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HP to Region-code Cartridges
prostoalex writes "Looks like the printer cartridge manufacturers will be borrowing techniques from Hollywood. HP introduced region coding for some of the newest printers sold in Europe. HP's US location and US dollar sliding lead to the situation, where cartridge prices in Europe are significantly higher than those in the States. In the Wall Street Journal article HP representative in Europe claims the company doesn't make any money off regional coding for cartridges, and that consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro."
These imports are usually not so bad. They are pretty cheap and if you can ignore the audience laughing and the occasional guy standing up and going to the bathroom, it's pretty much the same thing.
I think I speak for everyone when I say, "Damn greedy bastards!"
Oh.. and don't try to fool me into believing that you don't earn anything from catridges.
If they claim they don't make money off region coding cartridges, why are they doing it? Sounds like bullshit to me.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Sorry, the dollar will rise against the euro!?!?! When exactly? From where I'm looking, it looks like the current barmy US economic policy will see it sliding indefinately... say goodbye to buying oil with dollars.
and probably illegal.
Besides, how do they mean consumers will benefit when the dollar rises against the euro? They'll just use that as an excuse to put prices up.
There is a mechanism for dealing with exchange-rate risk, hedging the currency market. This way smacks of profiteering.
"...and that consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro."
I wasn't aware it was a competition. And what can we win anyway?
DRM-equivalent hardware? Oh dear...
Well, more material for the boys from Brussels. I guess HP is doing their best to break MSFT record for an EC fine.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro
Oh yes! I'm sure consumer in the US will be thrilled!
It looks like a good idea to me. You really can't copy or in any way "hack" cartridges the way you can for CDs, and since HP is making the printers too, there is no question of an "all region code" printer Aditya
"consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro"
So consumers will never win then?
if the US dollar rises over the Euro
Seriously, is it ethically correct that 100ml ink is more expensive than 100ml insulin?
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
How are they going to prevent me from importing a printer together with the cartridges? Or will they find some neat software scheme in the driver to find out in which country the printer is being used?
Oh well, time to find a printer manufacturer with printers as their core business instead of selling printer ink for gold-prices.
Maybe in four years or so... ;)
Only another way of the printer-industry
to bamboozle the credulous customers.
"We are not trying to make money on this"
So why have they bothered? Maybe they are just showcasing a new technology for us?? How nice - thank you HP!!
AT&ROFLMAO
Because IMHO HP are now Evil. Time was when HP kit was the bollocks, and totally reliable, and not too expensive. Now they're a bunch of assholes trying to wring every last euro out of us.
So the big question is are there any non-Evil printer manufacturers out there?
...you are stupid enough to buy a HP printer in the first place.
and that consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro."
So, I am never going to win?
???
3. Someone will profit
I would like to region code my money so that it cannot be used outside my home country. What's that? currency exchanges? I am sorry, but by accepting my payment you agree to the EULA on my cheque which forbids you from exchanging, transferring or otherwise distributing my money. You can keep my money but cannot transfer it to someone else. I also have a huge list of restrictions on how you can store and play with my money. There, that's fair isn't it?
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
I love it when big companies want ALL the benefits of globalisation and none of the disadvantages.
In Australia and Europe some of printers in the ipx range, such as the ipx3000, ipx4000 and the ipx5000, can print directly onto cds/dvds. Due to some copyright or patent issue the same model printers in the US have this feature disabled. Not only just in the firmware but there a extra slab of plastic on the front to prevent the cd from feeding into the printer. Want proof US owners? pull down the tray on your ipx 3000-5000 printer. you can still find the disc tray in there!
If Canon follows suit and region codes their cartridge (which would be a real shame since the ink in the canon ipx range are so cheap), then not only would Us residents have to import their printers to get full use of its features but they would also have to import the ink if they want to use genuine cartridges.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/metricmusic
Hopefully they are not blocking at driver level.
There are some software which looks at region setting of the operating system itself (in case of Windows) and blocks anything other than appropriate region.
It is not that I haven't seen before.
Sony's NetMD/HiMD player had and still has problem of not allowing driver/software to install if system region is anything other than English (in case of the US market.)
Technical support called it a bug in the Microsoft software.
If they give away printers, and gouge you on the ink, they're evil. Otherwise, they're not.
...buy Canon next time...
Buy Canon...
This'll also save me time from taping of my 40ml black cartridges to use on my HP Deskjet 970C, instead of the default 20ml ones...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
. . .
:) / :(
Off the top of my head, and with no real data, I just see this as an attempt at implementing exchange rate controls.
HP is choosing to lock in an artifical rate, set effectivey by the disparity in localised prices.
But in reality, much of that disparity stems from stock inventory which has been bought and financed at historic exchange rates.
Not even large distributors can necessarily justify, manage or afford responsive hedeing programs.
Is this a return to the labarynthine export and exchange quotas of the 1970s, before the capital account was opened and rates floated freely?
Or is it more desperate, like the Exchange Rate Equalisation Tax that prevented US investors gaining a decent return from European investments?
But the net effect is to keep dollars in the US.
This seems to me to be at odds with the Petro - Dollar inflation that was engineered in the 70's (and led to technical mass bankruptcies in 1982, when Citibank was effectively bust) and which might be in play today. Then it was to balance huge trade deficits from OPEC oil price controls, now for a set of modern reasons such as the outsourcing of the manufacturing base to low wage countries.
Sorry, references left to reader excercise unless i get a for - real lunch break today.
In summary, i am impressed by a protectionist, political motivation for this move, and see how differential pricing could be enforced more widely to meet treasury dept. wishes.
Carly Runs For Office, I guess
Anyhow, i no longer buy HP carts as mine all "timed out" before they were emptied, so in disgust i switched.
Happy hunting!
. . .
As currency fluctuates there will *always* be winners and losers in this scheme.
One year it's cheaper to import ink from the US at their price, the next cheaper for USians to import EU ink.
What next? Region encoded GM rice ?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
In the Wall Street Journal article HP representative in Europe claims (...) that consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro.
I call bullshit on this. You always introduce regions to make consumers pay more than before (in total), hence the consumers lose. Naturally, some customers pay less than others (how else could it be price discrimination), but overall that is simply false.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"...consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro." Yeah. Uh-huh. Id look forward to that maybe sometime in the 23rd century.
Since printers are $50,- these days anyways, it's still cheaper to bulk import them from overseas and also get the overseas cartridges while we're at it.
bash$
In the Wall Street Journal article HP representative in Europe claims the company doesn't make any money off regional coding for cartridges, and that consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro."
"Ha ha!" - Nelson Muntz
Sample this!
Inkjet ink has got to be one of the biggest scams of recent times. No wonder spammers seem so enamored with it.
My hair is falling out right now at the news of another Huge Company exorcising my comic book money right out from my coffee can buried in the backyard. Jiminy Christmas, we're all part and parcel when we arise from our graves and head out to our collective McJobs. Well, unfortunately the Mice got too smart and now they have discovered another angle to spirit away that dough. Trust Me, folks - The Giant Hamster Wheel is about to fall off the axle. Stick a barcode on me and mail me to Turkmenistan, but I'm taking my papyrus and india ink with me... and leaving my Hayche Pee carts here.
Today's article on hackaday.com
hack a hp ink cartridge's region code
Yesterday's feature
hack a lexmark ink cartridge's region code
Older:
-hack a Canon ink cartridge's region code
-hack a kyocera ink cartridge's region code
-hack a xerox ink cartridge's region code
No. But Canon kinda comes close. In short - go to your shop and check out the cartridges costs. Go to Usenet and check out for how long do they last.
FOOLS! its the OPPOSITE law (2005 is start of law recently passed that prevents EU printers from not being able to accept 3rd party "recycled" cartridges)
the law was passed to "protect the environment" but the real motive was to allow cleap chinese printer carts.
too bad the us has no protections and DMCA crap made printer fiasco worse
this story is counterintuitive and incorrect
HP is doing this to make it possible to lock in AMERICAN market, not the euro market!!!!!
consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Eueo
Which is code words for
"The people who buy our products are incredibly stupid schmucks that will buy anything we say."
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Most obviously HP, as with other printer makers, earns little (if any) money from SOHO printers... their business is actually the cartridges. As most companies don't actually use inkjets (at least consumer ones), printer makers just don't get serious opposition to this techniques.
That EUR/USD exchange thing is just the bad excuse...
this really inks me.
And what is his take on flying pigs? This is HP saying to Euro clients "take trousers down and bend over, please".
realkiwi
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/01/18/why_hps_regio n_codin.html
It is kind of strange to see these things happening.
As ridiculous region coding is for DVDs, there I can see a minimal reason (the publishers not wanting a DVD to make it into a market where the movie hasn't even been in the cinemas yet... But as cinema release dates for the big global productions inch ever closer to each other all over the globe, this reason is going away fast - leaving the only "good" thing of the region codings that they can charge more in Europe.
But for an inkjet printer manufacturer - this is pure rip-off. What would I gain by, say, buying an ink-cartridge for a printer that hasn't even been released here from the US? Nothing. I would only waste money.
But - since HP's pricing has gone worse over time anyway, I think it's time to ditch them for good and no longer buy their products... (and just hope that this whole thing doesn't catch on in the printer industry).
theres a simple answer to this. DONT BUY HP
New printers? I've got an HP printer that's more than two years old and it's still quite capable of printing out a photo on photo paper at good enough quality to put in an album. People might as well just buy old ones on ebay and let the gullible people buy the new ones and pay a lot for the cartridges.
~~Every few years or so I'm accidentally fashionable!
In 10 years even the politcians know this is a very bad form of market regulation. Some politcians know already but "common awareness" has to "grow" and hence nothing happens. In the mean time I'll stik with my HP LaserJet 5 which is not likely to break until the time down at 100 pages per year.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
When the dollar rises above the Euro? What kind of crack are they smoking? Thats not going to happen - at least for a LONG time. How can they say that?
consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro
Yeah, right after pigs start flying.
Robert
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
. . .
.
:(
The company introduced region-coding on several printers in the summer so it won't have to keep altering prices to keep pace with currency movements, says Kim Holm, vice president for H-P's supplies business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
And i thought when Carly took over at HP she rolled out the worlds most sophisticated SAP system to integrate their whole supply chain?
You mean HP can't write a script in SAP Financials?
Geez, where's that calculator division when you need a 17BII handy. . .
So they admit failure of their biggest management project outside of kicking out the founding families?
Sorry if it's not SAP, but i remember a big hullabaloo that management pitched to Wall Street. comp.os.vms chronicles it almost blow by blow.
So, as per my earlier thought, if this is not purely political, then management is in a real mess.
I just hope some analyst picks up on this in the next conference call and releases a note slamming the incompetance and misguided greed.
Such stupidity i almost couldn't care less.
Oh well, what can i do?
HAH! Hell will freeze over first! The euro only dipped below the dollar because there was no confidence in a new currency! Both the starting rate and current rates are WELL above the dollar!
FYI, 1 will theoretically buy you about $1.30 at present - i.e. $1 = 0.77
Even if the euro declined for an extended period, it would be at least a year if not more before we would see the dollar worth more than it!
Bah! They're a bunch of blood-sucking money-hungry capitalist pigs.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
Punish HP where it hurts: cut off their revenue.
