Microsoft “Think Next” Pushes Technology Boundaries

May 26, 2014

It looks more like a toy car than a printer, but ZUtALabs hope their PocketPrinter will soon conquer the world.

“The idea is to change the way printers are used today,” Tuvia Elbaum, one of the company’s founders told The Media Line. “We are used to doing our work on the go in coffee places, parks, and restaurants, especially as students. We always found ourselves at the end needing to print and we had to look for a place to print. There was no portable printer. We thought, why not take out the print head and put it on a set of wheels and let it run by itself. If we do that the printer can be really small and print on any size page.”

Elbaum says they’re starting a Kickstarter campaign hoping to raise $400,000. The money will be used to custom make small parts like engines and wheels. The first tiny printers, which they believe will be the smallest in the world, should be ready in about nine months and will cost about $220 each.

“Think Next” is part of Microsoft’s accelerator program in Israel. Along with Bangalore, Beijing, Berlin, Paris and London, Tel Aviv is one of the centers of Microsoft R and D. The idea is to promote Israeli start ups by offering mentoring projects, office space and in some cases, seed money.