Printers really are a pain in the posterior. Out of all the items I end up buying on a regular basis, the ones that Murphy’s Law applies to, it always really does seem to apply to the printer. Although it costs less up front and may even be thrown in for free along with the desktop and monitor you buy, it costs a fortune in printing cartridges. And not only is every cartridge system an annoying different take to the previous model, the price of ink and cartridges seems to double. Now, however, a clever bunch of engineers and designers from Jerusalem believe they have come up with the answer: a hand printer. Yes! Really. A printer that you can literally transport from place to place in your hand! Not only that. It connects in a very simple way to your smartphone and that can be used anywhere you can find a flat surface.

“Print machines nowadays are essentially a print-head running left and right on a moving piece of paper,” say Zuta Labs, the clever Israeli folks who made the Mini Mobile Robotic Printer, “We asked ourselves, why not get rid of the entire device, just put the print-head on a set of small wheels and let it run across a piece of paper. By doing so, we allow the printer to really be as little as possible.”

The durable polycarbonate printer prints on any size piece of paper and comes in 2 colors, Mars black and Titanium white.  It has a rechargeable battery with an on\off switch and, beyond your smartphones also connects to PCs, iMacs, Android, IOS, Linux, OSX, Windows, anything in fact that can connect via Bluteooth.

As printers are essentially a print-head running left and right on a moving piece of paper, the Zuta scientists went for putting a print-head on a set of small wheels and letting it run across a piece of paper. Consequently, size matters less and they were able to miniaturize it until the works were as little as possible. The printer is activated by sliding a hatch at the bottom of the printer where there is a tiny inkjet cartridge that works on the gray-scale. The USB connection for battery charging is also located on the bottom of the device. The inkjet lasts for over 1,000 printed pages and the battery lasts for over one hour per full-charge. The latter kind of blows my mind, actually. I’ve calculated that I spend about $600 per annum on printer’s ink. If Zuta’s claim holds true, it may well change we all do things.

The Mini Mobile printer is based on an omni-wheel system that allows it to accurately turn and drive in any direction. The printer was designed to help the user place the printer properly at the top of the page and guarantee an accurate outcome. As I write, the current version of the printer does not include stabilizing sensors. This would mean the machine would need constant supervision, but is, they promise, already fixable once the requested investment money comes in.

The Mini Mobile comes with a rechargeable battery that lasts for one hour per full-charge and an ink cartridge that’s good for more than 1,000 pages. Unfortunately, the current battery takes 3 full hours to charge up. Any raised funds would clearly help with both the charging issues with lithium batteries and the need for the machine to be able to stop/brake at the edge of a flat surface. Having already raised $403,362 of a stated $400,000 goal, it’s already mission accomplished for these entrepreneurs. The rest is, as they say, gravy. Go the project Kickstarter page and you’ll see a whole bunch of goodies offered by the company for your small (or large) investment. You have three more weeks (21 days) to get in on the ground floor should you wish.