Robots on Your Desk: Kickstarting Paper Innovation

  Posted on Fiberlines   In today’s mobile world, what is the one piece of technology that stays on your desk and cannot be carried with you? Yes, it’s your big and heavy printer.   When traveling, you can stay connected with work, friends and family thanks to your smartphone, tablet or laptop. But what if you need to print from your hotel room or your favorite Wi-Fi café? ? Even in our digital era, people prefer some things on paper.    To solve this problem, here is the ZutA PocketPrinter. Or rather, here is what will be the ZutA PocketPrinter, when it starts to be shipped to its first customers in early 2015.   This amazing piece of technology is currently being developed by a team of students from the Jerusalem College of Technology in Israel. Their founding campaign on Kickstarter is a big hit, with more than $500,000 collected to date…$100,000 above their initial goal. We’re pleased to say that Domtar has made its own contribution to this project. We’ll get one the first produced printers in return. I can’t wait to try it!   Innovation   These guys literally “think outside the (printer) box”: Indeed, rather than trying to shrink a printer to reach a portable-size, they took the printing head out and left everything else behind. Add wheels to this head and you get all you need to print!   The printer looks like a mix of a cylinder and a cube. Lay out a sheet of paper - preferably a Domtar one ;-)... and position the printer in one corner of the sheet. The app on your smartphone or tablet does the rest. The printer uses what engineers call the Omni Wheel System, a very smart set of wheels that allows precise movements in any directions.   Of course, it has not been an easy journey for our innovators. Originally started as a college project in 2013, they had to prove it could be done and that they were the right people to make it happen. The students convinced their professors to back them up with some capital and access to larger facilities. They made prototype after prototype to achieve the perfect design. Now they’re ready to turn this great idea into a working business. Hats off! We wish you a well-deserved success.   By the way, when do I receive my printer?  

This article was first published on our blog Fiberlines: an online space where you’ll get insights about our business and our products, stories about our host communities, and opinion about industry innovation and sustainability trends. Check it out at FiberlinesDomtar.com or follow us on Twitter (@DomtarCorp), LinkedIn or Google+ (+domtar).