Fuji Xerox gets smart

More secure: Lee showing off the security features of the new range of Fuji Xerox printers.

Imagine a multifunction office printer/copier that has active infrared and HD cameras so it can tell when a human is in the room and be ready to work the moment he or she steps up to it, with no warm up time.

Or how about one that can scan a Japanese language document from your boss in the Land of the Rising Sun and produce a document for you in English, with all the graphics intact?

Well believe it or not, it may sound like some sci-fi office printer, but the technology is already in the current batch of Fuji Xerox printers.

At Fuji Xerox's DocuWorld 2015 in Kuala Lumpur recently, the company showcased the company’s latest multifunction office printers which already have these technologies built in.

According to Yoshio Hanada, president of Fuji Xerox Asia Pacific (Malaysia Operations), the company is today focused on providing customer centric solutions instead of simply selling a standard box.

The new printer range is made up of a whopping 36 models in four different categories, from colour multifunction models to monochrome multifunction prints.

However, the entire range can be generally split into two broad categories, namely the DocuCentre-V range, which is the standard product, and the ApeosPort-V models which is a range of multifunction printers which can be fully customised to the individual needs of each customer.

All the models feature new power-saving features including LED print heads, eco-toners which melt at a lower temperature (and this requires less power) and controllers which consume less power than before.

Smart energy management is also where the cameras come in – called the Smart WelcomEyes Advance 2, models which feature this technology have an infrared camera and a regular camera built in to the front of the printer.

The infrared camera constantly scans the environment for the heat generated by human bodies to detect if anybody is in the room.

Here's looking at you: Some Fuji Xerox printers can be configured with cameras that can detect when a human is in the room and turn the printer on automatically.

When it does, the second camera scans to look at the feet of the person passing by – if it detects the feet are walking toward the printer (as opposed to away from it) the printer will wake itself up from sleep mode and be ready for the user as he or she approaches.

According to Lee Chin Guan, senior manager of marketing at Fuji Xerox Asia Pacific (Malaysia Operations), this enables the printer to go into its power-saving sleep mode more often yet be instantly available when needed because the warm up time happens even before the user is in front of the printer.

That’s not all either – while the printers can copy and scan, it can also save those files to Fuji Xerox’s cloud service so that it can be transmitted to another printer and printed from the cloud anywhere in the world.

Documents scanned into the cloud also can take advantage of Fuji Xerox’s scan translation service that can automatically translate documents from one language and produce prints in another language.

The service currently supports automatic translation from and to English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and even Bahasa Malaysia.

Lee says that while it’s impossible for translated documents to be 100% accurate for legal or business use, these translations are at least good enough to help any user to at least understand most of what’s set out in the document.

The new range of printers also support printing from a variety of mobile devices, supporting Apple’s AirPrint technology, driver-less printing from Android devices and Google Cloud Printing, amongst others.

In an office environment with multiple printers, the mobile device user can very easily print documents to any particular printer by simply using the camera on the mobile device to scan a QR code generated by that printer.

As far as security goes, these latest Fuji Xerox printers not only support NFC-enabled smart cards to unlock the system, but also supports NFC chips in smartphones.

Some models even come with a camera that is used together with facial recognition software to identify the user.

The lower-end models in the range have print resolutions of up to 1200 x 2400-dots-per-inch (dpi) while the higher end models have print resolutions of up to 2,400 x 2,400dpi.

For more information, check out the company’s website at www.fujixerox.com.my.