CES 2009: Canon Selphy Portable Printers

Chris Ford — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Canon has updated their Selphy portable printers, and for some people a printer that only prints 4x6 pictures might be overkill. But for families I think they're pretty great.

All the Selphy printers use dye-sublimation printing and (in my judgement) make great looking 4x6 prints. Two units the ES3 (on the left) and the ES30 use a cartridge system, which keeps the paper and "ink" (dye really) all in one unit. So there's never a situation where you run out of ink before you run out of paper or vice versa. The CP770 (on the right) and CP760 use a separate dye and paper system. All of them are portable, and they even have features where you can put borders, words and other "creative" things onto the prints - a feature particularly good for kids.

The printers take all forms of cards directly from your camera as well as the Pict Bridge system or a USB connection to your computer. The prints will cost you about $0.28 per print.

Prices range from $99.99 to $199.99. Check them out at USA.Canon.com.

Put Your Own Photo on Candy with My M&M's

Chris Ford — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:20:00 GMT

Looking for a party favor or birth announcement gift that you've absolutely never seen before? The melt-in-your-mouth-not-in-your-hand candy M&M's has recently launched "My M&M's," the customizable, printable chocolate. And it just might be that perfect party favor.

The process itself is pretty simple. You upload a photo to the web site, enter a message (if you want one) and it gives you a rough approximation of what the candy will look like. Then apparently a "graphic specialist will work with the photo(s) you uploaded to provide the best reproduction quality possible." Which means that it's more than a computer that will decide how the candy will look, which makes me trust the whole process a lot more.

It's not cheap, but it's not incredibly expensive either. They have all sorts of packaging options from gift bags, glass boxes to teddy bears, but the minimum order seems to be three 7 oz. bags for $12.99 each ($38.97). You can also get a five pound box for $162.50 or a ten pound box for $312.50, which seems like a lot, but for something like a wedding might be one of the less expensive things in the party budget.

Check out all the options at MyMMs.com.

droolicious : printing

CES 2009: Canon Selphy Portable Printers

Put Your Own Photo on Candy with My M&M's