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Cool Technology

From time to time, I'll post a quick mention of things that I find are quite cool uses of technology.

• Many Epson printers indicate an empty ink cartridge by slewing the print head assembly so that the empty cartridge lines up with a pointer molded into the printer's top case.

  There's little a simple printer — one with no display — can do to communicate which cartridge needs replacement. Moving the head to signal is very elegant.

• Griffin Technology SmartDeck cassette adapter for iPod. This ingenious device senses the normal tape motions (rewind, fastforward, play, pause, and stop) and creates the appropriate commands for an iPod.

• The Hewlett-Packard 1050 FAX and some of their printer/scanners are able to scan in their own alignment printout sheets! Many inkjet printers can print alignment sheets, usually with numbered samples; then you enter the best sample numbers to the software so that the driver prints with the best alignment.

  Several HP models have built-in scanning capability, and HP has designed them to scan their own alignment printouts. Then the unit self-adjusts. The only thing it can't do is actually move the sheet from its output tray to the scanning feeder!