HP are monopolist wannabees. They aren't big enough to pull this off. They also have enough competition that it won't take long for buyers to wise up -- and with the price of printers so low (1000 for the color laser) and toner so high (750 for a full round of consumables) it's not like the economic incentive is there for people to stay locked into HP.
Carly is an idiot who is rearranging the furnitre on deck while the ship is taking on water from hitting an iceberg years ago.
-- $G
According to froogle the cheap color laser printers are under 500,- now. Time to investigate what the price per page is for a color toner compared to a color inktjet...
I just don't see the prices going down (for most articles) whenever they're affected by the euro/dollar relation in one way, but I do see prices going up whenever it happens the other way around...
It's like the deficit problem in the european countries. Germany,France and Greece seem to be unable to bring their country's budget deficit below a European Union limit, altough only Greece will be penalized! The rules are only for some, and that always favours who needs them the less.
(Of course one could say "at least it's not anti-competitive", because with the manufacturers' de-facto monopolies on cartridges, competition in printer supplies is insignificant anyway...)
If the overall cost to you is reasonable, then I don't see anything inherently wrong with that business model. I'm an Epson inkjet user, and their charges seem reasonable to me considering the VERY high quality of my printer.
That was classic intercourse!
What year do you think it will be when all the Colbalt 60 from WWIII has seen 8 half-lives?
I, for one, welcome our new hyperinflating peso hoarding overloards.
"HP representative in Europe claims the company doesn't make any money off regional coding for cartridges, and that consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro." Translation: Yes, we are screwing you, but hey, in while we'll screw somebody else!
Join moola.com, play games to earn money.
I've got a Xerox Phaser 8200 (now superceded by the 8400) which would be virtually impossible to pull a "region code" trick on... the ink comes in solid blocks that just slot into the top of the printer - no cartridge at all, and no waste.
all that will happen at Universities is that people won't buy new HP printers...
I mean do we have to crack our printer firmware to be region-free.
That since everyone will be working in the service sector for their American Pesos, we'll only be using thermal printers.
My region coding - this sounds like a job for 'dvd jon'
'Pirates' will also now doubt start hitting HP's bottom line - So look forward to the fbi raiding your house.
New software 'InkTorrent' ? anybody
Send Peter Clifford Francis Macrae comdoms to 23 Bedford St, St.Neots, PE19 1AX, England
Once the hell freezes over?
There seems to be a trend going on here, basically everything computer related is less expensive in the States then in Europe. No wonder everytime i go to the US i have to bring back 5 iPods, 3 wireless routers, 5 wifi PCMIA cards, 2 cameras and even DVD-RW's! Yes, DVD-RWs are hugely expensive here (at least in Belgium) because we have to pay a 0.49 euros tax on each and every single one of them! I love Europe and all, but why are our governements intentionnally restricting their citizens of technological advancement? I mean OK HP is playing a dirty trick here, but cartridges were ALWAYS much more expensive in Europe, this is nothing new and wont change a damn thing. It about time the european parliament stops worrying about wether or not to put the Catholic dogma in the constitution and start doing something constructive for the EU.
Hopefully they'll understand sometimes in this millenium that taxing Technology will only make us trail behind behind the US. They are so obsessed with debating on useless details over the constitution that they forgot what the EU was all about: CREATING A STRONG ECONOMIC UNION!
There will be a small group of people, that will win:
People selling "Region-Free" printers, or modding Printers for profit, like it was (and is) common for DVD Players or game consoles.
Crivens! I kicked meself in me own heid!
but I wasnt a dvd user, so I didnt do anything
Then, they came for the printer cartriges, but I didnt use a printer, so I never said anything.
what's next?
who cares i say. firtsly you don't have to buy hp cartridges because there are manufacturers who make them for a hp printer without the hp premium. secondly, it would be perfectly legal to do so provided the manufacturer doesnt infringe on any of the frivolous copyrights hp may have 'aquired'....its only a matter of time (months) until you will see the non hp version showing up.
You will find that your A4 paper doesn't quite fit ;-)
Dude the ink is like 80% margin or better.
If your printer didn't cost more than 2 grand, and wasn't fully depreciated as of 5 years ago, you've got two choices. Thermal paper, or start your own company, which can NEVER go public.
Four or five years from now.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
HP reports record losses! Dump those shares now everyone.
I buy a new inkjet with 2 new cartridges when they are cheaper than buying 2 replacement cartridges.
I bought four Canon S200's. If Canon, Lexmark, or HP are going to sell printers with cartridges cheaper than they sell cartridges, I'm going to buy a new printer every time. Obviously this doesn't work for high end printers, but I don't have a need for a high end printer.
-- No sig for you!
Personally after feeling ripped by this inflated prices for ink cartridges I went out and bought a laser printer. Nowadays you can get a laser printer for as little as 100 Euros. I bought a kyocera with permanent drum. Therefore, the only price I'll ever incur is the price for toner. In the rare case that I need a color print I go to the local copy shop. I've saved tones this way.
Also.... Will this not be as easy to swith off as the epson printer cartridges with the chips that indicate whether they are full or not. Here in Germany at least, you can buy a thingy to reset it to empty so that the printer can reuse it. I'm assuming this chip (or whatever they have in mind) will be read only, though.
Self-promotion: blixtra.org
Daydreaming!
when (if...?) the dollar rises against the euro, consumers do not "win". They might be ripped off marginally less, but there is no win.
Yet another reason not to buy new printers, and, if you absolutely must buy one, a very clear argument against buying it from HP.
I don't see why I should pay insane amounts for printer ink (more per ml than the _good_ years of Dom Perignon) just to subsidise the losses of HP's other departments.
That isn't likely to happen anytime soon... and if it do, they will jack up the prices in Europe, because "the ink cost more to import"... And once the dollar slips under the euro again, the new, higher price will remain.
Sorry HP, but my next printer will not have your badge on it.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Us: $33.99 (or £18.2086) interestingly enough it equals 26 euro almost exactly. Europe: £ 25.99 so its a little more but not some huge difference, but heres why i dont understand. Who makes the ink? HP if theres no region codes, who sells the ink? if there is region codes who sells the ink?
Like the saying goes, never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes. -Pyrotic
The solution is easy, I do not buy any products from companies that try to rip off their customers. HP just filled another line on my blacklist.
Yeah Regional coding is nothing but single-market protectionism, not only is it bad for the consumer but its bad for the whole economy's well-being overall. The reason this happens in the first place is the Oligopolly in which printer manufacturers evolve at the moment, they compete hardly when it comes to buying the printer then fuck us up when we need to put ink in them. As for the EU controlling that? How could they, they're not forcing the consumer to buy HP, hence the EU has no legal ground to counter-act these new measures. Funny that you mention price discrimination because that kind of business plan usually only appears in monopolies, where they can easily rip the consumer off to maximise their profits.
At least does not mix them up with the United Statians of Mexico, for instance.
Now, seriously: this is an artificial barrier to imports, something only states had the power to do until the DVD-region crap. Simple solution? Support legalizing breaking such barriers (DeCSS for instance). Support any firm that breaks Region-encoded cartridges. Europeans should import printers from the USofA via other means (not buying from HP Europe), so their cheaper US cartdriges will stay working. Sue HP for this. etc. etc. etc. Even down here there are lots of good consumer laws. Use them.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I'm about to purchase a printer, and was having a hard time deciding if I should go HP or Epson. I've had a very reliable 850c for years...
Many thanks to HP for making my choice simpler by ruling themselves out.
We had this problem in the middle ages. Instead of actually selling things at best price, merchants tried to get special status, favors, patents, grants and the like.
Apple sells its new MiniMacs with multi-voltage capability outside the US, but with a 110V powersupply in the US for precisely the same reason - so that you can't import them into Europe.
Yes.
They had a blurb quoting a few prices for HP ink and Canon ink, and Canon was almost half the price of HP ink. (I wish I could find the damn magazine so I can quote exact numbers.... gotta clean my room)
This is another reason why not to buy those
cheap shitboxes that pass as printers, but
they screw you out of $40+ pr cartridge, and
instead buy a decent printer which is more expensive up front, but allows you to use 3rd party cartridges, or refill the old ones.
It's win win baby!
HP have just decided for me that I will not ever buy one of their printers until this stupid idea is revoked.
I think that what they are trying to say is that they are saving the US consumers now, and will save the EU consumers in the future in case the US prices are higher, by forcing them to buy cheaper products. What they seem to not understand is that it is the importing of cheaper products that usually makes more sense and that is a little bit more popular, for some strange reason. HP should send their representatives to economics 101, or lying 101 for that matter, because such statements are insulting to both competent economists and con artists.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
The phrase I was thinking of was "What a bunch of cunts!".
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Here, a HP employee response and a business analysis of region coding Cartridges.
In short, HP has calculated that region coding their cartridges will pay. And it will, unless the public creates enough commotion to affect their bottom line and force a rethink of the region coding.
HP is restricting free the use of products that I own (or in this case, am likely to buy). As a proponent of Open Source I feel this is wrong. If you feel the same way, make your voice heard, either by boycotting the infringing products or helping to create awareness of these bad business practices.
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
This move by HP is asinine for many reasons, but one has not been brought up in the comments so far:
On the one hand big companies and corporations are lobbying governments to lessen trade restrictions and import/export taxes so that they can benefit from cheap production costs in other countries. Then on the other hand, they add restrictions themselves so that they can still sell the items at high prices. They make sure that they benefit and not the customer.
Try are trying to have their globalisation cake and eat it.
siener's youtube channel
Canon seems to be the least evil one, and they also win very often now when it comes to printing costs.
In other News....
Warren Buffett sees no way but down for US dollar
The dollar cannot avoid further declines against other major currencies unless the US trade and current account deficits improve, legendary investor and businessman Warren Buffett said.
"I think, over time, unless we have a major change in trade policies, I don't see how the dollar avoids going down," the world's second-richest individual told CNBC television.
"I don't know when it happens. I don't have any idea whether it will be this month or this year or next year, but we are force-feeding dollars on to the rest of the world at the rate of close to a couple billion dollars a day, and that's going to weigh on the dollar."
Buffett noted the record US deficit of 164.7 billion dollars in the third quarter of 2004 in the current account, which measures trade and investment flows.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...the company looks at a demand/supply graph, and sets the supply (the part they do control) so that price (demand)*volume (supply) - cost is maximized. By splitting the market, they create two separate graphs instead of one cumulative graph. Then they do the same for each market.
I'll illustrate with an example. Person A: +10$, B,C,D: +$2 to profits (at most). Now, in a single market, you would have price 10, volume 1 and profit 10 (since all would buy at the same price, and 4*$2 < $10).
If you can split the market in a market A, and a market BCD, market A would have priceA = 10, volumeA = 1 and profitA = 10, market BCD would have priceBCD = 2, volumeBCD = 3 and profitBCD = 6. Yes, the compnay has higher profit but there is more supply and none of the consumers are worse off. This is the "good" side of price discrimination.
Now, let's look at an example which is more how it typically works. Person A: +25, B: +9, C: +15, D: +14, E: +9. In a single market, price = 9, volume = 5, profits = 45. Now let's split the market into AB and CDE. Market: AB: Price $25, volume 1, profits 25. Market CDE: Price $14, volume 2, profits 28.
