HP and Yahoo To Spam Your Printer 397
An anonymous reader writes "As many suspected when HP announced its web-connected printer, it didn't take long for the company to announce it will send 'targeted' advertisements to your new printer. So you'll get spammed, and you'll pay for the ink to print it. On the bright side, the FCC forbids unsolicited fax ads, so this will probably get HP on a collision course with the Feds."
The first planned spam... (Score:5, Funny)
...is a coupon for ink.
Re:The first planned spam... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The first planned spam... (Score:5, Informative)
Yeh, I wouldn't touch an HP printer if you paid me (apart from an old LaserJet 4).
I went with a Samsung Laser and haven't looked back. 2 years on and I've still got dickloads of toner and it doesn't continually print test pages like the new HPs.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Another Samsung fan here.
Only problem -- had to dig and search to find an ML-1710 driver for a new MacBook.
Re:The first planned spam... (Score:5, Funny)
I've still got dickloads of toner
That doesn't sound like very much.
Re:The first planned spam... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but you can usually extend it if you shake the cartridge.
Re:The first planned spam... (Score:5, Interesting)
I bought an HP Color LaserJet 1600 a couple of years ago. It's built like a tank, works flawlessly, has yet to exhaust its initial toner cartridges, and cost me $133. They still make good stuff, if you buy the right model.
Re:The first planned spam... (Score:5, Funny)
The first planned spam is a coupon for ink.
And not just any coupon for ink. It'll be an 8x10 solid black rectangle -- overprinted with cyan, magenta, and yellow, of course -- with a tiny paragraph in white letters praising the deep, rich blacks the printer is capable of producing. To get to the actual coupon, which will be on the second page, you'll have to buy fresh ink cartridges so the document can finish printing. Naturally, the coupon will also be small and composed of white text on another 8x10 overprinted black rectangle, along with a second promotional message extolling the printer's ability to reliably churn out image after image.
If anyone from the HP marketing department is reading this, I'm available for any openings you might have. Just give me the address of your web-accessible printer, and I'll send you my resume. In eight inch high Helvetica UltraBlack, one letter per page. As a token of my sincerity. You'd better include a fax number, too, just in case you run out of ink.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yea I've heard of them. They are a myth.
Re:The first planned spam... (Score:5, Funny)
Is that the one with the paperless restroom stalls? Guess that's what the iPad is good for.
Re:The first planned spam... (Score:5, Funny)
You insensitive clod! I use my printer to get hard copy of pr0n before I fap. It cuts down on the amount of screen wipes I go through in a month.
There are some things you need paper for... (Score:5, Funny)
there is not a single thing that REQUIRES paper in todays age.
A paper aeroplane? Try that with your laptop you'll have to get a new one.
Re:The first planned spam... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, unless you need to print invoices, packing slips, shipping labels, airline boarding passes, etc. Nah, that'd never happen.
Hell, even my car insurance cards were sent to me electronically so I could print them myself. They don't send them to me, I *have* to print them, since they are required by law.
Re:The first planned spam... (Score:5, Funny)
there is not a single thing that REQUIRES paper in todays age.
But i don't know how the use the shells! How am i going to take a crap now?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you even tried? A laptop in the kitchen is a retarded idea, try flipping/scrolling pages when you got your hands full of stuff you wouldn't want anywhere near electronics... Sure it's an option, just a stupid one like using a Formula 1 race car to go buy some groceries.
Paper in the kitchen is cheap, just works and can endure a lot of damage. There's no iPad/laptop in the world that can beat that so far.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No. no one NEEDS to print anything. there is not a single thing that REQUIRES paper in todays age.
You don't have any children, do you? Try gluing two laptop screens together or cutting or folding a laptop screen for arts and crafts. Some things just need printed on paper.
And then: Some things work better on paper. I can't use a small piece of tape and stick a rack-map up in the server room using an iPad. Or a sign saying "Don't %^#(&@" turn this off again. It needs to stay on."
Now, if you're talking about NEED as in "food, water, air", then sure, no one needs paper, but no one needs comput
Re:The first planned spam... (Score:5, Informative)
The last three contracts that I've signed have been emailed to me as PDFs. I've copied them to my iLiad, signed them on its wacom tablet screen, and emailed them back. They've been sufficiently legally binding for me to get paid...
