronics America Inc.

Fastest in Its Class
The CLX-8540ND is one of the fastest color multifunction printers on the market and is capable of replacing current bulky multifunction printers. The CLX-8540ND has an extremely quick startup time and can print up to 40 pages per minute (PPM). This printer even sports an 800 MHz CPU, 1 GB of RAM, and a 160 GB hard drive making it suitable for the most demanding of office environments. Difficult printing and scanning jobs become a thing of the past as the CLX-8540ND easily processes, stores, and protects these aspects of your business. The optional paper tray is expandable to 2,720 sheets allowing this printer to manage large print jobs without interruption.

Samsungs Crisp Color and Easy Management
Whats truly unique about the CLX-8540ND is its Easy Color Manager and Real-Time Calibration Technology. The Easy Color Manager allows users to adjust color balance, brightness, contrast, and saturation of any image that you want to print. This is especially useful for businesses that have specific color preferences or rigid color requirements for their prints. The Real-Time Calibration Technology ensures that all documents are printed consistent with a high color quality. However, when dealing with important documents that may require special attention, users can choose to manually define what level of color quality will be specifically used on their documents. There is even an "Auto" option that will automatically detect whether print jobs are "mono" or "color" allowing your business to save time without having to separate these different print jobs. Whats truly impressive about the MultiXpress C8540ND is that it can handle a 9,600 dpi resolution with ease and will always print clear and precise.

Easy to Manage and Personalized UI
The combination of Samsung’s exclusive 7”color LCD touchscreen and 3-dimensional User Interface creates a smooth and easy interaction between users and the machine. The touchscreen also provides trouble-shooting capabilities that effectively reduce downtime. In addition you can add valuable information to the UI such as your corporate logo, IT support phone numbers, and any other service/support details. Rest assured that this printer will conform with all of your businesses existing IT infrastructure policies and regulations through the use SyncThru™ Admin 5, an online administration application that lets you manage and control who has access to the C8540ND.

“Next to its performance, the CLX-8540ND’s advanced features, such as modular add-ons and productivity software, make this multifunction printer easy to manage for IT managers and end users. We’ve also added cost saving features like TonerSave, AnyWeb Print, and Auto Color Detection to help our customers trim expenses. Our standard accounting solution gives managers complete visibility into their printer fleets by providing them with real-time tracking of their printing costs by individual users, printer type and location.” - Ken Colby, Director of Printer Product Marketing, Samsung Electronics America, Inc.

A Few Quick Toner Tips

Here are a few quick tips about toner that can help you save money and maximize the use of your laser printers, fax machines, and copiers.

• Above all, it is important to realize the difference between ink and toner. Toner is used in all laser printer and copiers and most fax machines and is actually a carbon-based powder. If you're spending too much money on ink, buying equipment that uses toner is a great way to go. Toner machines are slightly more expensive, but in the long-run, you'll save on the cost of printing and that can save you hundreds of dollars and even thousands if you are running a small or medium business.
• When your machine tells you your toner is empty, here's a hint: it's not. Because your toner is a powder, you can take the cartridge and give it a gentle shake from side to side, causing the toner to redistribute evenly. (Sometimes it gets stuck on the sides.) Get anywhere from 10 to 15% more usage from each cartridge by remembering this tip!
• Shop around for toner! Less expensive, generic brands are everywhere. Don't pay extra money for a fancy box or brand name. Do your research, shop around online and compare prices.

Xerox Celebrates the Anniversary of the 914 Copier

The Xerox 914 copier was introduced at a trade show in New York City, over 50 years ago, on September 16, 1959. The name 914 came from the fact that the machine photocopied images as large as nine by fourteen inches and the first copy took fifteen seconds, with each copy after that taking about seven seconds to complete. The old machine is currently housed on the second floor of the 30-story corporate tower called Xerox Square.

The 914 made photocopying cheap, easy and ubiquitous and its success made Xerox Corp what it is today. The Connecticut-based company is a Fortune 500 firm that employees over 54,000 employees worldwide. Last week, Xerox CEO Ursula Burns hosted a group of retired employees who were initially involved with the 914. "It's foundational to the company. It's what really transitioned Haloid from a company that made photographic paper to a company that was in the business of documents. And it really changed the face of the office," said Steve Hoover, Vice President of Xerox's Global Software and Solutions group.

