Stack

[mcrider]

At first I thought, and don't see why this couldn't be, a scanner that eats through documents and saves a digital copy of them. This form factor would make digitizing large sets of printed records much more appealing.

[oellegaard]

I scan all my receipts and incoming mail, I doubt you would even be able to make a stable "tower" of these things. It probably only works with new paper. One of my first thoughts was also that leaving the paper open in the free would result in a lot of dust collecting on it.

[dictum]

Really interesting as an experiment in industrial design and a conversation piece. As a viable product, I have some doubt: anecdotally, when I see people printing documents, they're in something of a hurry, and keeping the pile of paper sheets aligned would be hard. If you slightly knock the printer while using it, the stack of paper may tilt to a side. And having to keep the papers aligned would become an annoyance similar to the PC LOAD LETTER of yore. Handling A4 and Letter sizes at the same time may not be possible. I don't know how being exposed in a pile would affect the humidity of the paper...

I like how it makes me think of printing as a computing process, paper as input and printed page as output, but instead of feeding the machine with input, you "feed" the input with a machine and it gives you the output. If you extend the thought, it's as if the machine disappears, and paper (the input) is processing and then outputting (printed page) itself.

[arh68]

> If you extend the thought, it's as if the machine disappears

Indeed it does. How long was it after we discovered DNA that we discovered its 'machine', DNA polymerase? And in the end, what's more interesting?

[ams6110]

That was my initial thought, but in practice I don't think you'd really stack up the paper as shown in the photos. You might stack up a couple of reams, which is a lot lower than the stacks shown, and it might be possible to add some kind of collapsible/telescoping "corner plates" that would help keep the stack from shifting.

[sterling312]

Too bad it's a queue and not a stack. I'll show myself out now.

[dag11]

This is beautiful.

I love the idea of an inverted printer, where instead of paper moving through the printer, it's as if the printer is moving through the paper.

[prpetten]

This should be in MOMA.

[eksith]

That's a very cool project.

But I wonder how it gets over the initial friction of lifting and pulling the paper through as it goes lower on the stack. Surely there's a limit after which, you'd need to remove the completed sheets off the top?

[morpher]

It looks like this is just a design concept (not a prototyped device). In addition to the initial friction issue, the printed page would not be able to be placed on top of the stack after it got too tall. So, nice looking, but unlikely to be very practical.

[bryogenic]

Maybe the way they are looking at it is like this:

    Top Paper
    1 ---------
    Gap Tray
    2 ---------
    Bottom Paper

Paper would be collected from bottom using standard scanner/paper style paper grabbing, scanned or printed to and placed in Gap Tray. Gap tray and entire top paper stack need lifted and placed back on support layer 1.

Pages would probably be upside down of their original unless they were fed back and forth.

All the paper would need lifted up, so there would be a limit, unless... a different idea would be the same thing along a horizontal track of papers.

I'm still liking the idea of a scanner shredder. http://designforpeople.ca/?p=215

To extend this stack design make it like an inverted shredder with a 5" shop vac hose connected to the top :P

[cargo8]

I could see a way where if the device was fitted with springs of some sort it would be able to "stand" or lift itself to prevent that kind of friction (of course there would be a limit to the size of the paper stack on top, but you could probably design it / fit it with springs such that the limit is practical (and far more than the amount of paper someone would logically use for this)

This is freaking beautiful. I hope it can work.

[veidr]

There has to be a limit, but in most real world use, people rarely leave tons of paper on the printer without collecting it (of course there are exceptions).

[spc476]

From what I can see, it looks like there are a series of rollers that rest on the paper, which allows the printer to pull the top sheet with little, of any, friction.

[detharonil]

It seems as though a more practical (though perhaps more dust-prone, when empty) design would do this partially upside-down. Rather than allowing the printer to move downward though the paper, why not load the paper from the top?

One could set a full stack atop something similar to his current design using the rollers, and the finished pages could exit through the front in order to prevent them from building up below. The final roller could simply be removed and a slit added to the front such that the finished paper could exit the printer cleanly. A solid plastic sheet could then be added to catch the printed paper which folds back atop the body of the printer when it is being transported or simply not in use, perhaps to prevent the aforementioned build-up of dust.

This accomplishes Yamamoto's goal of removing the paper tray and simplifying as well as shrinking the design while avoiding the dangerous consequences of brushing past the printer while it is atop a high stack of paper.

Of course, none of this addresses a central flaw with his design. Even if two models are produced for Letter and A4 paper, there are still many other sizes in use, and there appears to be no easy way to adjust the sizes of the intake and output areas without the dreaded paper tray.

[solistice]

Technically you only have to adjust the size of the inlet and handle the rest in software. Since the paper would be comming down vertically, you can do mechanical centering akin to that used in industrial processes.

[rgovostes]

This printer concept is also cool: http://renelee.net/arc/

[nadaviv]

Pretty cool indeed. The design process [1] is also quite interesting to read.

[1] http://renelee.net/arc/2/

[johnvschmitt]

The sooner the printer dies, the better.

Every company or process that makes me print something in 2013 makes me barf. Ever heard of web forms? Docusign? Email?

So, as beautiful as this is, it's solving a problem for 1960-1995.

Now, all I want to see in the printer innovation is some way to kill it off faster.

[peafruit]

I still have paper copies of important documents from the 1980s. I have no idea where the digital copies from that era disappeared to.

Paper has its place; it's a fantastic archival medium.

I also still print out contracts to review them. They're easier to mark up that way, and I can focus entirely on the paper -- including quickly leafing through it, while comparing multiple pages -- in a way that I can't as easily do on the desktop.

