Construction workers might soon spend more time building and less time preparing. HP has unveiled a SitePrint robot that autonomously prints layouts on construction site floors. With the help of a remote control tablet and cloud tools, the machine can outline walls, doors and other elements with little intervention — it can avoid unexpected obstacles, including steep drops. The company claims the bot can finish a layout in a "fraction" of the time humans require, although this will vary by the complexity of the project.

© HP HP SitePrint construction robot

The robot includes two batteries that can each handle up to four hours of printing. It can print on surfaces like concrete, plywood and terrazzo, even if they're rough. You can also choose inks that last days or months to suit the timeline for a given job.

HP is making the SitePrint robot available to North American companies this month as part of an early access program. The finished automaton and a full-scale launch are due sometime in 2023. The hardware has already been tested with projects ranging from airports to hospitals.

There's clearly a concern SitePrint might automate people out of jobs. The robot only requires one operator versus the two or three people typically needed for manual layouts. However, its timing might be particularly apt. As in many other fields, the construction industry is grappling with labor shortages. Robots like SitePrint could help builders make the most of limited staff, or take on more ambitious tasks without hiring larger crews.

October 14, 2022, 03:15 PM EDT

A slumping economy and slowing PC and printer sales have not deterred plans for the company’s 235,000-square-foot hybrid work facility in Oregon to open in 2026. But the size of the project has been reduced by 25 percent, a report says.

HP Inc. filed updated plans with Vancouver, Oregon officials last week detailing a 235,000-square-foot office and lab space spanning two buildings to complement HP’s current offices.

Initial plans for the building submitted three years ago described a 25 percent larger space, according to The Oregonian. Now the plans call for a space engineered to “enable hybrid work” as the Palo Alto, Calif.-based tech company ramps up its marketing efforts around its own hybrid work offerings. The company reportedly will use 68 acres of property for the development, saying it will incorporate sustainable design and technology into its new offices, which set aside 160,000 square feet for office space and another 75,000 square feet dedicated to research.

“The site will be (a research and development) Center of Excellence and a hub for innovation, including office and collaboration space designed to enable hybrid work, state-of-the-art research and development facilities, and a range of amenities,” an HP spokesperson said in a statement.

After a pandemic-fueled tech boom sent HP’s revenue to historic highs in 2021, a consumer-side slowdown has affected PC and printer sales for the whole industry. HP had posted better-than-expected results in the first quarters of 2022, but the industry slowdown showed up in the company’s third quarter balance sheet with a 4.1 percent drop in revenue over the previous year.

Mike Turicchi, vice president of Gainesville, Va.-based NCS Technologies said news of the R&D expansion is welcome considering the current economic climate. “I’m interested to see how much they gain out of a facility like this,” he said. “It’s important for them to study and research how hybrid solutions will impact the work of the future. Hybrid is still an emerging work mode and it warrants investment to make sure the products and solutions provided are as effective as they can be. I’m excited to see them investing here – it shows leadership and forward-thinking on hybrid workflow.”

Most of the operations in Oregon are centered around HP’s print business. The company in July and September furloughed dozens of employees as print operations faltered. In a statement to CRN at the time, an HP spokesperson said, “Our consistent and rigorous financial discipline is what allows us to maximize investments in our strategic priorities and position the business for long-term sustainable growth. As part of this, we regularly evaluate and optimize contractor spending to support business objectives.”

The R&D site proposal is being called “Phase 1,” and The Oregonian said the company had originally called for eventually expanding its Vancouver footprint to 1.5 million square feet. The company has operated in the area for 35 years at multiple sites. As of 2020, HP employed 1,000 people at two buildings in East Vancouver totaling 275,000 square feet.

HP spent a significant amount of time during its Amplify Executive Forum event in August promoting its expanded hybrid work offerings to the gathered channel partners. For print partners, the company touted new subscription services and models geared towards small and medium-sized businesses with a focus on hybrid workers.

HP is betting big on the continued popularity of hybrid work – shelling out $3.3 billion to acquire peripheral and videoconferencing giant Poly. “I am totally convinced, and we are totally convinced at HP, that hybrid work is here to stay,” HP CEO Enrique Lores said during his Amplify event presentation in Palo Alto.