In total, you have higher prices, higher profits (53 vs 45), lower volume (3 vs 5) and all your customers are worse off. Essentially, price discrimination is only good if it can open up markets you couldn't serve before. That is hardly the case here. But overall, it is not true that price discrimination = less supply.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Lower the price in EU
-> More Tolerance Is Less Extremism <-
That would be "What a bunch of lieing cunts!"
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Get one really OLD HP printer. One that uses cartridges like #14 or so.
The cartridges are slightlu more expensive than "modern" ones, but
- they don't contain any evil "protection tricks"
- "out of the box" they contain about 5x as much ink as "modern" ones
- they are "refill friendly" (a rubber cork to inject ink with syringe)
- they can be refilled to some 180% of "original capacity"
- refill kit is like 70% the price of cartridge and suffices for 2 "full" refills
- a cartridge lasts about 5-6 refills
- if the cartridge dries up, dip in warm water for a while, then dry with a clean hanky, then print a "test page" to finish cleaning the noozles. This way it will work for years.
Result: One cartridge + 2 refill sets = 10 years worth of printing.
Of course the paper feed mechanism will start feeding 2-3 sheets at once after a year or so, but there is a special paste you apply on the cork "rub pads" to fix it.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
"..and that consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro."
Oh, you mean when flying pigs take skitrips to hell?
once the dollar rises over the euro...
Are these idiots drinking the same kool aid as bush and co?
HP's US location and US dollar sliding lead to the situation, where cartridge prices in Europe are significantly higher than those in the States.
AFAIK, most of the HP ink cartridges, for the northern hemisphere, are manufactured in HP's Lexlip plant, Ireland, EUROPE...
I ask you again... WTF?
The decline in the dollar may have something to do with it, but the US has for over 30 years had a far better deal on most products than here in the UK.
It is very well known that the "real" exchange rate on a lot of products is about 1 dollar to 1 pound. So when you all moan about paying 10 dollars for something, we're actually paying 10 pounds for it (which equates to around 18 dollars).
Apple have done it with the music on iTunes store, Sony on all their hardware, Microsoft on software, cars, cigarettes even coca-cola ... the list goes on.
Welcome to Rip-Off Britain!
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
But wasn't the internet, ecommerce and globalisation supposedly all about getting the best deal anywhere in the freaking world? Now that the system works for consumers, not just for big business to lure away taxable profits, they pull shit like this.
Just realize it guys. Any business big enough is only after one thing, screwing everyone else. This is capitalism at it's finest, and those who endorse it shouldn't expect anything else.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
"consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro."
Since the dollar is more than likely to fall even further to the euro, this means we consumers will not win. Then again, HP is on a downwars slope too, so just buy from another manufacturer.
Fuck them right in their ear. Now I'm glad I dumped their products last year and switched to Canon.
While I'm thinking about it, fuck Lexmark, too.
...once the US dollar rises over Euro.
Euh? Maybe a little off topic here, but when is that going to be? Maybe when Bush wants to see the REAL world problems.
-> More Tolerance Is Less Extremism <-
This happened months back. The PSC 2355, 2610, 2710, OJ 7310, 7410 all use region coded ink carts. The reason was to reduce the black market trade of HP ink carts. So, in essense, it is a money grab. A printer bought in North America will only accept ink bought in North America, the same for any other nation.
So, does this mean that HP are no longer good guys?
Inform me please, I need it for my karma-whoring.
I am about to buy a printer. Dell here I come....
My opinion: Fire Carly Fiorina! She can't make money for the company without being adversarial for customers. When a company treats its customers badly to try to make more money, that is an indication that the CEO is desperate.
Reworded: "Where are our anti-trust laws when we need them?" The U.S. government is so corrupt that there is no chance there will be any government involvement. A government that kills other people just because a few people want that certainly will not be influenced by laws.
HP inkjets aren't competitive, anyway, so don't buy them. In my experience, they've been having terrible problems with their printer management programs.
HP's action speaks loud and clear: Try Canon!
Tried for hacking your own printer catridge? C'mon! What judge would not feel fundamentaly insulted for having a case like that in his courtroom?
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
I gave up on HP years ago. Moved through Epson, am now using Canon (for inkjet). Nothing wrong with the Epson except they chip their carts. Canon is a breeze to refill; the ink tanks are just plastic boxes full of ink. You uncap them, squirt in more ink, recap them and put them back in the printer. 2 minutes per cart.
I like inkjet, but I'm not going to buy into this ink vending machine market. I paid more for my Canon than what I could have gotten an equivalent HP for, but I save several hundred bucks a year in cartridges.
And that is why voltage-converters exist. Excuse me for asking, but isn't this elementary knowledge?
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
I have read that some people now make a living by buying Porsches in the US and reselling them used in Europe ; the price tag in the US hasn't changed in three years to preserve market share, when there was a 60% change in currency. The article even said that if you have $200,000 in cash and can pay for insurance, you can get a basic 911 or Boxster for free by buying a top of the range Cayenne or GT3 in the US and reselling it in Euro area.
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
Damn! I guess this means I won't be able to play my ink cartridges in my DVD player any more...
They say that they want a free market but this is bullshit. How do they explain that the big money can let produce everywere, so they can get the cheapest worker, but the worker cant buy the products, so they can get the cheapest produkt?
We need a region-code for workers, so products from cheep worker can only sold in regions with cheap prises.
Or we use region-money, like the money that starts in whole Germany: www.regiogeld.de
Mind
Before you buy a canon check http://www.linuxprinting.org/ and see if you can use your shiny new printer on your linux machine...
D.
Remeber the times HP used to be cool? Those were the days: HP-UX, Apollo workstations, HP medical equipment, etc.
What is left of this company? It is merly an ink producer for all these cheapo inkjets. Hey see it this way: mor than 50% of their revenue is printer business, and the rest is PC, yeah, Compaq, yeah great: buy PC parts, assemble them together and stick an HP sticker on it, outsource support, outsource the assembly, outsource the decision which parts are being used, outsource even the HP sticker production!
And what happend to Digital and Alpha? Discontinued, burned down, well done HP.
They didn't even keep Stepanow from the STL development team, so he and his team finished their work at SGI!!!
And HP's software? Is there anything left? Yes, Openview! Great, catch SNMP traps and show a red-blinking picture of a server being down.
And HP's contributions to open source, ever heard of it? No.
And ipaqs, what about those, PDA development is dictated by Microsoft's WinCE hardware support, you can't really do anything wrong here, because refernce design is already done by Microsoft.
All this company still has is a name, all the rest is simply embarrassing.
H.P. to region code catridges...
Users to buy other brand printers...
First we get shitty chipped cartidges and printers that attempt to nag you into not using the much cheaper generic alternatives. Then we get Lexmark printers phoning home. Now we have HP making region coded cartridges. What a complete bunch of wankers the printer manufacturers are. Talk about stifling competition.
Sadly however clueless users will not realise they're being stiffed and will continue to be sold this crap by spotty salemen when they visit their local PC megastore.
However the rest of us should make sure that everyone we know is informed that HP suck and why.
I think I may be speaking for the majority of right thinking geeks when I say that HP can stick their region coded catridges right next to their printers, right up their arses.
I for one will be complaining to my MEP as this is clearly monopolistic and anti competitive behaviour.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
... but I wonder how long it take to do the same for laser jet printers? Have a go at achieving the paper less office now - can't be that difficult can it?
Friends don't let friends buy inkjet printers until they market these things to people other than those that are stupid, poor, and/or cheap.
They suck, they are designed to be disposable because I guess it takes people like 3 or 4 times to figure out that they are marketed with lead in pricing to only get you to buy their overpriced ink refills or simply do the easier thing -- buy another printer (with 1/4 filled ink cartridges).
I saw on TV where color Xerox (rebranded Phaser) laser printer is under $1,000. Lower end B&W laser printers with toners that last years can be gotten for 5-600. My parents paid $600 for an Apple dot matrix printer in the mid 80s (kick ass as far as dot matrix goes).
In other words, like everything else. We have control. If noone buys their shitty stuff, then they will change. But as long as people keep bending over and getting assraped by these people -- Well, they will keep giving it to you. Every time, and twice on Sundays.
Go to any Best Buy, Office Depo, and etc and buy both an HP ink cart and an Epson cart...
Now look at the outer package..
9 out of 10 times its in Japaneese or another asian language..
while might soudn like an excellent short term way to boost profits..
Sooon the suppliers wil rebel and cause HP pain..
Fire the CEo now befoe the ship sinks!!
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Tying a price to any currency, is strange. Just because the main co is from usa, they want to be able to calcuate in dollars for some reason. Since the majority of cartridges are made in asia anyways. Mabye they could tie it to Singapore dollars. That way they will feel even better.
The printer companies are against doing refilling and they want consumers to buy new ones
Refill and save money. [ LOTS ]
Iam not sure if such shops exist at ur place.If it does make use of it.
Why does yahoo do this
Two of my three most recently purchased printers were bought in the US. Region encoding would force me to import cheaper ink rather than using the more convient local UK suppliers. Hmmm, the only people who lose out are the local shop owners as far as I see.
The price is outrageous.
I will have no problem with companies that do this with any of their products when I can pay with capital that is only good in the same country/region and cannot have its regions switched/exchanged to another.
I'm sorry Ms. Fiorina, those are Luxembourg Euros and they are not valid in Finland. It is also illegal to attempt to surmount the protection by attempting exchange or alter those Euros in any way. You will have to purchase identical Finland Euros with your American Dollars at the going rate of one Euro for fifteen American Dollars. Will that be acceptable? Ok, good. Here is your bill. Oh wait, are those are Rhode Island American Dollars...?
HP should rather make better printers and finally offer better Linux drivers than resorting to such sketchy schemes in trying to make some profits.
That way they can figure out which of their clients are exploiting the gap in the markets and try cut off supply.
Oh, and by the way, the dollar sliding has nothing do with it: People in Europe, Middle East and Africa routinely get ripped off compared to US prices, and not just on cartridges. Case in point: Launch price of the basic Mac Mini in South Africa is about USD750, or a full 50% more than the US price.
But - since HP's pricing has gone worse over time anyway, I think it's time to ditch them for good and no longer buy their products... (and just hope that this whole thing doesn't catch on in the printer industry).
Unfortunately, that's easier said than done. Take a look at the list of Suggested Printers for Free Software Users and try to find a printer that is well supported on BSD, Linux and friends. The list is a bit outdated, but in general it's a good guideline. I researched this in detail a few months ago when I was shopping for a new printer and in the end, as much as I hate HP, I decided that an HP PSC series printer would be the most suitable and economic choice for my needs.
Epson is even worse than HP in many ways as most modern Epson printers seem to be the disposable type which gets clogged up within 6 months in such a way that buying a new printer is cheaper than replacing the head.
Canon printers seem nice in terms of quality, but there are no realiable high quality drivers for BSD or Linux. The same can be said for all the other major manufacturers. Ink cost is also an issue and with HP you can at least resort to refilling the cartridges yourself, which reduces the cost about 4 to 5 times.
