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Fuzzy Logic Is HP’s new ‘mobile printing’ really so revolutionary?
Fuzzy Logic Is HP’s new ‘mobile printing’ really so revolutionary? | Is HP’s new ‘mobile printing’ really so revolutionary? |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Tuesday, 21 August 2007 | |
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Page 2 of 2 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. Featured Whitepaper
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That document could also be uploaded to space on my website using FTP, or alternatively a free or paid web storage service could also be used to upload documents to and then download them from any Internet connected PC anywhere in the world. 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. In addition, you can already upload documents directly to the websites of companies like Fedex Kinko’s and then go to the store to pick up your printed copies, bound in any which way you desire, all without HP’s assistance. Patrick Scaglia, H.P.’s director for Internet and computing platforms technologies at the research lab, is quoted in the NYT article as saying that: “The world is going to flip. We want to ride the wave of the Web.” I’m sorry Mr Scaglia, but with USB memory sticks, online storage services, web mail and even online Office suites such as Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Zoho, ThinkFree and others, the world flipped some time ago. Using a cell phone as a potentially unreliable storage mechanism for document codes (especially if text messages are accidentally deleted) isn’t going to help you ride that web wave. Making sure that all HP printers have built-in Bluetooth and can print documents and photos sent via any Bluetooth enabled cell phone, or can print documents at home even if you’ve pressed print half way across the globe thanks to your home computer’s Internet connection, whether it be from your mobile phone or your notebook computer, might be a better way of achieve that web wave riding goal! |
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