We all know that even the best printer has its limitations and these limitations come in the form of the thickness of the object (usually paper, or any such material).
Thus, if one had to print in a conventional manner on a thick surface, or any kind of surface for that matter, one had to come up with a completely new way of printing. Alex Breton, an engineer from Stockholm, Sweden has designed the PrintBrush, which is a tiny 8.8 ounce handheld gadget that works like a mouse, but prints like a professional inkjet printer.
The gizmo makes use of inkjets, computer-mouse-like optics and navigation software in order to print images that are already uploaded on any flat surface. This includes wood, plastic, fabric, and of course, plastic and paper. Laser sensors track the printer’s movement and make the printing accurate. After this, the lasers would emit infrared laser beams on the surface as the printer is moved along.
One would have to slide the PrintBrush on any flat surface and the optical sensors track the direction and velocity of the printer. A built-in controller would then coordinate the pixels of the map or the image and print the image accurately on the surface. In fact, by early next year, the inventor plans to include a built in camera in the PrintBrush and it would also be the world’s smallest printer, officially.
It took nearly 11 years for Alex Breton to develop the device and it costs a whopping $10 million. It could change the way we print images and text in the future, and could be a revolutionary step towards a changing world in printing technology. You could also take a look at the Android Based Printer, which makes use of the Google’s famous Operating System. The Micro-3D Printer is yet another interesting device which we had featured sometime back.