Some people prefer to use an OS that just supports almost all printers, instead of one where printer drivers are scarce, and where support depends on whether the developer happens to own that printer, of whether a manufacturer or model is deemed to be 'cool' and supported, or 'evil' and deliberately not supported.
...HP's no stranger to this scenario, they took a page or two from Microsoft's book when they thought up this ploy. This is an example of pure greed, trying to squeeze every last dollar or soon to come every euro as well and feed their need to monopolize the industry. I'm in the computer sales business and yes I predominately sell HP's because they are a standard. Everyone knows it's not the hardware that makes the money, hell they're usually sold at a loss. The supplies...now that's where they get you. HP simply wants to have better earnings, they just think they found a nice little loophole to take advantage of the European market...does this mean Lexmark may breathe new life abroad?
The rate things are going just exactly when is this going to happen? I would suggest the not this year certainly and if Mr Bush continues his reign then not during his term in office.
So a lose, lose situation all ways round for consumers. I can't believe they even tried it.
who cares i say. firtsly you don't have to buy hp cartridges because there are manufacturers who make them for a hp printer without the hp premium. secondly, it would be perfectly legal to do so provided the manufacturer doesnt infringe on any of the frivolous copyrights hp may have 'aquired'....its only a matter of time (months) until you will see the non hp version showing up.
Guaranteed to outperform the USD for the forseable future.
Companies support globalisation only when it lines their pockets. Should the consumer suddenly start to benefit, they start these protective methods to restrict the free trade they were so keen to embrace when it meant sending manufacturing facilities to slave worker countries. It isn't any great surprise to be honest. I no longer have any expectations of companies behaving unlike robber barons and highwaymen.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
Have you ever tried to buy an airplane ticket? They do exactly the same thing, but more galling and arbitrary. E.g. stay the weekend (not a business traveler) -- it is cheaper.
In and out -- you pay a lot.
People somehow accept this as if it is OK, but for many people, I suspect they lose more money to air travel price discrimination than they do to HP's printers. (not that I'm trying to excuse this behavior!) People seem bothered by how it is done, not by the utility or disutility of it all.
When I read about Fiji computers having different power supplies (so that US computers blow up in Fiji if you plug them in) -- I'm not shocked, surprised and hurt. Could be an honest mistake, way to shave a few pennies, etc. I didn't take that personally.
But the fact that HP uses hardware/software to do more lock-in than existed previously is what really galls people. It is somehow more "in your face" and nasty. A totally willful decision on the part of HP.
For this reason, I didn't buy an inkjet -- I bought a laser printer. But I did buy an HP even though I knew they were doing this to inkjet buyers. I know this isn't consistent; I somehow fed the damn beast. I just took the easy way out. There is no GNU-printer or I probably would have got that.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
I know the slashdot crowd is more on the "free trade, whatever it takes" side, but... The EU should (IMHO) decide that this kind of practices won't be tolerated, and that, if you want to sell the same product in the EU and elsewhere at hugely different prices, then you have to MANIFACTURE the good inside the EU. This way, you are still free to rip off us Europeans, but you have to at least employ a decent amount of people, thus pumping some money back in our economy.
-- Let's go Viridian.
Printers accepts Postscript. That makes them useable on any OS that supports Postscript. You need the driver if you want to do anything fancy that the printer might offer. (scan, autocolour balance, etc.)
I recently moved from the US to Italy with a brand new HP printer. The printer was able to run off of the European voltage, so I bought a new cord with the European plug type and it works with no problems. From reading the article it sounds like my US printer will have no issues running with the European cartridges, so for the moment I am okay.
But what happens if I do exactly the opposite? I plan on moving back to the US at some point. Does this mean I shouldn't buy a new HP printer (say a nice photo one) before I move? And how am I supposed to know this if I don't read Slashdot? What I'm doing is legal: taking personal items with me when I move.
For most people in my situation I assume they won't be able to do much about it. They will only find out after they have moved their printer out of the country where it works (thereby ruling out giving it to a friend before they move) and will then be unable to buy cartridges that work with the printer. Obviously you can't return the printer to the stort you bought it from in another country months ago. Is HP going to make European printer cartridges easier to buy in the US? Or are you forced to buy the more expensive European cartridges and someone (probably by paying even more money) import them into the US.
The world is becoming more and more global and large companies want to punish me for being an international consumer.
Individual carts for each color so you don't have to toss a $35 cart when one color runs out. So go Epson and get the carts from Printpal.com
All the vendors like HP and Lexmark who are trying to ass fuck me and tell me they're taking my temperature can gargle their boiling ink in hell.
Not so for corporate users. They buy cartridges in bulk. And if they find out they have to pay 50% more for each new cartridge they use, they will say "screw you" to HP, and buy a new printer from Canon.
HP's scheme will only succeed if they can get the other manufacturers to cooperate. And since printer manufacturers are found all over the globe (as opposed to manufacturers of Hollywood movies), that will be quite a hard task. In the meantime, this will lose the big customers.
I think they will reconsider.
"The Corporation" by Joel Bakan
"The most powerful class of institution on earth, the corporation, is by any reasonable measure hopelessly and unavoidably demented."
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
In which parallel universe should that be??? HP is one of the greediest companies I've ever seen. So much to "buying HP products" (I do not do it for a long time...)
... to invest in a continuous flow system. CFSes exist for all of the popular printers out there. Once you buy and install one you only pay for ink. Yes, ink, not cartridges. You buy by the bottle and since ink is practically a commodity there's no artificial monopoly to screw you. Warranty, schmarranty - you can buy a brand new printer with the money saved.
People used to laugh at me for using an 18 year old dot-matrix printer ... now who's laughing! Mhuhahaahhahaha!
Yes, they are more expensive, however it tends to be the "native" format for most Unix / Linux applications, and brand independent.
I have a HP LaserJet 6MP with Postscript for that reason. I did pay a small fortune for it a number of years ago, including upgrading the ram to 19MB (3MB factory + 16 MB). If and when I replace it, I may not buy a HP again, however I'll certainly be looking for a Postscript replacement.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
Yeah, right. Is this how they explain it to their shareholders as well? "We are burning some of your investment for nothing"
Timo's Audio Software http://www.esseraudio.com
Canon printers like the ix50 series don't have the print head on the cartridge so the carts are WAY cheaper. I've run it quite a bit and I'm very happy with the quality. You can find carts for less than $2 each (try eforcity.com). For the price of buying new ink for my old HP I picked up a new canon and a BAG of printer carts.
Always price the ink before you buy the printer.
Alpha, VMS and Tru64 were pretty good products - two down, one to go......
Carly's real business model is not to "invent" but to extort as much cash as possible from what amount to commodity products.
To take advantage of the exchange rate, you would need to buy two printers, one US for when US cartridges are cheap, and one EU for when EU cartridges are cheap. And you'd have to buy a lot of cartridges to make that economical.
Maybe that's the answer. Everyone stockpile while the dollars down!
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
I haven't for a long time.
When you couple this kind of predatory pricing practice with the declining quality of HP printing products there really isn't ny reason to buy them anymore.
While the world's landfills are being filled with HP Deskjets, I continue to use my Laserjet 4p (12 years old and running strong) and my backup is an even older IIIP. At work, I have used their cheap color lasers and, when it comes time to move to color prinitng, I will buy almost anything but HP!
This is just further evidence of the sacrifice of quality in American products and the rape of consumers just for the sake of the almighty dollar! May they reap what they sow!
"consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro."
Which consumers: American, European, or both?
It looks like at any given exchange rate someone, somewhere will be getting the short end of it.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
you mean as in "once there is a stable democracy in Iraq and we have found weapons of mass destruction"?
Because of these policies american businesses will be boycoted more and more ... at least i won't buy any US goods anymore and i am sure a lot of people in the rest of the world think the same way ... hope HP and others are happy with this ...
Yeah, that'll happen real soon. And then, I'll hug and kiss some poisonous snakes.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Interesting how confident they are, that the Dollar will once again surpass the Euro. If current foreign politics in the USA continue to circle around making war to arab states, this is not going to happen anytime soon.
Oh well, Lexmark has better Linux support anyway...
So will this introduce a new market for "Chipped" printers that are multi-region, in the same way that happened for DVD players?
If HP are not making money from this, why are they doing it?
What possible reason could there be to prevent interoperability between identical cartridges in different geographic locations *other* than to charge different prices in different places and to eliminate the grey imports which inevitably occur in such situations.
HP, in saying "we will not make money", are actually saying "we will ensure we do not lose money by our pricing policy being short-circuited by grey imports", which is to say that they wish to price identical items differently in different places and make it stick.
To be fair, though, if HP wish to do this, its entirely up to them. It is not unethical *as long as the consumer is aware of the issue before he buys a HP printer*.
And if you don't like it, don't buy HP. Plenty of other people out there make excellent printers - hooray for the free market!
--
Toby
HP is willing to export technical jobs around the world in order to take advantage of less expensive labor in, for example, India. Yet HP denies their customers that very same capability, i.e., shop around the world for the best prices on goods.
I suppose the phrasing was terrible...
Ten years ago I bought an HP500C printer to my wife.
At the time she was still my gf, and I purchased it to her because she was taking office as a District Attorney.
Since then, she is printing 40 or more pages every work day.
And the printer is still in pristine conditions.
Oh my $DEITY.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Will my portable printer no longer be portable outside the continent where I buy it?
Will I need to buy a European printer for use when I am in Europe, and an American printer for use when I am in North America?
If I run out of ink during a trip, and this system is in place, I assume I'm just screwed. Am I mistaken?
Anybody ever notice how companies want to take advantage of the different value of currency for the labor rates (moving jobs to India), yet they want to use region coding to prevent customers from doing the same thing (buying the same product from a place where it's sold cheaper).
That's greed, nothing else.
So they want to lay off US and Euro workers and hire Indian workers to take advantage of the difference in money value (want to lay off rich workers and pay the poor worker price), but they want to prevent you from doing the same thing when it comes to buying products (want to stop rich people from paying the poor people price).
Maybe we should region code workers- "sorry HP, but the region code states that this worker in Bangalore makes $20 an hour when working for you Region 1 American companies... the $2 an hour wage is only when working for a region 3 Indian or Chinese company"
I beat them to it. My HP region has already changed to Tesco's own brand.
I remember lots of protests against globalisation and the same organizations and govenments saying it was the next best thing after sliced bread, innevitable and lots of nice adjectives. Now that they have to compete they arrange schemes to screw^H^H^H^H^H "differentiate" the markets? "Do what we say, not what we do" anyone?
Governments should make all forms of region-coding illegal:
* in the case of DVDs this is censorship, pure and simple
How would an American (zone 1) watch a French movie he bought on DVD (zone 2) during a trip to France? Officially / Legally he cannot. Effectively the movie has been censored by the DVD industry. The government, here the US government, has a responsibility before its citizens to prevent large-scale censorship by private interests (here of all foreign movies by Hollywood / the DVD CCA).
* in the case of print cartridges it's an obstacle to free trade
International companies bemoan about how they need free trade. This should cut both ways and governments should forbid companies from using region-coding to restrict international commerce, just like the WTO would object to / prevent governments from restricting international commerce by imposing importation quotas.
This actually also applies to DVDs where the region coding is also used to create artificial price differences.
As an American temporarily living in Europe, I'm so disappointed by this news on so many levels...
