[Anonymous]

http://www.osnews.com/story/23164/Google_Unveils_Google_Cloud_Print
GOOGLE UNVEILS GOOGLE CLOUD PRINTING
One of the major problems Google is facing with its Chrome OS
is printer support. It was reported earlier that Google is working with
manufacturers on making printers act similar to for instance digital
cameras, so you won’t need to fiddle with drivers any longer. It turns
out Google has indeed been working on this, but I don’t think the
solution they unveiled today is what everyone had in mind – despite
that, I’m seeing the value here.

My understanding was that Google
would work with manufacturers to eliminate the need for special purpose
drivers, instead opting for an open standards-based approach, which has
worked wonders for the world of digital cameras. This would give all
platforms the opportunity to work with printers without having the need
to download drivers, thereby eliminating one of the many reasons why I
believe printers are from hell.

Google is indeed aiming for
something like that, but being Google, they had to cram the internet in
somewhere, and Google Cloud Print, as the name suggests, is no
exception. Basically, Google is aiming to put the printer stack on the
internet, so that not each and every platform has to create its own
print stack and print drivers.

“With the proliferation of
web-connected mobile devices such as those running Google Chrome OS and
other mobile operating systems, we don’t believe it is feasible to build
and maintain complex print subsystems and print drivers for each
platform,” Google writes, “In fact, even the print subsystems and
drivers on existing PC operating systems leave a lot of room for
improvement.”

“Our goal is to build a printing experience that
enables any app (web, desktop, or mobile) on any device to print to any
printer anywhere in the world,” Google continues, “This goal is
accomplished through the use of a cloud print service. Apps no longer
rely on the local operating system (and drivers) to print. Instead, apps
(whether they be a native desktop/mobile app or a web app) use Google
Cloud Print to submit and manage print jobs. Google Cloud Print is then
responsible for sending the print job to the appropriate printer, with
the particular options the user selected, and providing job status to
the app.”

And here come the problems. While Google is working to
get manufacturers to support Google Cloud Print out of the box (i.e.,
the printer is Google Cloud Print-aware), legacy printers will continue
to rely on the native print stack and drivers. In other words, this is a
future-oriented solution, and doesn’t do anything to address the
problem of printer makers being wholly and utterly incompetent morons
who couldn’t create a desirable product if their life depended on it
missing printer drivers for non-Windows platforms (my Lexmark printer
has no Linux-drivers).

Another possible issue here is, of course,
the whole internet-based thing. How will this work if you don’t have an
internet connection up? The internet shits itself every now and then,
and then needs to clean its trousers – will I still be able to print if
that happens?

Whatever the answer, Google Cloud Print needs to
fart shards of poisoned glass in my face before it can be classified as
worse than printing today. The project’s code is not yet released, as it
is not ready yet, but I’m happy Google is trying to move the world of
printing forward after decades of incompetence from the likes of
Lexmark, Canon, and HP.

[Author]

April 26, 2010 at 10:05 AM