Reported in PC Magazine

E-ink isn’t just for reading anymore. Scientists with BAE Systems are developing technology that would use electronic ink to camouflage tanks.

According to a report in The Telegraph, high-tech sensors would be fixed to the body of the tank that would mirror the vehicle’s surroundings, making it essentially invisible.

“Highly sophisticated electronic sensors attached to the tank’s hull will project images of the surrounding environment back onto the outside of the vehicle enabling it to merge into the landscape and evade attack,” wrote Sean Rayment, The Telegraph‘s defense correspondent. “The electronic camouflage will enable the vehicle to blend into the surrounding countryside in much the same way that a squid uses ink to help as a disguise.”

Read more at: British Company Using E-Ink to Make Tanks Invisible | News & Opinion | PCMag.com.

From

The arrival of color e-paper displays suggest that a new generation of readers will soon be among us, readers whose displays depart from the current LCD screens popular today. However, problems persist. Foremost is the battery consumption of colored e-paper which is problematic when compared to more commonly used high resolution LED screens.

On the other hand, while the successful application of 19-inch flexible e-paper remains a matter of speculation, LG’s decision to mass produce it indicates it has perfected the technology.

Though LG once touted 14-inch A4 e-paper that could display 16 million colors, cost and pricing issues may imperil flexible e-paper’s use on portable devices.

Using the same technology as an ink jet printer, new devices print a skin graft

(Reuters) – Inspired by a standard office inkjet printer, U.S. researchers have rigged up a device that can spray skin cells directly onto burn victims, quickly protecting and healing their wounds as an alternative to skin grafts.

Read the story at Reuters

Why print on boring old paper, when you can get your message across on some nice bouncy ping pong balls? The appropriately named PingPongPrinter can print dot-matrix messages directly onto the spherical surface of ping pong balls.

read more | digg story

Connecting the LaserJet 4/4mv to a Mac System

1. Printer must have JetDirect, Postscript and 12 megs memory
2. Best to connect through a hub.. but you can use a crossover cable
3. Appetalk connection only works on localtalk networks

if you use this method, you’ll get a 18 error
each time the printer is turned on. (goes away after
five minutes and does not affect operation)

Number 3 in the above diagram is the

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Another article posted to help out all the people who ask us about their Apollo printers. The web site is a little hard to find, and the story about Apollo’s rise and fall is interesting.

Apollo printer drivers and support

A PRINTER USER ASKED:

When our printer prints, it is leaving a blank sheet between every couple it prints how can we correct, have tried ever setting.

OUR PRINTER EXPERTS ANSWER:

It’s possible that a printer could have such a setting.. but highly unlikely. Your printer is just “printing” what it is sent. If your computer sends a blank page, the printer responds. The most common cause of this is a network “banner” page. This puts a sheet at the start of each job.

But usually, there is something printed on the banner page. The other common possibility is extra character at the end of a job. The software send the data, then an END OF PAGE or END OF JOB character… any data that is left is flush out and the page is printed. Since you don’t see anything printed, the buffer is empty.. but the command has still been sent.

This sort of thing happened often in the days of DOS and software designed for dot matrix (they needed to advance to the TOP OF FORM to start the next job).. so if you’re using older software, look there first.

Your laser printer is full of phenomenal technologies.. capable of putting million of tiny dots on a sheet of paper with exact precision. While doing this, it also puts out some very small particles of toner dust. This dust combines with tiny bits of paper and forms a microscopic muck that sticks to just about anything. 

Many of the common problems that require a service call have their roots in this dust. So regular cleaning can prevent costly service calls later. But how can you clean something that you might not even see?

A printer technician can take apart your printer and clean all the places where we know the dust accumulates. This process is labor intensive.. you have to hire an technician, and then trust that he knows where to clean. This works, but users tell us they would rather have a system they can use themselves