This makes moving more expensive. Some people do move between regions, you know. To add to the hassle of moving, now we'll have to junk otherwise good electronic equipment because of an artificially created restriction. Either that, or get all your ink shipped from overseas. (I'm pretty sure that if they put region-limiting electronics on the cartridge, they'll also have anti-refilling measures.)
Region incompatibilities are nothing new. I can deal with different plug shapes and voltages (plug adapters are available; the better equipment is self-switching, and you can buy replacement wall-warts for the rest). The TV, VCR, and DVD player are incompatible (unless you buy high-end multi-standard stuff) due to different video standards (e.g., NTSC vs. PAL, RCA vs. SCART connectors), but at least the DVDs themselves can be played on region-free players.
Anyway, I buy a few appliances and electronic equipment knowing that I won't be taking them home with me, but I'd buy more if they were usable worldwide.
This defeats the whole purpose of currency fluctuation. The whole point of the falling dollar is to give the system a chance to equilibrate. US consumers are supposed to feel the pain of rising prices for foreign goods. Foreigners should buy more affordable American goods, to help balance the trade defecit. Americans should be feeling the consequences of their government's reckless spending, and this is throwing a wrench into the system.
HP is sinking ever deeper depths. Years ago, I learned in school about HP's innovative way of cutting costs by reducing inventory risk. They designed their printer boxes so that the product could be differentiated at the very last minute simply by slipping the appropriate power supply through a hole in the box. Now they are reversing their gains by doing the exact opposite. It looks like the new HP prefers to screw their customers rather than run their business efficiently.
By the way, I bought an Epson C64 on sale. It's dual voltage, has parallel and USB inputs, and it's Linux compatible. The ink is expensive, though, even by inkjet standards.
Now we see repercussions of your over-spending even with HP ink cartridges.
- Region-free DVD players have already been ruled to be legal in Europe, where regional coding of movies is seen as anti-competitive behaviour. I remember seeing a few TV adverts just before Christmas proclaiming "multi-region" as a feature of DVD players!
- Other people besides HP are allowed to, and do, make cartridges for HP printers. If HP won't tell them how when asked politely, then they may use reasonable force, i.e. reverse engineering {holding a knife against Carly Fiorina's throat, much as you would all like to do it, might well be considered unreasonable force}. Non-HP brand cartridges in all probability will be "all-region".
- European environmental law explicitly forbids any measure which makes it deliberately harder to reuse or recycle electronic equipment and accessories. This includes consumables.
- HP's drivers are released under a BSD-style licence. If this function is implemented by anything in the software, it can simply be commented out and recompiled.
I myself have a HP printer {Business Inkjet 1100} which I use almost exclusively for printing photographs, either for other people or when I know I will not just be able to take my laptop somewhere. I almost never need to print out documents anymore, thanks to tabbed browsing in Konqueror and Firefox. And now that photo labs are offering prints direct from memory cards at quite reasonable prices, I would recommend anyone simply not to bother with a printer.Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I know that we're hating HP here, but the LaserJet 1012 is a darn nice little monotone laser printer that costs less than $250.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
Carly the Pinkslip Princess has ruined the business and reputation of the once great HP and Compaq.
I have had to actually hold my nose and use Dell servers thanks to her dumbass SAP system that has caused MONTHS of backlogs in ProLiant server production. It takes me a month to get a HP server when I can have IBM or Dell in DAYS.
Corporatism != Free Market
I don't know about the rest of you, but the expense of ink cartridges has made me all but stop using my color printer altogether. I do most of my home printing on a low-end laser printer (an old Okidata 400e ... you can get the current version of this printer for less than $200 now), and buy relatively inexpensive toner cartridges when I need to. When it's time to print digital photos, I bring either the camera's flash card or a CD to CVS (substitute your favorite photo center as appropriate) and get better prints than I could have made at home anyway, for a lower price.
Congratulations HP/Lexmark/Epson/Canon and the rest of the Ink Cartel. You've driven prices so high that I've stopped using your product altogether.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Email regarding advertising (marketing people will take notice about bad PR).. html
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/hpads/contactus
Email Carly (probably /dev/null but you never know).
n dex.html
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/email/fiorina/i
Ripoff
They are still laughing. You are just too deaf to hear them. :P
I'd do something interesting, but my server can't handle a slashdotting.
"...and that consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro."
:)
Ok everybody, start printing Euros until this happens!
Get a free Mac Mini!
http://www.FreeMiniMacs.com/?r=14103184
Sounds familiar... =)
welcome to world where blackmarket printers will be better than bought-in-the-shiny-shop as they will bear sticker REGION FREE, just like we are aving DVD players right now.
With Lexmark's shenagins and not HP joining the idiot squad it looks like it is time to switch back to the old reliable printer from IBM. You the read one witht he round-ball font producer, better known as the Selectric II.
Drive home last night I heard some congress critter make a remard that if you don't support capitalizm your a communist.
Time for the US to make some changes........
--Trey Pattillo not logged in at the office
Just how much more crap are we gonning to have to take from printer/ink manufacturers before we just push the paperless office idea through into normal practice?
I'm surprised we haven't seen RFID'd paper, that a printer will only print on. Giving them yet another consumable to rip us off on.
I think we should just avoid printing altogether. Just spend our money on solutions that make paperless working feasible and transparent. Just think of the environment, no need to fill land fills with empty ink carts (or even half full expired ones), printers dumped due to ink costing more than a printer; reams of paper for 'test pages' and other mistakes. Then of course, think of all the trees we would save.
Then why do it, exactly...could you explain that part to me again?
Of COURSE HP will make money off of regional coding for cartridges. Hollywood has done so for quite some time with its region coding for DVD.
This is nothing more than a simple grab for more cash.
Carly Fiorina was invited as a guest speaker to our large government agency a few years back. She was supposed to be speaking on reorganization/transformation. At the close of a talk that adressed neither topic well, she either let her guard down, or revealed she's none too bright. She said, approximately, "I know you're not in business for profit, but, if you were, I'd only have two words for you: printer cartridges". Apparently, the fact that most of the 300 people in the audience had lives that were 2/3 non-government employee completely escaped her. It didn't seem to register that nearly all of us likely had made personal IT purchases, including printers, and might find such a remark rather obnoxious.
When I saw this I immediately wondered how this would effect 3rd party ink cartridges? I don't know if there are any generic ink cartridges for HPs or not... but if there aren't, region coding is a technology they would have to circumvent, which of course isn't exactly legal.
Now, HP *expects* to make a certain figure in european cartridge sales. They fail to reach this, so they are "losing" money. Region locking their cartridges might just help in regaining this "lost" money, and as such only puts them back on par, rather than push into further profit.
In other words, it restores money that HP believes (through some weird corporate mindtwist) was rightfully theirs in the first place.
consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro.
[flame bait]
Considering the US has another four years with George W. Bush at the helm, I wouldn't hold my breath on the US dollar rising.
[/flame bait]
Remember the days when HP would work on new products and make money selling them? Not work out ever more new and devious ways to milk inkjet users of every last penny they have.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
Cool -- it's like the old idea of the Sneakernet, except that it's a trade network rather than a data network.
You see that brine there? That's my brine.
Please people speak with your wallet. Next printer purchase put Samsung printers in consideration, since they offer Linux drivers. I am not "with" samsung, just I only consider, linux supported printers. To get other markets to open these days there has to be a few that start making it profitable to do so.
say goodbye to buying oil with dollars
yup, I'm off topic but this is really interesting.
Hmm, surley this is just another reason to start a foreign war again - it's difficult to stip trading in dollars if the US will simply invade or impose massive sanctions against you for doing so.
Lets take a look at the last 3 places to stop trading in dollars.
First Iraq changed to be trading it's oil in Euro's. Then Iran did the same, followed by North Korea - which decided to do all international trading in euros, not just oil.
So what makes a nation a member of the 'Axis of Evil'?
Shortly after North Korea made this statement there was an opec meeting where on the adgena for discussion was all opec trading in Euro's rather than dollars. It was around this time that the invasion of Iraq became inevitable...
So it stands to reason that most of Europe, especially those with strong ties to the euro were against the war (unlike the UK which still uses sterling and isn't going to join the Euro for a while, if at all).
AFAIK This was is more about trying to protect the (not so mighty now) dollar than to actually grab the oil itself. This works two ways - US industries get a big boost as they get work reconstructing Iraq, as well as constructing all of the armaments dropped there plus a nice foreign war normally helps the home economy anyhow. Also the oil is now being traded in dollars again.
In some respects the Iraq war is part if not the start of a large economic power struggle between Europe and the US...
Unfortunatley IMHO this is starting to backfire on the US administration - the whole exercise has been such a PR disaster in international terms that no-one wants to trade in dollars anymore given the choice. Also the US military is loosing the war - this doesn't give a boost to home economy. If you don't believe me check out non-US network news and read between the lines; there's more insurgents in Iraq now than coilition troops and they have much less logistical and supply problems, the support of the local population of which they are comprised and they have large and obvious military targets which cost the enemy a lot to replace whereas the US have now destroyed everything they can militarily and have prooved ineffective against tackling the insurgency (like umm, Vietnam). Also the insurgents have nothing to loose because the US has already taken it away from them - their culture, relegion, freedom and country have all been comprimised by the US - also like Vietnam.
Also this foreign policy is setting the US up to be a target for terrorism now for at least the next generation - this combined with the general distaste for that policy mean that the US is almost certainally now missing out on investments from foreign places and also highly skilled people who before would have happily worked in the US and contriubuted to it's economy are far less likley to do so.
I'm one of these people - I've always thought I'd probably end up working for high tech industry in the USA simply because the pay is better than elsewhere in the world. This isn't true anymore - the pay is now probably worse than here in Europe (because of the weak dollar) and I simply am unprepared to pay my taxes into a system that instigates and persues illegal foreign wars of aggression given the choice.
And Gillette dosent make any money off of the razor blades!
My sigs offend the max # of people all over the world, regardless of race, religion, color, sex or creed. It's a gift.
Printers - relatively modern contraption requiring significant amounts of technology to fabricate.
Ink - been around for thousands of years.
So why the hell is it the ink that costs so damn much, and that they say they're not making profit on?
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
I know I'm not the only one saying "wishful thinking".
Bring on the asteroid
Buy this printer and be happier than you ever thought possible about a printer.
? pr oduct=8400
http://www.office.xerox.com/perl-bin/product.pl
Then send HP a letter, printed on said printer, telling them to eat wax!
HP and all you ink printer makers, sopt ripping people-off and destroying our enviornment!
:T:R:A:N:S:
Why just this morning, my toast came outta the toaster all burned. Musta been that dern Bush! His war for oil is costing us billions. We can't afford a better power grid, it musta amped up my toaster!
e thumpin Buddies at the FCC. They forced all TV shows to suck so people wouldnt watch it!
This morning it snowed and I was like, BUSH STRIKES AGAIN! All his yehaw cowboy ways caused his reckless oil buddies to pump crap up in the sky and it destroyed the ozone layer or somethin, now we have global warming and I have to dig outta all this snow!
Then I got to work today, there was a virus on my PC! You know the bush family has close ties to Mr. Norton HIMSELF????
