Have you always wanted to talk with your printer? Probably more likely you've wanted to yell at it. Well now, you two finally have the chance to communicate, you can e-mail it. HP introduced a technology Monday that allows users to e-mail from their computer or mobile app directly to their printer. Printer receives e-mail, prints out document. Want to print the photo you just took with your smartphone? Easily done.
The catch right now is that it only works with HP's new line of e-printers which they also unveiled today. With today's unveiling, the world of Cloud Document Management just changed again, no drivers are required for this solution. Granted, there are a few solutions out there that can push content from a the cloud and mobile device to a printer but none as elegantly as this. This new little piece of cloud technology has the ability to print directly from the Google Cloud without any PC or web appliance needed. HP also released a new feature called Scheduled Delivery were you can for example print out the daily news every morning automatically and have it sitting and waiting.
The bottom line of this being that HP needs to sell ink and printers. With more and more documents being digitized HP has come up with a way to stay relevant, for at least a little longer.
What's next?
Google has a trick of their own up their sleeve. The Google Cloud Print Project is set to come out in late 2010 with the new Chromium OS. The end result will be the ability to print from any machine operating Google Chrome or Android, no print drivers necessary. Look for more apps to be developed with HP and Google over the next year. It's an exciting time for Cloud Technology and Cloud Document Management, can't wait to see what comes out next!