Remote Printing: Future Has Its Head In The Clouds

Remote Printing: Future Has Its Head In The Clouds

It's a week of projected promises. Trainer-shod digital messiah Steve Jobs soothed his nervous followers' anxieties about the lack of iPad print capability, answering with a prophetic 'It will come.' It probably wasn't the answer everyone was looking for, but Jobs isn't the only one donning the forty league boots to execute his technological leaps, then turning back to attend to minor inconveniences.

Google Cloud Print, for example, is still under development, and if you've read the introductory mini-essay you'll no doubt have been struck by some of the anachronistic elements of the system. Coming directly after the definition of a 'Cloud-aware printer' is the announcement 'Cloud-aware printers don't exist yet...' Normally this would set my verbal manure alarm to red alert, but you have to hand it to this time/space defying attitude towards tech development; it's like they've swallowed the Blakean maxim: 'What is now proved was once only imagined'. So what if we're inconvenienced by the current print-barrenness of the iPad, the non-existence of Cloud-aware printers? We can imagine it. Therefore, it will come.' Especially in the second case, we're all capable of imagining a totally modular remote printing scenario, and though it's not yet here, Google are thinking big.

How big? Glad you asked. There is now a schism between the world of printers, and you must suspend disbelief long enough to follow me (or Google) for a minute: there are now Cloud-aware printers (I know, I know, they don't exist yet...) and Legacy printers, these being all printers that are currently not Cloud-aware, given that these hypothetical Cloud-aware printers can prematurely exist to provide the contrast.

So how is cloud printing going to be gotten off the ground? The essay explains: "We [...] believe that the only way that the benefits of cloud printing can be realized is if the protocols are open, freely implementable, and, when possible, based on existing industry standards. We expect there to be multiple cloud print services, and users should have a choice in which services they use and which printers they can connect to a service."

For those like me who need something a little more tangible to hold on to, cloud printing would, or perhaps will really be the powerful tool Google are hyping it to be. Take a look at the Legacy printer scenario. A simple proxy or bit of code takes the place of the print driver and allows connection with Google Cloud Print. The printer then behaves as it would in a physical printer network as in the office, library, university, only that it is now able to accept print jobs from any and all manner of remote devices.

The service will be able as a currently slumbering feature in Google Chrome, and will not require the downloading of endless upgrades as Google go about developing the service (current work is under way for Windows, Mac and Linux). When the time comes, users have to simply enable the feature. Talk about providence. News on more technological advancements coming soon.

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