HP said in its statement about the new Oregon facility, “The majority of HP employees have hybrid roles, splitting their time between home and office locations. Hybrid work is a significant part of our business strategy and HP is becoming a hybrid solutions leader.”

HP has put forward a small robot it says can dramatically speed up construction work, by autonomously printing guidelines straight from the blueprints onto the floor. Rugged, roadworthy and extremely accurate, Siteprint is a super-quick layout tool.

The robot replaces the time-consuming manual process of site layout, using a variety of different inks to place precise lines, exact curves and faithful reproductions of complex shapes on all kinds of floors, from porous surfaces like concrete and plywood to terrazzo, vinyl or epoxy.

It doesn't require a perfectly smooth or clean floor – indeed, it can handle a certain degree of surface irregularity and obstacles up to 2 cm (0.8 in) high. It runs built-in obstacle and cliff drop sensors for fully autonomous operation, and will work around barriers even if they're not in the plans.

As well as layout lines, it's capable of printing more or less whatever else you need on the floor too, including text notes. Operators set it up using cloud-based tools for job preparation, fleet management and tracking, and can run it on site with a touch-screen tablet and a tripod-mounted "totalstation."

“The existing manual layout process can be slow and labor intensive,” said Albert Zulps, Director of Emerging Technology at Skanska - a global construction and development company currently using the SitePrint system for two of its US projects. "Despite being done by specialists, there is always the risk of human error, which can result in costly reworks. Layout experts are a scarce resource who add a lot of value in terms of planning and strategy, but often end up dedicating most of their time to manual execution. HP SitePrint lets us do more with less, helping reduce schedules thanks to a much faster layout process, and allowing senior operators to focus on other critical activities like quality control.”

While HP hasn't announced pricing, we assume the printer robot itself will be surprisingly cheap, but the ink's gonna be a killer. Yuk yuk.

Check out Siteprint in the video below.

Source: HP

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HP’s Envy line lands in a unique space. These are premium laptops through and through, and often have the performance to back that up for content creators.

However, they aren’t as expensive as machines like the MSI Creator Z16P or the 16-inch MacBook Pro. A case in point is the new HP Envy 16, the replacement for the Envy 15, a laptop that’s been on our list of best 15-inch laptops and best video-editing laptops. Given its strong performance and solid build quality, the Envy 16 is an even more compelling entry than its predecessor.

HP Envy 16 specs

Fastest when it matters

Performance is the name of the game with the Envy 16. The keyboard, display, and clean design will have been for nothing if the Envy 16 didn’t live up to its promise of excellent performance. Fortunately, it does.

My loaded $2,600 review unit came with the 45-watt 14-core/20-thread Core i9-12900H CPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, fast 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD (with two 1TB SSDs running in RAID 0 as an even faster option), and an RTX 3060 GPU.

On paper, the Envy 16 is a speedy mainstream laptop, especially given a thicker chassis and an upgraded thermal design with dual fans and a liquid vapor chamber. Note that the $1,180 entry-level configuration includes an Intel Arc A370M GPU rather than the RTX 3060, so choose wisely if GPU performance is important.

Interestingly, in our benchmarks, the Envy 16 was much faster at single-core tasks than at multi-core tasks. This extended to both Geekbench 5 and Cinebench R23, where the Envy 16 led the pack in single-core results while falling behind in multi-core. The HP Command Center utility, used to switch thermal profiles, had little impact. I’ve reported balanced and performance mode scores, but only minor differences exist with the Envy 16.

Creative applications tend to be heavily multi-threaded, meaning creators won’t benefit as much from the Envy 16’s fast single-core performance. Our Handbrake test that encodes a 420MB video as H.265 is a prime example, with the Envy 16 being slower than all but the MacBook Pro 16. And that includes laptops running the lesser Core i7-12700H.

At the same time, the Envy 16 performed well in the PugetBench Premiere Pro benchmark, which runs a live version of Adobe Premiere Pro and makes copious use of both the CPU and the GPU. It was the fastest Windows laptop in our comparison group in balanced mode. While it fell behind laptops like the Asus ZenBook Pro 16X and MSI Creator Z16P in performance mode, it was within spitting distance of the much more expensive Apple MacBook Pro 16 with its Apple M1 Pro CPU.