The original copier was produced at a factory in Rochester, New York; each one weighed 600 pounds a piece. It was even the subject of a 2004 book, Copies in Seconds: How a Lone Inventor and an Unknown Company Created the Biggest Communication Breakthrough Since Gutenberg. And it was definitely a breakthrough in technology. When the copier came about, copying a piece of paper was mostly done with carbon paper, a lithograph machine, and chemically based processes such as 3M Co.'s Thermo-Fax and Eastman Kodak Co.'s Verifax. The 914 and many of today's photocopiers use xerography or electro photography.

Even though the Xerox's digital iGen4 presses is pretty much the same today as it was 50 years ago, today's technology uses a laser instead of a flash of light to expose the image. Xerox also has a number of inkjet products but executives say they don't think xerography is going anywhere anytime soon.

Joe Wilson, the founder of Xerox, originally shopped the idea for the new technology to investors such as IBM but no one was interested. So, he decided to take matters into his own hands, raising money and depending on friends to put the machine together. The original machine was leased to customers due to the fact that it came from a small, unknown company, and had yet to be tested. According to Horace Becker, the now 86-year-old chief engineer of the 914, "The rest is history."

"The orders started to roll in. We started with the idea we'd build five a day at the Orchard Street plant. Then we moved to 25 a day. When we finally moved out of Orchard Street to Webster, we were building over 100 a day," Becker told the Democrat and Chronicle.

Between 1960 and the early 1970's, over 200,000 o the 914s were produced. Becker says the demand was so high, hardly any money was made and almost before the company even turned a profit, they began planning the 813.

New Universal Printer Drive From Konica Minolta

Konica Minolta is one of the leading providers of advanced imaging and networking technologies for desktops and print shops and they have just announced of their newest product, the Konica Minolta Universal Print Driver (UPD). The UPD is a single printer drive for all networked printers. The UPD offers a common interface which handles printer selection throughout and entire network, automatically detects and identifies Konica Minolta printers and MFPs as well as other company's products. The UPD also offers a full range of functionality which increases overall business efficiency.

Konica Minolta's UPD has a single user interface which offers multiple benefits for IT Administrators as well as users that work in anything from small to large workgroups. With this UPD there is no need for the installation of separate drivers for each networked device. The UPD simplifies all the complex capabilities by considering each and every integrated task into one single driver core. This device also allows operators to add new devices to current configurations easily so they can be up and running quickly with no loss of productivity. In addition to all of that, the user interface also offers complete functionality which includes finishing, layout and quality for every pre-installed devices.

According to Vice President of Marketing for Konica Minolta Kevin Kern, "By implementing our Universal Print Driver, IT professionals can significantly reduce administration time and costs while concurrently streamlining their printing operations." Kern goes on to say, "As businesses continue to look for ways to remain competitive, the ability to manage growing workloads in less time, while not compromising quality or efficiency, is a key concern and one that this solution directly aims to address. Konica Minolta's new UPD further evidences efforts to ensure that users can always count on Konica Minolta to deliver the cutting edge innovation they need.

Konica Minolta's UPD combines multiple print drivers to meet the needs of networks comprised of new and legacy devices from numerous manufacturers. Individual Child Drivers will connect to model-specific MPFs from Konica Minolta and Common Child Drivers will connect to other models from Konica Minolta as well as 3rd party devices. More recent MPFs and desktop printers from Konica Minolta will enjoy full print functionality while older ones will also have a basic range of functionality. Every device also has automatic detection and identification.

What s special about this UPD is that it is the only printer driver to feature a specific search filter which enables the user to search by feature set. Printing attributes like color, letter sized or 11" x 17" paper and duplex printing can be typed into the search field at which point the filter will display all devices that match. If you are looking for a quality UPD, then you should check this one out from Konica Minolta. No release date or price has been set.

Xerox's New Silver Ink

The brains over at Xerox have just developed a new type of ink that is so much more than the typical kind we see today. The ink can conduct electricity so that it can be used to put electronic circuits on top of things such as plastic, textiles or film. But what does this mean for us? It means that soon we will be able to bend or even wear our electronics and even print out a gadget on a plastic sheet the same way you print out a document.

There has always been a problem with trying to incorporate this technology. Silicon chips have always been too heavy and expensive to be able to be used in lightweight devices. However, Xerox has solved this problem by using lighter materials. Xerox also plans to sell these materials to other businesses that have a vested interest in making wearable electronics.

With a plastic, you can unroll it into a sheet and deposit electronic circuitry onto it. This allows you to build it up layer by layer. In order for it to o work you need a conductive link, something that contains metal and is also able to be sprayed or printed on. This is where Xerox steps in. They created a silver ink that melts at 140 degrees Celsius. Typically metal melts at 1,000 degrees Celsius. Plastic melts at 150 degrees so an ink that is laid on top of plastic can not melt at a higher temperature or the plastic will melt.

