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Google Drafts Cloud Printing Plan For Chrome OS

Posted by Soulskill on from the who-needs-drivers-anyway dept.

snydeq writes "Google is unveiling early-stage designs, software code, and documentation for a project whose goal is to let users of the company's Chrome OS print documents to any printer from any application. Called Google Cloud Print, the technology would dispense with the need to install printer drivers by routing print jobs from Web, desktop, and mobile applications via a Chrome OS Web-hosted broker. 'Rather than rely on the local operating system — or drivers — to print, apps can use Google Cloud Print to submit and manage print jobs. Google Cloud Print will then be responsible for sending the print job to the appropriate printer with the particular options the user selected, and returning the job status to the app.'"

12 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. So Google invented.... by Maniacal · · Score: 5, Funny

    So Google invented a print server. Brilliant!!! Those guys are AMAZING. What will they do next. :P

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    MG
    1. Re:So Google invented.... by Jazz-Masta · · Score: 3, Funny

      Ah yes, why print locally when you can send it to Google and have them send it back to you. Instead of a print driver...those nasty inefficient things (no really, anyone use HP drivers?), we'll install some software, send it to...THE CLOUD!!!...and have it sent back to us to print.

      And, in the meantime, if someone or something happens to "grab" that confidential document you are trying to print, no problem. What's that? government documents you are trying to print? Send 'em to the cloud, China can't get them there...oh wait.

    2. Re:So Google invented.... by 0racle · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You mean something like Postscript?

      --
      "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
    3. Re:So Google invented.... by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 4, Funny

      You mean something like Postscript?

      I knew there was a word for it ;-)

    4. Re:So Google invented.... by binarylarry · · Score: 4, Funny

      How are they going to insert ads into your printed documents if you're not sending them to cloud?

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    5. Re:So Google invented.... by iluvcapra · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Or more specifically one universal printer driver.

      Postscript? It doesn't control the paper handling, as you point out, but there are a lot of different solutions on offer along these lines. Xerox printer/copiers run a web server that allow you to upload print jobs through a web interface and set paper handling/stapling/job deferment/billing etc. through an HTML form. A generalization of this would be nice, but what's the difference between typing the IP address of the nearby printer to submit a job and typing http://print.google.com/ to submit a job, fundamentally?

      Printing sucks on Linux, Windows, Mac, and every other platform because it is a very large problem, and abstractions tend to hide controls that are necessary to produce decent results.

      I don't know what you're doing wrong or right, but CUPS is excellent.

      Also what should be done if an document overflows from the size of the printable area. (If you are printing things to go in a button machine, you want the image to not be scaled. If there is an important disclaimer at the end of the page you want the page scaled so the disclaimer shows.

      This is a client issue, not a printer issue. The printer should treat all information as semantically neutral, letting the client know what the page geometry is and making its own adjustments accordingly.

      Also brightness of the paper, and color of the paper are issues if you actually care about what the finished product looks like. Spot colors are another factor for the print driver to deal with.

      ColorSync. Again, the technology for all of this stuff has been around since the 80s. The only real difference here is Google is trying to commoditize it over the WAN, since making it easier to run is an important part of making Google app/Chrome TCO lower, demand higher, thus ad revenues higher.

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      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    6. Re:So Google invented.... by micheas · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you were to say that cups is the best solution we have today, I might agree with you, but posts like this one http://weblog.zamazal.org/cups-sucks.html are pretty common for cups, and printing is at least as bad on other platforms.

      The big problem with cups is the UI and the ablity to secure it so you can safely put your print server on the net, without random spammers printing their ads on your printer.

      Cups is a good start, but there is a long ways to go.

      Shouldn't you be able to print your report for the office from home or on the road on a laptop?

      Cups could get there, but right now it is a long ways from being easy.

      --
      Work bio at MMWD
    7. Re:So Google invented.... by Fastolfe · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Hear, hear. It never ceases to amaze me how virtually every new Google "service" further erodes people's concept of privacy. And people just eat it up. If someone ever wanted to intentionally socially engineer away the concept of "privacy" to begin with, this is how to do it. Makes you wonder...

      Presumably, every document being printed on Chrome OS already exists in "the cloud". What additional erosion of privacy is created by adding the ability to take those documents and send them to a printer? If you're using Google's cloud, they already have the data. If you're using someone else's "cloud", I think the idea is that they'd implement their own printing service. None of your data should be shuttled around the Internet promiscuously except to your printer. Am I missing something?

  2. What will they do next. .... by butterflysrage · · Score: 4, Insightful

    make it work when the internet goes out?

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    the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
  3. Wait... What? by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 4, Funny

    let users of the company's Chrome OS print documents to any printer from any application.

    Lets see here...

    www.goatse.cx

    File -- Print -- Select Printer: CEOOFFICEPRINTER.Apple.Com

    Pages: 200

    PRINT

  4. Fine! by hyfe · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Fine, alot of you don't see the need for this. Don't use it, and more importantly, don't complain about it.

    I work as teacher, mostly for fun, and got suckered into supposedly being admin for the school network. In reality I'm a general janitor / IT-support though. I have next to no time to spend on actually setting infrastructure. If anybody gives me a simple solution for printing any document, from any operating system on any computer easily to our public printers I'd give them a big, wet kiss. I certainly don't know any easy way of doing it now, because adding printers to students laptops is a f***king bother, and there's always some weird problem.

    I'm certainly sure there's lots of other uses for this, aswell as lots of places it won't be usefull.

    --
    "" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
  5. No local drivers for remote printers--good idea. by Seor+Jojoba · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I always thought it was a terrible design to require installation of hardware-specific drivers for a remote printer. You know how you get some crummy nonstandard print status window popping up when you print? Like it will be this hyperbranded thing with a zazzy, colorful diagram of your printer and "buy toner online now" button on it. Almost indistinguishable from a pop-up advertisement except that there is a progress bar showing your print job going through. As far as I can tell, that is the only reason for there to be local drivers for remote printers--so manufacturers can bring up their fancy nonstandard dialogs out of some paranoid necessity to convince you your printer is not a commodity item. In fact, they would probably prefer you called it something other than a "printer", i.e. your "HP-SmartPaperDuplicator TM".

    So, yes, this is one thing Google seems to be getting right--a standard print dialog with no local drivers for remote printers.