Synthetic benchmarks aside, the Envy 16 appears to be a strong performer in the kind of real-world applications that matter most to creators. It can also handle the most demanding productivity workflows with ease.

With a fast CPU and an RTX 3060, it’s natural to play some games on the Envy 16. I expected solid gaming performance given the high single-core performance, but the Env7 16 had mixed results. Its 3DMark Time Spy score was strong for an RTX 3060, but that didn’t translate across all our gaming tests.

Specifically, the Envy 16 was fast in Civilization VI and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, but it fell behind in Cyberpunk 2077 and Fortnite. It’s probably safest to assume that you can run modern titles at 1080p and high graphics and then be happy when you find games that will run well at 1440p.

Large and in charge

The Envy 16 focuses on performance and display size, not on the size of its chassis. In fact, HP deliberately extended the chassis to allow room for better airflow, and the migration to a 16:10 display adds some depth. Compared to its competition, though, it’s not overly large — for example, it’s slightly smaller than the MSI Creator Z16P.

It’s quite a bit larger than the Dell XPS 15, but the Dell has a slightly smaller display and tiny display bezels. At 0.78 inches thick and 5.12 pounds, the Envy 16 is thicker than the Creator Z16P and a bit lighter, and it’s thicker and heavier than the XPS 15. Overall, it’s not huge, but it’s still not a laptop you’ll want to haul around to the coffee shop.

Some extra weight comes from the all-aluminum chassis, which is quite sturdy and resists most bending, flexing, and twisting. Only a little keyboard flex differentiates the Envy 16 from the best, such as the MacBook Pro 16 and the Dell XPS 15. Aesthetically, the Envy 16 is conservatively designed, with just the right angles in the right place and no bling to distract from its minimalist good looks.

Of course, the primary appeal of a 16-inch laptop is its large display, which provides plenty of room to work. HP offers two displays for the Envy 16 at 16-inches and 16:10. I reviewed the 4K+ OLED panel, which is sharp and stunning.

By every metric but brightness, the display is perfect for the creators HP is targeting. Even though the brightness is a bit low, the colors are wide and accurate, and the contrast provides the typical inky blacks we expect from the best OLED laptops. Productivity users and media consumers will also love this display.

Quad speakers provide great-sounding audio, with clear mids and highs and more bass than usual. The only problem is volume — the Envy 16 doesn’t get very loud. It’s great sound for watching Netflix by yourself, but if you want to entertain a group, then you’ll want some Bluetooth speakers. Music sounds good, but again the volume gets in the way. If you like to crank your tunes, you’ll want a good pair of headphones. The Dell XPS 15 provides equally good audio that gets a lot louder.

The large chassis offers another advantage, specifically a spacious keyboard with large keycaps even though it’s flanked on each side by a speaker grille. That’s also a result of HP excluding a numeric keypad, which most buyers likely won’t miss. The keyboard switch mechanism wasn’t quite as precise as on the Spectre lineup, with plenty of travel and a light touch but not as snappy a bottoming action. It’s a comfortable keyboard that’s just one step behind the best.

The touchpad is disappointing in that it seems like there would have been room for a larger version. It was reliable in supporting Windows 11’s multitouch gestures and its click was confident and quiet, but HP could have squeezed in a considerably larger touchpad. The OLED display comes with multitouch support, and that was welcome.

Finally, the Envy 16 supports all the connectivity that most people need. I would have preferred to see a full-size SD card reader rather than microSD, and some people would benefit from an Ethernet port. But even so, connectivity is a strength, thanks to Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 support.

The small touches

It might seem wrong to call battery life an “incidental” aspect, but a machine meant to churn through demanding creative and productivity workflows is likely to be plugged in most of the time. And no fast performer will last long on a charge when the CPU and GPU are fully engaged.

Even so, the Envy 16 did reasonably well in our battery tests. Its 83 watt-hour battery, which isn’t a lot for this class of machine, managed to keep it running for almost 8.5 hours on our web-browsing test and nearly 13 hours in our video test.

It fell behind in the PCMark 10 Applications battery test at just 7.5 hours, but these are decent numbers for a fast laptop with a high-res OLED display.

You won’t find many 16-inch class laptops that last much longer, although the Dell XPS 15 was stronger and the MacBook Pro 16 was in another universe entirely. But if you’re doing less demanding work, you might get most of a day out of the Envy 16.