According to Angele Boyd, an analyst with IDC, "This opens a whole new world for electronics. With printable electronics, the future of electronics will include plastics and fabrics. The Xerox technology opens up opportunities for lower cost applications in traditional electronics and for new applications around plastics and fabric."

This silver ink and electronics on plastics could be used to build things like plastic electronic book readers like one that is being built by Plastic Logic. Flexible eReaders would be more flexible than traditional ones and thus would be less susceptible to damage. The would also be extremely lightweight. The possibilities with this technology is endless. You could potentially weave a computer into your clothing or make smart boxes for pills to tell if they are safe or tampered with in any way.

This technology has been a long time coming. Scientists have been dreaming about it for ages and Xerox has been working on it for the past 8 years. but Xerox isn't alone in their quest for technology like this. Hewlett-Packard has also been researching this for the past 10 years. According to Xerox, it has been able to create lightweight and cheap components necessary to print circuits on plastics. Xerox has already created a cheap and lightweight conductor, semiconductor and a dielectric element.

The circuits for these plastic chips will be able to be printed by printers just like a document without the necessary use of a clean room like you have to use now. Xerox has already made research samples of the product and is in talks with different manufacturers who could potentially use plastic electronics. Aside from what has already been mentioned, the plastic circuits could be used to make things like light and flexible signs, solar cells, low-cost radio frequency identification tags (RFID), sensors or novelty fashions. Whatever they get used for, this is definitely going to be a big step forward in the world of technology and another step closer to that futuristic world we only dream about in movies and books.

The New GEI 5636 by GEI WideFormat

Visual Edge Technology Company, GEI WideFormat, has announced the new GEI 5636 engineering copier as part of the GEI WideFormat product line.

The new copier has output speeds of 10 D-size prints-per-minute and features an easy-access clamshell design, a front copy exit tray which holds 99 D-size drawings, and a color LCD touch-panel interface. Changing toner and paper is easy to do with front-loading drawers that hold four rolls of 500-foot-long media. It also gives users the ability to preview thumbnails before printing, allowing for better conservation of materials.

The GEI 5636 also features an embedded color scanner, which makes sure that changes and additions are capture and circulated effortlessly. In addition, the external printer controller will interface with inkjet printers for complete colorcopy systems.

"We are very pleased to provide our customers with such an exciting new product. The GEI 5636 has innovative features, such as color scanning, paired with ultra-fast output speeds," the President of GEI WideFormat, Roger Ilgen, said of the copier in a press release.

Z Corporation's ZPrinter 350 Creates 3D Objects

Everybody knows that 3D is way better than plain old 2D and now, thanks to Z Corporation, you can finally print actual 3D objects right at your workplace. The ZPrinter 350 is the world's first automated, monochrome 3D printer. Z Corporation is no stranger to 3D printers and like the other ones in their inventory, the ZPrinter 350 converts 3D data into physical models. The ZPrinter 350 comes with a host of high-end functions like snap-in binder cartridges, self-monitoring operation, 0.8in/hour vertical build speed, 300x450 dpi resolution, automatic material loading, integrated recycling of unused build materials, control from both desktop and printer, 8x10x8 inch build size, office safe building materials, aggressive dust control and absolutely zero liquid waste.

The ZPrinter prints in STL, VRML, PLY, 3DS and ZPR and is compatible with Windows XP Professional as well as Windows Vista Business/Ultimate. The ZPrinter constructs completely 3D models in white. The models are made out of high performance composite and show an impressive amount of detail once finished. According to John Kawola, CEO of Z Corporation, "The ZPrinter 350 gives a lot more engineering departments access to advanced 3D printing technology at a value price. ZPrinting is going to improve the quality of their products, speed their developmental processes and ultimately help the bottom line."

In addition to all the great features that come with he ZPrinter 350, you also get all the advantages of the entire ZPrinter line. The 350 comes with things like the
industry's lowest operating cost (about one-fifth the cost of other technologies), breakthrough ease of use by performing most tasks automatically, high resolution which allows the printing of complicated geometries with precise detail, fast print speed running five to ten times faster than all other systems, high throughput to easily print multiple models at the same time, and safety and office compatibility by not having any large supports which may need to be cut or dissolved by hazardous chemicals.

The ZPrinter 350 definitely seems like a top notch machine and looks to greatly improve your 3D model making needs. If you want to put this thing in your office, be prepared to drop about $26,000. A small price to pay incredible 3D models made right next to your cubicle. The ZPrinter 350 is available now through Z Corporation's reseller network or website.