So After work I came home and flipped on the TV. I watched some shows and they SUCKED! It's Bush and his ultra-conservative-neonazi-fascist-rightwing-bibl
SO THEN I was like, ok im gonna play online, gonna play some Halflife2, but then I have to use Steam(tm)! AND AS WE ALL KNOW, steam is a way to track people who have mad sniper skills and draft them to go fight HIS CRUSADE!
SO I went to go to bed and I couldnt sleep because GEORGE W. BUSH the POTUS himself was next door playing sweet riffs on the drums!
Can you please. Please Please. Pass the buck elsewhere. Corporations want to make more money, doesnt matter who is in power. If the Euro was sinking we would be hearing the same story.
Thanks to HP for helping me make my decision on my next printer purchase. I guess it's down to Epson or Canon. Their decision has indeed saved me money, in the sense that they have reduced the time it will take me to compare printers by 1/3.
-----
Pretty Bad Privacy (PBP) Public Key
6
What's the region code for the scrap heap?
The last time I tried to help a friend recover from a failed HP printer driver I had to boot in safe mode to run the installer which promptly informed me "unable to run uninstaller in VGA mode". But that was the only mode I could boot into while their POS driver was messing up the system! Then I went to the HP web support page and typed a problem report for 15 minutes. When I finally clicked "send" I got the response "404 web site not found".
While all that was taking place, they were busy in their boardrooms planning region codes for print cartridges. What's the region code for the scrap heap? Did I ask that question already?
While I oppose the restrictions on DVDs, a DVD can be copied and spread on the internet. Can you do that with hardware?
No. Didn't think so.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
First, if the U.S. had bothered to parity tie the dollar to the Euro we wouldn't be in Iraq. That said, I find it ridiculous that companies charge higher or lower prices bases on region. So long as there are different currencies this will continue to happen. Whatever happened to the days when the power supplies on a computer had a 120/220 50/60Hz switch on the back? Now you have to be cognizant of what you've got and buy the appropriate converters. I also find it hard to believe that some computer gear and supplies are cheaper in the United States. Maybe it is just because I haven't experience it from the other side of the world. But print cartridges? Come on, people are just going to defeat the regionalization and go on doing what they've been doing for eons. The fact that the DMCA doesn't exist in Fiji only makes it more likely to happen.
They'll only have half the colours available in the Australian zone?
I’m old enough to remember 16K of memory being described as “whopping”
But I don't have a Linux machine!
Then you should obviously get one!
What a pity. I've been using and recommending HP printers for close to 20 years because they're darned near unbreakable. I won't be able to offer my blanket recommendation for them now.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
I am very happy with my Canon printers.
Between 1994 and now, I have owned a BJ-200ex, a BJC-4200 and a BJC-420(IIRC?)
The BJC-4200 and BJC-420 are colour printers. The 420, outfitted with a colour cartridge is dog slow, but it is a cheap printer. In B&W, it takes the same print cartridge as the BJ-200ex. The colour cartridges don't last that well, but the black and white ones seem to last pretty well.
The BJC-4200 is the nuts. It takes a three-piece cartridge, consisting of a nozzle pack, a black tank, and a colour tank. You can replace the whole cartridge if the nozzles are clogged, or you can replace just the black or colour tanks if it is just out of one kind of ink. This means you need not be shy about using it to print text.
The BJC-4200 also accepts a black-only cartridge. When you use this cartridge, it prints two lines at a time, rather than just one, and it lasts and lasts and lasts. I finally had to replace a cartridge two months ago, after two years of moderate service.
Also, the cartridges aren't that expensive. Refill kits are available, but they aren't that much cheaper than the cartridges themselves. The printers cost a little more than Lexmark or HP, but the payback is there.
Not affiliated with Canon; I'm just a very happy customer, and I will probably buy a Canon printer again.
www.wavefront-av.com
When globalisation of the world market doesn't fit the needs of global corporations, they readilly "invent" geographic market segmentation and protection! Down with Customs taxes, hail the Regioning!
Same goes for DVD regioning, local pricing...Heh, if someone gets "poverty discount" for i.e. some car brand in some less-developed-then-yours country, it just means that YOU are paying price unfairly set high.
So, no matter what they speak about free trade values and benefits, it is always just a system to rip off the suckers.
When it is their turn to sacrifice some of THEIR money (profit) to A Good Thing of One World mantra, then now "No Way, Man!", you pay by what you are worth for.
There are some very nice low cost mono laser printers from Konica Minolta (Pagepro 1350) and from Oki Data ( B4100 - 4350N). There are deals to be found for the 1350 for ~130.00. The Oki 4350n is networked and can be found for ~300.00. They say that lasers are cheaper in the long run. That is the problem with most consumers, they look at the bottom line when they are buying. Like you said, it takes them a huge amount of hassle to figure out that inks just plain suck.
Right now, color lasers are coming down in price for very good printers. They are trying to compete with color inkjets. Konica Minolta is coming out with a Magicolor 2400, replacing the 2300(which is very nice). Both of them are under 400.00.
Not just deficit but fuel prices too.
This is a real boost for US vendors of HP printers -- lots of new European customers.
I am a happy owner of SAMSUNG ML-1210 /laser/ not an inkjet. It works like a charm/Fedora Core 1/.
I been having that printer for 3 years.
Samsung have drivers for linux on theyr web site, bu t the distros altrady have support for it.
That is the problem with most consumers, they look at the bottom line when they are buying.
No the problem is that companies are being deceptive (a requirement for fraud, btw) and the consumers do not know the bottom line. The bottom line is that inkjet printers suck in quality and convenience and are more expensive than laser printers.
I'd rate the actual story as "funny"... if it weren't so disturbing:
... because it prevents europeans from buying their cartridges in the US for less money (less profit to HP). No company makes any decision to redesign a product for "no reason." That reason is always tied to money (even if it's new features that are given away to customers for free...the motivation is to gain good will with those customers and encourage future sales). A corporation exists for the benefits of its shareholders...which is to say, it exists to make its shareholders money!
Lets analyse:
1. They claim region coding the cartridge "isn't for the money"...even though it is
3. They actually try to twist it around by saying that it will be good for the consumer when the US dollar recovers. How? Is the price of their cartridges going to drop? Just because the dollar is weak now doesn't mean they have raised their prices in the US. When or if the dollar rises over the Euro, their price isn't going to drop and Americans will be prevented from purchasing cartridges from Europe where they will seemingly be cheaper in this alternate universe they propose.
That has to be *almost* one of the worst attempts at spinning I've ever read. Did some of the SCO PR folks take up jobs at HP?
"God is dead!" - Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is dead!" - God
Businesses frequently will sell their product to foreign countries at greatly reduced prices. The reason for this is that the distributor in the foreign country will assume the marketing costs of the product, so they are given a deep discount. No one actually makes any more money off this practice it just allows the marketing to be paid for locally and performed locally by people who understand the local culture and customer needs.
The problem lies in that certain unscrupulous foreign distributors will take that discounted merchandise and sell it back into US bargin stores (in violation of their distribution contract). This way the distributor gets the benefit of the marketing already being done in the US even though he was compensated through discounts for marketing the product in his own country. HP's decision seams like a reasonable solution to prevent this problem.
Design a printer (can't be too tough) and make the standard for the parts and consumables an open and free standard so anyone can produce the consumables. Open source the drivers and Voila! Bye Bye HP!
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
I love how these companies try to tell customers that they'll be better off with this new "feature" and that was completely thought up out of the goodness of their hearts to make the ink cartridge buying experience better for consumers.
College textbooks ("International Edition") are sometimes cheaper than their rediculus US counterparts...
so what some of the textbook companies have been doing is finding ways to force those editions to stay out of the country (or be useless within the country).
1. Just drop a random chapter
2. Don't include suplemental material found in US version (and encourage professor to use the garbage).
3. Campaign against it.
The most popular is suplemental material. A stupid CD-ROM, Packet, or something... well copyright protected (hard to copy)... might be the basis of a class or two. Don't buy the book legitimately... don't get access to what could be the case you write a paper on.
But they claim they barely make any money... yea, right.
I am at a university where an epson printer quits printing when the black cartridge runs out of ink. Students cannot even change text to color and still print, so it becomes useless until someone buys new ink. This means that if you are working in the middle of the night on a paper, they just have to stop and go home. Our research is more important than that so I will be purchasing non-epson printers and am searching for printers that have no controlling chips. Is there a list anywhere that anyone is aware of? I will be doing the same thing at home for a new photo printer very soon if one is available.
I believe that all these "applications" of DRM will only destroy the system in the end. The more frivilous and damaging to the enduser economic applications of this technology are produced the more the social/political/legal system is likely to take notice and outlaw the whole thing. Sure we are going to have to suffer a bit to begin with.
Look at the state of DVD region encoding in the EU. Why have the US rights owners not gone up in arms over the wide-availibility of region free players? Becuase if they tried to enforce it at this point the EU would blow away the whole system. Once it fell in the EU it would be rapidly destroyed in other regions, (probably levaing only regions 0,1).
Those of us who understand the importance of an economically just and open global economy and who believe in certain basic principles of liberty simply can't allow private tariffs to replace government tariffs. We cannot support firms who do this.
Don't buy HP printers. That's something you can do. Send Ms. Fiorina a note and let her know how you feel.
Send your congressperson a note and ask them if open markets just means privatizing the tariff setting process.
"...consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro."
Sounds to me like consumers are already winning, and HP is using dirty tricks to stop them.
Makes me glad I own only used, built-like-tanks, laser printers. I won't feel bad about not buying those little crack rocks called ink cartridges.
I think you folks across the pond (from me that is) should band together and dump a shipment of these new cartridges in protest.
Viva La Cheap Ink!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you're printing papers, get a laser! And if you're printing color with any kind of significant volume, get a color laser.
four nine eighteen twenty-7 thirty-nine forty-7 fiftyeight sixty-nine seventy-9 eighty-8 one-hundred-and-nine one-twenty
Region coding? On Printer caridges? Thi sjust really points out how HJP does not care about anything except Money now. Here's hoping that Carly gets voted out soon.
Gorkman
My earlier comment on another story applies to the Canon i320, also: 26 Canon refills, $17
My video quite happily plays NTSC or PAL tapes on my PAL TV. When you put an NTSC tape in the OSD shows "NTSC" for a few seconds. And it's not illegal :-)
I hope their cheap printers break down as soon as people get them home and cover the crumpled printouts with smears of ink.
Oh, hang on......
Just 5 years ago the Euro was trading way down against the dollar and economists were wondering if the Euro could last because of it. The cycle is in a different phase right now, and suddenly everyone is wondering if the dollar can last.
Cycles happen. Things will go up, and things will come down. There are advantages to being in both parts of the cycle.
Almost every printer supports voltage from like 100v-250v u could just buy an American printer, put a British plug on it and be good to go.
I wondered if the people who put the region concept together didn't figure on not only protecting regional price differentials, but gaining better entry to markets sensitive to content for ideological reasons by "ensuring" that content they didn't like wasn't playable on the recorders commonly available within that region.
This would explain why the region code map has some significant geographical incongruities and why China is its own region.