Paper isn't dead yet; it still has the best UX available for many common use cases.

[timdev2]

Fuck that.

I don't really print much, but when I do, it's amazing that I can take something digital and put it on a piece of paper.

The reason that's awesome is that I can then hang it on my fridge. Or take it with me in my pocket, without having to worry about electricity. Or, you know, one of the other thousand use cases where a printed page is more usable, reliable, or feasible than something turing-equivalent.

[agumonkey]

Be patient, the web is still too much of a moving target, on average people aren't saavy enough to even not fear computer interactions. I've seen people resorting to printing large spreadsheets on A3 paper and then scan through with a ruler, pencil and sticky notes. All day long (treehugger nightmare) since they're all updating the same "database" and need constant refreshed~ printed data to work on. And arguably they're 10x more productive this way than their current usage (copy/paste is jeet kune do to them) and understanding of the messy[1] computer world.

When the time is right, printing will shrink to it's minimum needed size.

[1] the computer world is a gigantic mess of papercuts, for the average human, nothing makes sense, the few time it did, it changed before they could rip the benefit.

[FoeNyx]

Even if I'm a proponent of reducing paper usage and planting new trees, I can think of some cases where keeping some printed paper documents could still have some benefits even nowadays, IMHO.

* You need to travel in some places with no good access to internet or power source (as in a far far away country, or as in a local subway/underground of ill repute after 9pm),

* You thought it would be nice to delete all your original printed copies after using a JGIB2 scanner,

* You don't have the hardware or software to read your old digital copies,

* Some obtuse administration refuse your digital copies,

* Some benevolent but overly attached agencies, or some malevolent people, are trampling with your data in the cloud,

* A Carrington-class events occurs for real,

* And so on ...

but luckily, all of this never ever happen, right ? ;-)

As for the OP printer design it seems great, but when I see the 2 meters stack of paper in the illustration, I can't help but think that the printer will ran out of battery or ink before the middle of the stack.

[davidw]

This link is obligatory when speaking of the evils of printers: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers

[hrktb]

I am slowly and slowly trying to go almost paperless, I hear you. And because We can now get rid of almost every boring administrative use of paper, the really intersting uses tend to stick out, and you start to print things you really wanted to.

Like printing papercraft parts, big photos of anything you like, personalized trump sets, kids stories you read at bedtime. Honestly there's a lot of uses I didn't care about until there was no need to print tax forms anymore.

[adyus]

Unfortunately, too much of human society is based on printed matter.

Take shipping a box, for example. You'd still need to print a label. There's currently no way that I know of to associate that particular box to the place it's supposed to go otherwise.

Disclaimer: I'm building http://ezsend.it to help people avoid the post office lines, and it would be a useless endeavor without printers :)

[rickyc091]

What about fax machines... I can't believe some companies (ahem, AT&T) still only accept documents / requests via fax. It's ridiculous...

[rsync]

Amen.

What better way to say "fuck you, your time is worthless" than to ask someone to print / scan / fax something.

OP has cool printer design though :)

[timtempus]

Like the Facit typewriter that was innovated out due to the PC. They never saw it comming.

[markkanof]

So based on this design concept I have to assume that they expect this printer to run on either batteries or wireless power of some sort. I don't mean to be too down on this as it is an interesting concept, but it annoys me when designers leave out things like power cords to make their mockup look cleaner than it actually is. It seems like a copout.

[spyder]

Another cool printer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baqDk1G9zUE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPhLFxRgfQ8

[el_benhameen]

This is definitely cool, but it strikes me as a solution looking for a problem. Mobile printers that print out a sheet much faster than this are available at pretty low cost. I'm genuinely curious to hear why someone would buy this--any thoughts?

[axelf1989]

Would it require a perfectly stacked pile? It would seem annoying if you slightly bang in to the pile and have it be off balance.

[solistice]

Doesn't look like he accounted for paper that isn't stacked perfectly, but as in my comment above, it wouldn't be incredibly hard to incorporate that into the design.

[tlongren]

I'd be knocking the thing over all the time I'm afraid. Would probably only use 100 or so sheets at a time, though.

[faddotio]

All I see is a target for my stumbling clumsy self!

And a big cleanup job afterward.

[Zolomon]

This has a very "functional programming paradigm" feel around it.

[groundCode]

Looks fantastic, but I wonder about the tolerance wrt paper alignment. I'm picturing my office where people usually rush up to the printer, grab their printout and bump the printer.

[eridius]

That looks really cool. But what happens if the user bumps the printer? The entire stack of paper falls over, and the printer falls to the floor.

[StavrosK]

What happens when you bump the stack of 20,000 sheets of paper in your printer's tray currently?

[nnutter]

Seems like it would be easy to make a model that still houses the paper to prevent tipping and would still allow for infrequent loading.

[bryogenic]

Even better, maybe turn it on its side and have it move horizontally?

[curuinor]

I recall reading about this idea in the science-fiction role-playing game Shadowrun. It's set in 2060-2080, so technology is better in nearly all ways: including a printer design as described here. Very interesting, in the shadow of the total lack of progress in actual printer technology in the last few decades.

[zenocon]

Is there a video of it in action?

[alphonse23]

doesn't look like it. I'm beginning to think this is all hype and no real show.

[aaron695]

Seriously?

Another here's a CGed idea not even close to being implemented? (Which is fine except 99% of the time is because it's not possible/practical)

I know there's a claim there's a real version but not seeing pics of it? Or youtube?

[mjgoeke]

When I saw the first image I thought it was going to be a scanner (for digitizing the information in the stack, then recycling said stack), not a printer. That would have been more impressive to me.