	Web browsing	Video	PCMark 10 Applications
HP Envy 16 (Core i9-12900H)	8 hours, 24 minutes	12 hours, 45 minutes	7 hours, 38 minutes
Asus ZenBook Pro 16X (Core i7-12700H)	4 hours, 54 minutes	7 hours, 58 minutes	5 hours, 28 minutes
MSI Creator Z16P (Core i9-12900H)	4 hours, 42 minutes	5 hours, 24 minutes	5 hours, 37 minutes
Dell XPS 15 9520 (Core i7-12700H)	9 hours, 38 minutes	12 hours, 40 minutes	11 hours, 14 minutes
MSI Creator Z17 (Core i7-12700H)	4 hours, 23 minutes	4 hours, 32 minutes	N/A
Apple MacBook Pro 16 (Apple M1 Pro)	18 hours, 35 minutes	23 hours, 11 minutes	N/A

With such a large, high-res display, you’d expect the Envy 16 to be an excellent machine for videoconferencing. And you’d be right, thanks to the 5MP webcam with Auto Frame capabilities. The image quality was excellent during my testing.

There’s also an infrared camera for Windows 11 Hello passwordless login support and a physical webcam shutter for privacy controlled by a function key. HP omitted any user presence detection functionality that’s been showing up on more recent laptops, so there are no automatic sleep and wake capabilities.

A solid addition to the 16-inch class

HP, Google and Intel set out to create a complete Chromebook for enterprise more than two years ago. A Chromebook that didn't have just a couple of important features but all of the features business users wanted. The Elite Dragonfly Chromebook is the result, a legit ChromeOS dream machine for hybrid workers. 

But despite the Elite Dragonfly Chromebook's greatness, it's probably not for you. Again, this is primarily designed for businesses. Of course, for consumer Chromebook converts who already know the right combo of web, Android and Linux apps needed to get their work done, the Elite Dragonfly is perfect for being productive anywhere. 

Unless your IT department is handing one of these beauties over to you, though, the price is likely going to be a deterrent. The Elite Dragonfly Chromebook starts at $1,149. The custom configuration HP sent us for review is more than $1,500, however, and it's an enterprise model with an Intel Core i5 vPro processor -- a first for Chromebooks -- to increase security (which is already strong on Chromebooks). Enterprise versions also get a year of Parallels for Chromebook for those who might need legacy software. For commercial use, you might want a vPro chip but otherwise, the base model is going to be plenty for most Chromebook users. It doesn't include HP's excellent wireless rechargeable pen and it also doesn't support the pen available for HP's Chromebook x2 11. 

Complete collaborative experience

One of the main things HP, Google and Intel focused on with the Elite Dragonfly Chromebook was the collaborative experience. Most manufacturers in the past year bumped up the webcam resolution on premium Chromebooks from 720p to 1080p aka HD to full HD. HP did that, putting a 5-megapixel webcam in the Dragonfly. But it also uses image processing developed originally for Google Pixel phone cameras. There is HDR processing going on in the background to balance out strong shadows as well as blown-out highlights.

For example, the picture above is a screenshot of the Dragonfly's webcam. I'm sitting in a room only lit by the window behind me. While the image is slightly soft and noisy because of the low-light conditions of the room, it's by no means bad. More importantly, the color is accurate and I'm not shrouded in shadows and the building outside the window is visible, not entirely blown out by sunlight. Try this with just about any other built-in webcam and you'd never get an image like this. 

And while many laptops will kick on their fans a few seconds into a conference call, the Elite Dragonfly stays silent because of how optimized it is for the task. Add in strong noise cancellation for the built-in mics and clear, clean audio from its top-firing speakers and video calls are actually pleasurable. Plus, there's a physical privacy shutter on the camera and a mic mute button on the keyboard for when you don't want to be seen or heard. 

Performance to get you through the day

The 12th-gen Intel Core i5 processor is a champ, getting me through typical workdays using a mix of Chrome and progressive web apps for Microsoft Office and Zoom, Adobe Creative Cloud apps from the Play store and the Linux app for Slack. As I mentioned earlier that this is the first VPro Chromebook, but it's an Intel Evo laptop, too. The two combined mean the Dragonfly meets certain standards for design and performance.  

