Robotic Printer

Isn’t it annoying when you’re at work and you’ve got numerous documents to print, the office printer is over 3 steps away from your desk, and you have to resort to physically standing up and taking numerous strides towards it, whilst attempting to bypass the awkward chit chat, “hello how are you”s and “good weekend?”s from those colleagues that you haven’t even bothered remembering the names of.

Wouldn’t it be great if all of that hassle was taken away and the printer actually came to you? Well that’s exactly what Fuji Xerox have come up with. They have been testing the first ever robotic printer, one that does all the work for you, including the walking.

The incentive behind this is to keep sensitive documents secure and avoid them from falling into the wrong hands. The printer is so new that it’s currently nameless. It incorporates numerous technology in order to travel to your desk and print your documents, including URL addresses on desks, smartcards for identification and the same Lidar sensors that Google use on their self-driving cars in order to avoid collisions with nearby objects and people.

So what do you think office life will really be like with this new technology? It appears to contradict the health advice constantly on repeat for office workers of taking regular breaks away from your desk and going for small walks around the office. But encouraging laziness certainly isn’t the idea behind the robotic printer. It’s designed to keep private documents exactly that… Private.

Is this the answer to the potentially big, but also unlikely, problem of colleagues stealing other people’s printing or will it just be a huge distraction in the office workplace by becoming a challenge for people to trip up? We may like to think we’re mature and responsible grown ups but when it comes down to it, we think there’s a child in all of us that will attempt to chase / be chased by the Doctor Who style office furniture and it’s sensor technology.