February 8th, 2008Polaroid Start on Immediate Digital Printer
The arrival of digital cameras, with their immediate playback and easy home printing, was bad news for the Polaroid Company, whose core business, dating back to the 1940s, was the well-known instant-print camera. After a unsuccessful effort to break into the digital camera market the original company went bankrupt in 2001, but in spite of this seemingly terminal setback the brand name soldiers on, adorning a number of other products more often than not made by supplementary companies.
One such product is the newly-launched Polaroid Zink digital printer. It uses a new type of ink less thermal printing technology, in which crystallized colored dyes are entrenched into special printing paper. These dye crystals are colorless at first, but can be liquefied by heat, producing a full color image on the paper.
The real Zink printer itself is quite a nifty small thingamabob. It is about the size of a pack of cards, and can connect to a digital camera or mobile phone via PictBridge USB or Bluetooth. It produces 2×3-inch borderless prints in a few seconds, quicker than the unique Polaroid instant camera prints. They also dry faster. There’s no news yet on how much the Zink printer will cost or when it will be obtainable, but it should be very soon.