Used laser printer at your neighborhood: $100-$150
Recycled toner cartridge: $50
Average # of pages per toner refill: 1000
Price of one black and white printout: 0.05$
Price of one digital camera picture on real photographic paper: 0.25$
Generic inkjet printer: $100-$150
Ink cartridges, black+colour: $60
'photo quality' glossy 4x6 paper, 50 sheets: $20
Average # of pages per ink refill: 250
Average # of color prints per ink refill: 50
Price of one black and white printout: 0.24$
Price of one color printout on glossy paper: 1.60$
Conclusion: Inkjet are for suckers. Flame away.
My Stylus was talking to me last nigth.
It told me that the "cheap" replacement cartrage I installed was not made by Epson and that it might not work correclty. Then it made me push the color copy button to contiue.
Darn robots always wanting me to touch them.
Peace.
"consumers will win once the US dollar rises over Euro"
"Be Chinese", HP says...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
They got bought by Compaq.
Everyone has an agenda. Except me. --Michael Crichton
I can't imagine why anyone would still be buying OEM inkjet cartridges (unless they are printing photos which are usually cheaper online anyway). Look at the difference in price between OEM to remanufactured cartridges at Compare Cartridges.com, a comparison shopping site. While my Epson T0431 cartridge costs $33.72+shipping at OfficeDepot there are merchants at that site offering it for $7.95 with free shipping. Like all the spam emails you get say.. that's a savings of 76% Why do people still bother with OEM now?
As ridiculous region coding is for DVDs, there I can see a minimal reason (the publishers not wanting a DVD to make it into a market where the movie hasn't even been in the cinemas yet... But as cinema release dates for the big global productions inch ever closer to each other all over the globe, this reason is going away fast - leaving the only "good" thing of the region codings that they can charge more in Europe.
... you've used it as an excuse to outsource our jobs overseas, now get used to us shopping overseas if we like."
Region codes are bullshit no matter how you slice it. They make a mockery of free markets and free trade agreements. Essentially, the international corporations have decided they like free trade agreements when it means they can outsource their labor to the cheapest markets without restrictions (and in the case of the Bush administration, with tax incentives to do so), but they will artificially fragment the marketplace in order to prevent their customers from shopping competatively.
Free trade for corporations, restricted trades for mortal humans.
Its unjustifiable, regardless of whether it's DVDs we're talking about, or printer cartidges. The DVD justification has always been weak, and typically break down to:
1) MPAA Whiney voice: "But we don't want people buying movies in one market when they haven't been released in another."
1) Sensible citizen's response: "Touch shit. It's a global marketplace. Release your movies globally, instead of fucking with people in market B by making them wait six months longer than people in market A. This whole "second class" market citizenship is vile anyway."
2) Whiney MPAA voice: "But we don't want arbitrage markets forming, where people buy DVDs in China for $3 and sell them in the US for $10 when we're selling the same DVD for $20."
2A) Reasonable citizen response: "Fuck you. If you can make a profit selling DVDs in China for $3, you can make a profit selling them in the US for $3. Anything more is gouging the customer, and quite frankly, no one with a shred of common sense should have an ounce of sympathy for an industry that bases its entire business model on the practice of gouging various sets of customers. Oh, and if you're going to whine about currency markets and shifting values of the yuan against the dollar, a sensible person has but two things to say. One, the Yuan is locked to the dollar, so the specific argument with regard to China is doubly bullshit, and two, in the more general sense (e.g. the US vs. Europe), currency markets are free marktets, and you can accept their results the same as the rest of us. If that means someone occasionally gets a good deal when they travel overseas, more power to them. Its called a global economy
HP should be run out of town for this nonsense. The MPAA should be run out of town for this nonsense. But most importantly, the scum-sucking politicians who set up this one-sided regime of free trade for companies, but restricted trade and rights for real, living human beings, should be run out of the country for this nonsense.
Not that I'm holding my breath, mind you.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Have you checked under your bed? I'm pretty sure Antonin Scalia is there right now.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Bush personally saw to it that Mr. Norton's family, along with their two pet chimpanzees, a parrot, and a 1933 Duesenberg were all flown out of the country the day before 9-11 happened. Did you know this? Probably not. Damn Fox News for keeping the truth from us!!!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I wrote a friendly letter to the board of directors sent via HP's homepage and explained why I thought they were going out on a limb and that I as a HP/Compaq user would not buy any future products from them, nor would I recommend them to anyone seeking my assistance - I urge everyone else to write a curteous letter and help them understand they are taking a step in the wrong direction.
But be friendly and informative - and refrain from standardized letters if anyone is thinking campaign, if ya'all write your own letters they will have to look into every single letter and thus the matter will take on a more serious nature if enough people protest their plans, perhaps even making them understand and back awya from this dubious path.
Perhaps I should buy two printers- one from Europe- and one from the US- and use whichever printer has the cheaper ink at the time.
How is this going to work for those portable printers for laptops? If I buy one of those and goto Germany- will that ink over there not work?
I can see it- now- flash the BIOS in your printer to accept ink from worldwide.
Man- it just seems like a bad idea.
Whatever.... all I know is that this is really getting out of hand. Dick Cheney was spotted jiggling Xutopia's network cable, causing data dropout.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I still have an older HP laserjet, and it's worked well enough. HP makes good printers, it's just that they cost far more than they are now worth. Samsung has become just as good of a manufacturer, and reasonably priced as well.
I might also add that toner refills are harder to come by in the US, than in Europe. This little cartridge debacle will last about 3 months. They'll have "reset" chips just like the Lexmark printers do.
Just in case anyone in the States has given refills a thought, 123 Refills has a good selection of toner kits, both black and color laser toner.
In the price per page comparison's I've seen, the Canon's are about the same. It seems they waste a bit more ink than HP's do, evening out the analysis between the two.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
My BJC-4400 uses the same system. It was purchased used at a swap meet for about $15. Works hunky dorie, and without those expensive H-P ink cartridges. I had been using an H-P printer, which works fine too. Just that the ink is so gosh darn expensive.
topic
Indeed. In terms of game theory it's also important to notice the inbalance of power between players. That is: a large company, like HP, can afford to divide the world market into different economic regions, while smaller companies may not.
...It's so easy to show that free trade without corporate governance, international legislation, anti-trust and other regulation isn't helping anyone except those that don't need it.
In that light, it is not just the consumers who pay for HP's corporate wealth, but smaller companies will be forced to pay their share as well through unfair competition. Still, *they*'re supposed to be the only way out of the situation in a free economy. That is: free trade, and companies adhering to the principles of free trade are supposed to (somehow) conquer totalitarian regimes and companies and bring universal freedom, democracy, wealth and happiness to everyone eventually...
Well its totally HPs right to do this, they are a business after all and they want to make money. However if they even fucking dare touch anyone who tries to break/disable the region encoding on their own personal printer or own cartridges there will be hell to pay, HP don't fucking bother trying any DMCA bullshit on us - my printer, my cartridge, my home, my choice, fucking period. Again, don't even think about trying to sue someone for 'talking' about breaking this system, its called freedom of speech so suck my cock. If however you have no intentions of pursuing people over this or if you want to try and argue the legality of companies selling your cartridges with the region code off then that's your business... carry on..
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Some curious hacker will enable us to use the
cheapest cartridges anyway.
This may or may not void our guarantee.
Once the cartridge is empty we go to our local
refill-center and they reset the use-only-once
blocking-chip too.
So what.
Meme of the day: I browse "Disable Sigs: Checked". So should you.
postmodernsideshow.com
Given that everything is made in China these days, why should I buy HP over a Japanese or Korean brand, when they pull stunts like this?
Chip H.
I am suprised that it took HP this long. Companies like Nintendo, SEGA, Sony have been doing that for years on their video game hardware/software.
I think it's matter of time that CPUs will be doing the same thing.
From the comments here, one would think there is a printer monoculture and that HP is the only source of printers. What a load.
/.?
Canon http://www.canonusa.com/ has a full line of printers, scanners, and copiers that use non-encoded cartridges.
This means that ink supplier sites (like http://www.gettoner.com/ and http://www.pacificink.com/) carry generic cartridges.
By allowing the competition from the generics, Canon retains the motivation to keep its own prices down.
As a result, I buy Canon's ink for high-end home photo requirements, but generic for office use.
If you really are aggravated by HP (and Lexmark and Dell) producing printers with proprietary cartridge chips and patented designs, there are still choices to consider on the open market.
Exactly what is it that HP offers that no one else does that keeps you buying such expensive supplies and generating endless whining on
Non disclaimer: I do not have stock or other financial interest in any of these companies. I am a long-time Canon customer. For my contact information and history: http://www.roomberg.com/
Live Long and Prosper - Thanks Leonard. You are missed.
if i recall, sometime last year HP along with others modified their printers not to allow digital counterfeiters to print money or at least not as good as they can today, this new region coding fits well with that scheme, i'll bet a few years from now they will be able to tell what country a print came from...
Offtopic. Troll. Bad Political opinion.
But you can't buy cartridges!
My God how easy is it to turn a buck in the new USA? Lie through your teeth with a straight face, and people will pay you good money. The civilised world laughs out loud as it watches you slide into oblivion.
Military Superpower? Economic powerhouse? Pull the other one mate, it's got bells on.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
My first 2 PC's were HP's. I have not bought anything from HP since they charged $15 for a printer driver update for a low-end inkjet. Vote with your wallets!
Not Two weeks ago I bought a Lexmark Z515 for somthing like $35.
For that price, I don't even have to buy ink cartridges, I just buy a new printer when they wear out.
To bad no one can encode cheap asian labour, so it can only be used locally.
This may not apply to HP cartridges but it certainly applies to a large number of well known companies.
Capitalism is rotten.
I tought my country was different of the rest of the world (50Hz) by using 60Hz.
What countries use other AC frequencies?
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
They say that it will help the Europeans once the dollar recovers... what if it doesn't?
Manufacturers have enough price control when they make the product. Don't give them more control by letting them set prices by controlling who can legally import it.
Similiarly, make region coding illegal.
I do know that all lower end printers (inkjet/deskjet) models can be set to work with which ever region you would like. The problem is, this can only be done three times. After the third time your printer is stuck with using cartridges from that region.
So if your planning on always buying cheap cartridges through Ebay or somtehing from a different country, Just set you printer for that region.
but I don't know if I'd want to do it for a printer. What I've generally heard is that HP and other printer manufacturers make their European and Japanese Printers much higher quality than the American ones. Suppositly they last at least twice as long. I could believe it, Americans have a bad habit of buying the same cheap junk again and again (like HP computers w/o software restore CDs).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Now if only I didn't have to pay $40 American for the i350 driver. I'm kicking myself for not looking first. Not even a freeking raw format so I can at least print through Samba to the Win2k box the printer's on right now.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
...is a scam? It'll do precisely what big business^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hour voters told it to do - we think that society should own you and not the other way around.
The Constitution is simply a backward document, designed for a world without terrorists and cats. Now, that world has changed - the only way to safeguard your rights and money is for you to give them to us. That way, when we give the keys to the businesses that pay us, we don't to worry about our citizens^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hconsumers not doing what our masters want - our masters already own them and so they have no choice.
The "Ownership Society" is like being a low-level manager - all the responsibilities of power without the benefits - because we want your lack of success to fall on your head rather than on those of our campaign contributors. Eventually you'll get tired of being blamed for our failures that you'll ask us to take over to be free of the guilt and blame we've managed to hand off. You don't need that pesky free will anyway.
