Wow it’s been a while since I’ve written on this blog. If you’ve been following the site I’m sorry about that. We’ve had house guests and been very busy over the last month or so. I’ve been keeping up with my other sites, but I let the tech blogs fall behind. Time to get back to business!
Archives for 2007
The New DocuPen Pen Scanner
Pen scanners have been around for a while, but there’s a new one on the market that’s a true technological advancement.
Planon’s latest pen scanner is called the DocuPen. It’s both a scanner and high tech pen at once. It’s battery operated for full portability and it can store up to 100 pages in it’s memory scanning each in four to eight seconds.
Many of the previous pen scanners were slower and did not have the ability to scan graphics. The DocuPen does it all.
The current price of this high tech gadget is $270. The DocuPen has a USB interface, scans at a max of 200 x 200, weighs 2 oz, has an 8 MB flash memory, and works with Windows 98, ME, 2000 and XP.
All you need to do is place the DocuPen on a piece of paper parallel to the text and move the pen downward over the page. When you want to see what you’ve scanned just connect the pen scanner to a computer using the USB interface.
I could see sales people and those who are frequently out of the office at meetings finding this new DocuPen quite handy.
Unhealthy emmissions from laser printers
Did you hear the recent news that printers, particularly laser printers, might be putting out small particulates into the air making office environments potentially unhealthy?
Here’s some quotes from an article in the Globe and Mail on this subject:
A new study of office laser printers by Australian researchers suggests selected toner and printer combination release emissions of small particles that are potentially harmful to respiratory health. …
To get a snapshot of printer behaviour in the office environment, the researchers measured the emissions of 62 Hewlett-Packard, Mita, Ricoh, Canon and Toshiba laser printers in an office building in Brisbane.
Specifically, the study counted the size and number of particles released by the printers and their levels of sub-micrometre particulate matter emissions – tiny, microscopic particles that are easily inhaled into the lungs.
Tim Takaro, a professor of health sciences at Simon Fraser University, said the study raises questions about the specific types of particles being emitted and what chemicals they contain.
“We don’t know exactly what [those particles] are, but they almost certainly contain some carbon black – most inks do – and that’s a respiratory irritant,” Prof. Takaro said in an interview yesterday.
“My concern would be mainly for people who have pre-existing respiratory conditions,” he said.
Particle counters were mounted above each of the printers in the study to assess their local emissions contribution.
The researchers concluded that the recorded levels of printers’ general emissions were high enough to significantly affect the level of local emissions in an office – and by extension, the air quality in their local vicinity.
The article went on to state that more than a quarter of the printers studied were high emitters. many of the printers tested that came up with high emissions were Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba models, but those were also the brands that had the majority of printers being tested.
A spokesperson for HP has stated that the company will be going over the study and that HP has engineered its printers to meet strict international health and safety standards.
The news story that I watched regarding this issue stated that it’s unclear how long the printers who tested high were putting out high emissions. It could just be that they have higher emissions when certain types of ink cartridges or toner cartridges are used or when these ink cartridges are new and full. Certainly more study is needed on this subject.
For now I’d say – don’t stand around the printer talking with your co-workers!
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