“Hoping to alleviate a frustration of mobile computing, Hewlett-Packard has quietly introduced a free service designed to make it possible to print documents on any printer almost anywhere in the world. Cloudprint, which was developed over a period of several months by a small group of H.P. Labs researchers, makes it possible to share, store and print documents using a mobile phone,” John Markoff reports for The New York Times.
“The service emerged as the result of a conversation begun at the laboratory this year over how the computer and printing company might benefit from the introduction of the Apple iPhone, according to Patrick Scaglia, H.P.’s director for Internet and computing platforms technologies at the research lab,” Markoff reports.
“The service requires users to first ‘print’ their documents to H.P. servers connected to the Internet. The system then assigns them a document code, and transmits that code to a cellphone, making it possible to retrieve and print the documents from any location,” Markoff reports.
“The service will include a directory service that will show the location of publicly available printers on Google Maps. The system currently works with any Windows-connected printer. A Macintosh version is also planned,” Markoff reports.
Full article here.
Alex Zaharov-Reutt reports for iTWire, “At no stage does your cell phone directly interact with a printer, a document stored on an HP Cloudprint server must be downloaded as a PDF, opened in Adobe Acrobat (or compatible PDF reader) and then printed in the usual manner.”
“Quite how my cell phone helps me to share, store and print my documents beyond being the receptacle for a document code number is beyond me – the same effect could be used by saving the document in question to a USB memory stick, or simply emailed to a web mail service, such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL Mail or any other webmail software you can name,” Zaharov-Reutt reports.
“So, while HP Labs mobile printing system at first sounds like some kind of magical document teleportation service, it’s really no different to a regular online storage service, except that it seems to require special software on my Windows PC (and soon Mac), it seems to automatically convert documents to PDF, and it seems that it will be totally useless if I accidentally delete the SMS text message that contains the document code that lets me retrieve the document from an actual computer,” Zaharov-Reutt reports.
Full article here.
explain that ONE more time…
Here’s the link
http://cloudprint.hpl.hp.com/
Why would it be so hard for Apple to just make a system whereby any document downloaded (email or web) to the iPhone would be saved in an iPhone cache that would work in the following manner:
The cache list would be editable: you could see the files listed and could delete if you wanted just like we do now with Visual Voicemail
The cache could be brought over to the syncing Mac in the same manner as “previously purchased songs” can be transferred from iPods to computer now. iTunes would manage this.
Finally, in a future implementation of this concept, perhaps bluetooth or Wi-Fi could be used to send the file to the Mac and directly into a print service (either via an intermediate app or some other OS-wide service) for printing to the connected printer.
In truth, I think a lot of the development of iPhone’s potential is being greatly slowed down at Apple due to Apple’s concern that all features work as well on a Win-PC as on a Mac. I wish they would focus more on the Mac side to provide a greater pressure gradient on potential switchers.
Yes, Bluetooth seems like an obvious answer to this problem, as pretty much all Macs have Bluetooth now, and it’s pretty easy and cheap to add it to Macs and PCs that don’t have it.
Heck, even printers are now coming with the BT option so you could bypass the computer altogether.
“The service will include a directory service that will show the location of publicly available printers on Google Maps.”
Is google maps really that powerful that it can show you which office floor the laserjet is printing your document???
Seems like HP is trying to say “Look, we can also integrate Google Maps into our apps too!”
Hey cool your heels there, hold your horses. I’m the iPhone remember! Printing? Get serious. That’s a bit exotic don’t ya think?Come on, let’s remember what I can do. Everyone scroll with me. That’s it. Tilt me so your website is horizontal. That’s it. Feel better about that $600 now?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” /> Thought so.
Printing. Yeesh. Print what? You can’t even create documents with me! Roflmao!
Ok, this is dumb. It currently occupies the top slot for dumbest thing I’ve heard today, August 21st, 2007. The day is young though.
HP, HP, Hp… sigh.
Why is it every time we take one step away from needing to print, one step closer to a paperless society, some moron finds a way or need to send us 2 steps back?
The idea is to NOT NEED TO PRINT, not make the need to print portable.
If ya wanna use those big brains of yours effectively, figure out how people can get wireless access anywhere, FOR FREE, and work on digital paper, useful stuff. Don’t try to find a way to keep selling those stupid printers.
There is an old, old line in the computer business:
The paperless office will arrive at about the same time as the paperless bathroom.
That said, HP’s moneymaker is printing, not PC’s. So it is only natural that they try to come up with a way of printing from a mobile phone. If if the result works in an unnatural manner.