I love how the focus of the comment is about HP region coding while few if anyone is commenting on the more expensive part of the article how an Apple G5 exploded do to power issues.
I forgot HP = BAD, Apple = GOOD.
Aircraft current is 400Hz AC as it is easier on the electronics. When 400hz AC is converted into DC for the electronics in the aircraft the result is a much more stable rectified DC current. The power outlets in the restrooms are run off of a seperate 60hz generator (400hz would fry an AC motor designed for 60hz).
How about the Dell printers? Has anyone tried these? Do these printers have any of the phone home issues?
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill.
Linux - of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Well, I've been an HP customer for a long time. I've also recommended them for clients and at work (to the tune of several printers, etc bought just in the last few months).
That being said, I'll be letting their CEO (Carly Fiorina) know me feelings about this, and that I will no longer recommend HP products.
Perhaps you can let her know as well?
If HP is not careful they could easily be put in the position of price fixing or dumping as per WTO rules (and other trade rulings).
Either the market is free or it is not. If this is such an issue so as to warrant region encoding, then perhaps ink should only officially be sold by HP through its website at current rates. If other choose to buy and resell it, that is their choice.
Throw away all the cartdiges. PC-PRO here in the UK did a survey a few months ago and Inkjet ink is more expensive per CC than even vintage Champagne. So, get your self a continuios inking system. Then buy inks in 100cc, 500cc or even 1 litre bottles and watch the cost of your prints go down. Lyson make great archival quality inks and there are continious inking system for many printers. I have two A3+ Printers set up like this. One is for colour and the other uses 7 shades of grey for fantastic black and white printing.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
Perhaps they're region-coded because of the type of ink used? Yes, I know we're not talking multi-thousand dollar printers here, but still, someone could run off some pretty convincing bills if they felt like it. Maybe the bills in the States, and the UK have differing inks, and the cartridges are set-up to use inks which can in no way be mistaken for those used on the bills in their country. Or maybe it's just a really ingenious way of fingerprinting, narrowing down ink composition to a region for which it was produced and sold. And then using other techniques to narrow it down further. (I think there was a Slashdot story on something like HP embedding tiny watermarks which signified individual printers) And though I didn't RTFA, I would imagine Region is much more specific than continent or Nation. Even if they didn't say it was, it could easily be assumed to be. In the US for instance, "region" would be northeast, south-east, mid-west, Texas, south-west, and north-west. Or some breakdown such as that. Anyway, excuse the long-winded post, none of you will probably read it anyway since I'm an AC and all.
HP has been using "smart chips" on their cartridges from some time now to discourage people from refilling them, though there are ways to defeat them. This is just the next step for them to put artificial limitations on their products to squeeze a little more money out of us.
Canon, on the other hand, had no artificial restrictions last time I checked.
There is another hi tech company named Intel that was in a market-dominant position and made decent products, but they overpriced their stuff and used artificial means to prevent people from getting the most out of their product (prevented overclocking). Tech-savvy people wised up and started buying from the competition instead, and Intel's market share has been steadily eroding to AMD ever since.
Buy Canon or other alternative instead, and watch the same thing happen to HP. Vote with your dollars and the competition will decide not to follow HP's lead.
I seem to remember reading that Dell has setup their printers so they will only take Dell branded ink cartridges. Can anyone verify? If so, isn't this the same as what HP is doing? I guess it is time to add Dell to "the LIST"!
The old way: $300 printer and $20 carts.... 10 carts later, you've spent a total of $500. 100 carts later, you've spent a total of $2300. And chances are the printer is still going strong.
The new way: $100 printer and $60 carts.... 10 carts later, you've spent a total of $700. 100 carts later, you've spent a total of $6100. Well, assuming the printer made it past the first 10 carts in the first place.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
When someone asks me which inkjet to buy, my current response is "none of them". :(
:)
I get Xerox's promo lit for the Phaser colour lasers -- I noticed one was now street-priced at around $800. I'd have to check the consumables street pricing for it, tho I vaguely recall it's around $120, so I'll use that for the following example (recalling that laser toner goes about 10x further than ink); note that the cost of the printer is INCLUDED in the totals:
$50 cheap colour inkjet
$60 average for new cart = 500 pages
= $650 x 10 carts to do 5000 pages
= $1250 x 20 carts to do 10,000 pages
=$12050 x 100 carts to do 50,000 pages
$800 cheap colour laser
$120 guessing at cost of full cart = 5000 pages
= $920 to do 5000 pages
= $1040 to do 10,000 pages
= $2000 to do 50,000 pages
So if you print 50,000 pages, a cheap colour laser saves you around $10,000 over the cost of using an inkjet (cheap or otherwise).
What's the duty cycle on inkjets anyway? I'd guess under 10,000. (I completely wore out my Canon TWICE -- once under warranty, once after being fixed -- having run perhaps 10,000 pages through it. And this was an old BJ200 workhorse, $285 new, not a cheap newbie.) I know the duty cycle on even bottom end lasers is about 50,000, and for midrange lasers is around 500,000.
Refills will shave a lot off the cost of both ink and toner... but very few people actually do refills either way, so I'll leave that as an exercise for some other cheapskate.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
First they export production jobs to cheap labor countries to increase profits by reducing production costs... ... then they also introduce artificial pricing barriers to prevent people from capitalizing on pricing discrepancies.
If this trend is allowed to continue, employment will suffer, sales will suffer and CEOs will continue doing dumb things until they completely ruined their businesses, completely oblivious to the real-world impacts of their short-sighted greedy decisions.
If large corporations capitalize on globalization to reduce production costs, consumers should be allowed to do the exact same thing to cut their own expenses - corporations should not be allowed to monopolize globalization's "benefits". They should either globalize fairly/equitably (both ways) or not at all.
Well, as long as HP does not add counters on their cartridges' ID chip, one can always melt a hole through one side and refill the same cartridge until the drum (or print-head for inkjets) is ruined.
US$ will fall much much further, this is why they are protecting it.
If you constantly create new credit at 5-8% rates, then you are diluting the currency, which MUST devalue it. You cant go from 2trillion in cash floating around, to 5 trillion without any devalue. Where did it come from? thin air? well actually yes, thin air, its made from nothing.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
...is loosing the war
You had me going there until "loosing".
My other first post is car post.
...huh? It costs more "over there" than it does "here"? Oh. ~never mind~
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I'm sorry, but you cannot outsource this job because it has been encoded as REGION 1. Please pay a living wage.
How long will it be before the region coding for all US-produced cartridges is reverse-engineered?
Psst! Yeah, you with the briefcase -- wanna buy a "re-engineered", guaranteed like-new three-color cartridge? Only $5.00??
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Over here in Europe HP exaggerated too much with their price inflation regarding printer ink. People currently are flocking away in masses from HP towards manufacturers with cheaper ink (you can see the trend in various printer forums) HP cannot feel it now because many people still have HP printers, but those will be slowly phased out over the years and then HP will feel the wrath of the consumer over its gold ink. I am currently giving HP another 2 years until the hit in sales can be seen in their quarterly revenue statistics, given the fact, that HP currently lives on overpriced ink fed into customers mouths.
DVD region encoding works because incompatable television coding standards (NTSC vs PAL) prevent Non-US people from easily hooking up a US DVD player to play region 1 DVDs on their existing TV.
There is no similar distinction with USB or parallel ports. If you want to purchase US carts, purchase a US printer and away you go.
The real loser is HP because they now need to manufacture many nearly identical models of printers and many nearly identical models of carts, causing a decrease in the efficiencies of scale in their manufacturing and distribution.
My God how easy is it to turn a buck in the new USA? Lie through your teeth with a straight face, and people will pay you good money. The civilised world laughs out loud as it watches you slide into oblivion.
If you want a good idea of what the US is like now, imagine this: The citizens are like passengers on a bus, and the president is the crazed driver of that bus, listening to the voices in his head, believing he's on a mission from God- driving towards the light.
When you buy an electronic device you buy a licence to use it within zone. The device will check for a zoning signal on the local cell network and will only operate when that signal is present. In most countries it is a criminal offence to interfere with the zoning operation of a device with penalties of up to $500,000 and up to 10 years imprisonment.
Just a simple man trying to make his way in the universe, aye.
I don't understand why this is such a touchy subject. HP is only doing this because their printers are the "loss leader" so to speak. Consumers have overwhelmingly shown their approval of the "get 'em on the consumables" business model because they buy scads of these sub-$300 printers every year. And not just HP branded ones!
You know that every other manufacturer in this market segment is going to attempt this stunt. It'd be more constructive to explain to your friends that buying one these things is penny-wise and pound-foolish, especially if they do a lot of printing. Even a low-end color laser still has half the cost per-page, and can use less expensive paper without sacrificing quality. You may also want to explain that those cartridge "recycling" programs aren't; Heaven only knows where those cartridges end up [landfill], but the point is that they aren't in the hands of companies that can refill and resell.
HP knowns it's got a good thing going here, so I seriously doubt they're going to show a competent CEO to the exit. Also, it's a stretch to imagine this is Sherman Anti-trust territory. You can always go out and buy some other type of printer (laser, dye sub) where the cost is front-loaded instead of in the consumables.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/20/0 226204
Have laser for text pages. Low volume of color is the problem. Still need list.
I think this is why Canon's winning the high-end printing market.
Ink for a high-end Canon inkjet (say, the i9100 or i9900) is a plastic cartridge with a sponge in it and a bunch of ink, and runs you $12.
Ink for HP printers has a CPU, a dozen forms of copy protection, region coding, and a team of ninjas to defend against the possibility that you'll refill it.
Ironically, the reason it costs enough to be worth trying to bypass them is that their costs are huge, because the ink cartridge is full of special stuff. Canon's actually selling ink, and there's no one using these printers for whom it would be worth the time to try to "cheat" and not buy their reasonably-priced ink.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
... and I so used to enjoy HP printers of any sort. Oh well. Anyone got any good non-draconian replacements that they've had luck with (cheap, robust, easy to find parts/toner for)?
Sorry guys but IMHO these practices will not lead to the rise of dollar. At least not for the next thousand years.
My BJC-4400 uses the same system. It was purchased used at a swap meet for about $15. Works hunky dorie, and without those expensive H-P ink cartridges. I had been using an H-P printer, which works fine too. Just that the ink is so gosh darn expensive.
Exactly.
I bought the BJ-200ex brand new in 1994. It died only in the last year or so from being dropped :-(
The BJC-4200 was given to me to use if I could repair, by someone who thought it didn't work, because she'd replaced the ink tanks and it didn't print (nozzles were plugged). She replaced it with an HP. *sigh* I replaced the whole cartridge and it works beautifully. When it ran out, I replaced it with a black cartridge.
The BJC-420 (still haven't looked at it to see if that is the actual model number) was purchased at a yard sale for $5.00 from someone who was replacing it with a laser printer. It worked right as soon as I connected it.
For the most part, the print quality is excellent. It doesn't get that gloss you get on a laser printer, but it still looks quite nice. For the little bit of printing I actually do, these little beasts are perfect.
www.wavefront-av.com
They want to know who is printing the propaganda.