An arti­cle in today’s Globe describes a Boston-area startup that has built a device for print­ing images onto the sur­face of bev­er­ages (latte, Guin­ness). It is cer­tainly a novel idea, though one won­ders if it could be a prof­itable one once the nov­elty wears off.

OnLatte’s deci­sion to dis­pense food-grade col­orant with a com­mer­cial inkjet print car­tridge is a sound one. But look­ing at their pic­tures is a lit­tle frus­trat­ing because it makes my inner engi­neer scream, “I could build a bet­ter pro­to­type than that!” For starters, why use an X-Y posi­tion­ing sys­tem to print on a cir­cu­lar surface?