Evo is essentially a ensure the Chromebook has a thin-and-light body (it weighs less than 3 pounds), has all-day battery life (10 hours, 56 minutes on our streaming video test), instant-on performance when you lift the lid and fast wireless. With VPro it adds enhanced security, namely total memory encryption (TME) and KeyLocker. HP also included a fingerprint reader on the keyboard deck for additional security, though I would rather have it integrated into the power button on the left side of the body for when the two-in-one is in tablet or stand mode.

Haptic touchpad, spill-resistant keyboard, tall display

HP started talking with Google more than four years ago about adding a haptic touchpad to Chromebooks. Coincidentally, the talks dovetailed with Google's desire to Excellerate the keyboard and trackpad experience overall for Chromebook users. The basic idea: create a premium device with a touchpad so good you won't need to carry around a travel mouse. 

The Elite Dragonfly's haptic touchpad (another first for Chromebooks) feels like a traditional click and not like a vibration you'd get from a phone or tablet display. Plus you get the same click feel regardless of where you press on the pad. The strength is adjustable but even maxed out it's not aggressive. I do wish there was some way to increase palm rejection, though, because I regularly ended up dragging the cursor on the screen while typing. 

The haptics work for other ChromeOS actions, giving you a little buzz when you switch between virtual desktops, for example, or when you snap a window to one side of the display. Google also has plans to build out haptic integration into other areas such as Google Workspace apps. Having this touchpad makes the Elite Dragonfly Chromebook that much more attractive for work.

There's not much to say about the backlit keyboard beyond that it's spacious and comfortable to type on for an extended time. I also appreciate that HP made the function keys a little smaller to squeeze in buttons for the keyboard backlight, playing/pausing media and muting the mic. 

As I mentioned earlier, my Dragonfly included an excellent USI pen for taking notes or drawing on the display. It wirelessly charges on the right side of the Chromebook. It magnetically snaps to the side and starts charging and it attaches strongly enough to store that way. 

The 3:2 display is close to the size of a standard sheet of paper, making it nice for note-taking. It's also tall so you can fit more vertically on the screen for less scrolling while you work. It wasn't quite bright enough to use outdoors without fighting reflections but it was manageable. HP does offer a 1,000-nit panel which would be the way to go for frequently working outdoors. Plus, it features HP's privacy screen to block people from seeing what's on the display from an off angle. 

While the display, keyboard and touchpad are excellent, sometimes it's just more comfortable to work on a big display and use a full-size keyboard and mouse. The Elite Dragonfly Chromebook has a Thunderbolt 4 port on each side. That means you can not only charge from either side but connect to a docking station like the HP Elite Thunderbolt Dock G4 for a single cable connection to all your peripherals for quickly getting to work. 

The dock adds an Ethernet port for the Dragonfly for a wired web connection while working at a desk. But the Chromebook has top-flight wireless, too, with Wi-Fi 6E as well as optional 4G LTE and even 5G support (yet another first for a Chromebook). 

A Chromebook crystal ball

Chromebooks were somewhat indistinguishable for several years after they first arrived in 2011. But as ChromeOS matured, higher-end Chromebooks started to show up more regularly. Although, even these premium models topped out at around $500, except for the occasional showpiece. The HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook is a showpiece, loaded with several design and technology pieces that will find their way into future Chromebooks for both business and personal use. It carries a hefty price tag that is likely too much for most people considering a Chromebook, even a premium model. But it's also worth every penny. 

Still, if it's too much, the next best options right now are the Acer Chromebook Spin 714 or the slightly less expensive Spin 513. You can also check out our list of top Chromebooks that we've tested. 

The MarketWatch News Department was not involved in the creation of this content.

Sep 28, 2022 (The Expresswire) -- The global Multi-Function Printer market size was valued at USD 23820 million in 2021 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 2.94% during the forecast period, reaching USD 28350 million by 2027. Multi-Function Printer market segmented by types, applications and manufactures in this market report includes - Canon, Sharp, Xerox, Lenovo, Oki Data, Lexmark, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Toshiba, Ricoh, Brava, HP, Epson, Brother.

The MarketWatch News Department was not involved in the creation of this content.