That presents a serious problem to the printing industry, which until now has not had to worry too much about the aesthetics of the devices it manufactures. Now the manufacturers are having to put a l
That presents a serious problem to the printing industry, which until now has not had to worry too much about the aesthetics of the devices it manufactures. Now the manufacturers are having to put a lot of work into making them more pleasing to the eye or making them 'disappear', so they become so unobtrusive nobody knows they are there.
The size of the problem cannot be underestimated. Last year three trillion pages were printed in the home and office and that figure is expected to rise to as much as eight trillion by 2010, according to Lexmark President and CEO Paul Curlander.
He says significant changes in home printing are coming because of the growing popularity of digital cameras and the spread of broadband, which allows for growth in Internet appliances and interactive television. The number of digital photographs being printed in the home is expected to rise from two billion last year to 15 billion by 2004. There will also be growing use of Web-enabled printers to download and print the daily news, and we will begin to see printers that no longer need to be connected to a PC. Already Lexmark and Kodak have combined to produce a printer that will produce prints directly from a digital camera. Hewlett-Packard and Canon also have similar printers.
Lexmark Vice President of Research and Development John Zbrozek says that in the future we may see printers embedded in television sets and set top boxes; other printers will be wireless - in most cases using Bluetooth - and they will be designed to fit in with their surroundings. Rather than looking like printers they will resemble VCRs or other familiar appliances; they will also be produced in a variety of colours. But don't expect them to match Apple's proprietary range - 'its just too hard' - however, there will be a variety of new form factors, said Zbrozek.
Printer companies face yet another design problem because not only do they have to improve the look of their machines, they are going to have to make them a lot quieter if they are going to bring them into the kitchen or the lounge room.
'I don't care too much about speed, as long as they are quiet,' says Klein, a thought echoed by a lot of would-be consumers.
One area traditional print companies are having difficulty getting into is the video game market. The new generation consoles such as Sega's Dreamcast and Sony's PlayStation2 are capable of running printers, however, the companies want to develop their own. If they do, they are likely to design printers that match the designs of their consoles, not that that will necessarily result in anything aesthetically pleasing. Sega's Dreamcast lacks any real style innovations, remarkable only for its plainness. PlayStation2 is slightly better, being a slim black slab rather than a squat grey box, and it blends in with modern DVD players and VCRs. On the other hand the proposed new Nintendo console is just plain ugly - an uninspiring purple cube that will have difficulty fitting in with almost any decor.
While the likes of Lexmark may miss out on the lucrative console market, Zbrozek predicts printers will eventually be integrated into mobile phones and handheld devices such as palmtop PCs and PDAs.