Phreatic explosion is the term used to describe the phenomenon of energy that is released when water is suddenly converted to steam through contact with magma. The expansion in volume of several hundred times, and the resulting release of energy can generate enough force to change the profile of a mountainside.

Controlling explosions is an elemental part of the basic technologies that sustain modern civilization, as can be seen in innovations from the steam engine, which drove the Industrial Revolution, to internal combustion engines, in which the explosion is locked in cylinders to move pistons. Other examples include the usage of the wind from such explosions to rotate the blades of turbines for power generation, to say nothing of jet engine and rocket technologies based on the use of explosive jet blasts to achieve forward propulsion.

Sometime in the late 1970s, in a research lab at Canon, a tiny phreatic explosion caused by the accidental contact between the needle of a syringe filled with ink and a soldering iron changed the course of printing history. Canon's Bubble Jet printing technology, the result of this event, has been upgraded and improved upon through the years. Today, more than 3,000 ink nozzles can eject ink droplets four trillionths of a litor in volume at micron-level precision. And now, the combination of a quarter of a century of technological development and a bold concept is leading to a brand new printing revolution.

Canon's four-color series inkjet printers stand out in the company's product lineup for their particularly high output speeds. In this edition, we talk to the engineers of the S750, a new inkjet printer that achieves explosive printing speeds and excellent output quality.