Japan’s Fuji Xerox Company unleashed an automated roving robot printer on an unsuspecting office building in Tokyo over the summer. It’s definitely no giant beweaponed Gundam, but the robot does include a Xerox color laserjet printer mounted on a set of LIDAR sensors which it uses to build a map of the room it's in and to avoid obstacles while navigating.

To summon the printing robot, users access a webpage unique to their seating location, denoted by a card at each desk. Users drag the document to be printed into the browser window, and the printing robot begins to roll happily in their direction. Once the printer arrives at the desk, the user holds up the desk’s card to be scanned by the robot, which then prints your document. (Having the robot print at your desk introduces a delay into the process, but it also prevents other people in the office from seeing your documents.)

Once the robot has done its job and produced the document, tap a button on its top and it rolls away to service the next job in queue—or scurries back to its home location to await the next print job. The batteries in the unit are said to last up to a full day.

Unfortunately for those eager to equip their homes with robots with frickin’ lasers on their heads—laser printers, at least—the Fuji Xerox prototype is just that: a prototype. Fuji Xerox doesn’t appear to have any plans to actually release the product; IDC analyst Brian Ma even goes so far as to call it "technology for technology’s sake." However, the appeal of having a robot deliver documents directly to you is hard to deny, especially in public areas like hotel business centers and airport lounges.