Xerox has developed technology which it says could slash the cost of color printing. It involves using a crayon-like waxy substance rather than inks.

Whereas normal color printers use either ink or powdered toner, Xerox’s ColorQube system uses solid blocks. These are then heated when needed such that the tip melts and releases ink.

The device saves money in several ways. The blocks of ink don’t need any casing and once they are used up, there’s no waste material and a new block is simply slotted into place, ending the dilemma about whether to try saving money by buying reconditioned cartridges at the risk of poor performance.

The machine also has around a third fewer components than a laser printer, primarily because there’s no need for the process of fusing the toner to the page. Power costs are slightly higher when idle as the blocks are kept partially heated, but Xerox says this is outweighed by lower power consumption during printing. And the printer is billed as being more suited than its rivals for use with cheaper recycled paper.

The big difference, however, is in the printing costs themselves. Because the machines are so expensive (the ColorQube costs $20,000), most companies lease them and pay a per-sheet fee. With inkjets and laser printers, there’s usually a flat-rate fee for a color page, regardless of how much ink or toner is used. In Xerox’s case the usual fee averages one cent for a black and white page, but eight cents for a color page.

The ColorQube system makes it much easier for the machine to measure how much color is used on the page. Because of this, Xerox will be offering variable pricing, with a page with a small color logo or chart costing only one or two cents extra. Only pages which are virtually covered in color will cost the full eight cents. According to Xerox’s estimates, the average color page will wind up 62 percent cheaper (in other words, it will cost a tad over three cents).

Hopefully the system will encourage more tasteful, restrained used of color in office documents, rather than people thinking that if they are paying the full eight cents they may as well get their money’s worth and saturate the page. No word yet on whether there’ll be a technology to charge extra for using Comic Sans.

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Entry was posted on Thursday, May 7th, 2009 at 2:10 pm under Technology.

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