In common law countries the rules about what constitutes a legally binding contract are complex. There's nothing saying that a hand-written signature is legally binding and a digital one is not. Anything from a spoken word to a cryptographic signature can be legally binding. In court, one side has to demonstrate more evidence that the person agreeing to the contract intended to do so. If they can, in the face of any counter evidence from the other side, then the contract is legally binding.
The only advantage that a hand-written signature has is that there is a large body of case law indicating that they are valid. This is relatively recent, however. A signature without an official wax seal was not regarded as legally binding for a very long time (and the seal itself without the signature was).
Re:The first planned spam... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Whooosh" is a good summary of the whole article... does anyone actual read the articles that get submitted?
HP is NOT going to spam printers.
HP is planning to partner with Yahoo so that you can subscribe to content that would automatically be printed out for you. In other words, the idea is that you can wake up, grab your morning paper off the printer, and sit down to read it with your cup of coffee. The ads IN THE PAPER would be targeted using geolocation from the IP address of your printer so that you would get locally appropriate ads. No ads for department stores that don't exist within a hundred miles of you. Those are the ads they're talking about. Not spam!
On the other hand... the idea of printing off your morning paper may have made sense in the science fiction of the 1950's, but HP is crazy if they think people actually want to print out content that they are going to read once and recycle.
Re:The first planned spam... (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow. I'm amazing they finally brought this idea to market. HP has been kicking around this idea since the mid 90's. There used to be this big push inside the company called "grow usage." The idea was to find ways to get customers to print more so they would use more ink and hence have to buy more ink cartridges. Automatically printing the newspaper every morning was one idea to get people to print more. The revenue projections were used to justify massive investments in R&D and production line tooling. (I was working in R&D with cartridge development at the time.) At one point they projected people would be printing so much (including those morning newspapers, complete with ink-heavy full-color photos) that HP was going to have to order over 100 cartridge manufacturing lines and use the entire world's supply of silicon wafers to keep up with demand. When someone finally called bullshit on the numbers, they reduced the order to only 4 lines. I think they only built 2. Actual orders were only 4% of the new, lowered forecast. (This was the 2000 series ink jet printers, by the way -- the first ones HP made with the replaceable ink-tanks. The technology was supposed to go into home printers, but didn't make it for almost a decade, because the business ink jets were so unprofitable.)
Anyway, the last time HP tried this, it was an unmitigated disaster -- the biggest setback in the inkjet business in HP history. If they are trying it again, it must mean VG and Nigro are getting desperate for ways to grow revenue. Hurd must be pushing them really hard. Growth in the inkjet business has been slowing into stagnation for several years now. At least it was like that when I left, which was a couple of years ago. I can't image things have improved. Has anyone here printed MORE in the last year than the year before? I haven't.
15 years ago, printing out a customized newspaper *might* have made sense to a few people. These days? Who wants that? Most people don't even print out their digital photos anymore. The home printer market is in decline. There might be opportunities in the commercial printing market, but the amount of printing taking place at home is falling, and will continue to fall. HP isn't going to increase it by getting people to print ads with their daily printed newspaper.
Spammers will LOVE this (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure HP will do their best job to protect the access to these web-based printers. It will take an entire week for the spammers to get HP's database and start sending ads to your printers.
Also: The article is unclear, but it doesn't sound like HP will just send random print jobs with ads to your printer. It sounds more like *if* you setup the feature to print your newspaper every morning, the ads in the paper will change to be targeted. That is why they can claim "What we discovered is that people were not bothered by it [an advertisement]..." If they truly are sending advertising jobs to the printer unsolicited, then I think that quote is going to turn out to be the dumbest thing said on planet earth for at least the last few years. People would just love to find their already exorbitantly priced ink wasted on an ad.
Lastly: Who would want to print their newspaper in the morning? Physical newspapers are convenient because of their wide format. Electronic news is nice because it is targeted and doesn't waste paper. Printing out your newspaper in the morning seems like the worst of both. You don't get the nice wide format, and you still waste the paper. Ugh.
Re: (Score:2)
Who would want to print their newspaper in the morning? Physical newspapers are convenient because of their wide format. Electronic news is nice because it is targeted and doesn't waste paper. Printing out your newspaper in the morning seems like the worst of both. You don't get the nice wide format, and you still waste the paper.
I've seen this done at hotels as well as Bed and Breakfasts, particularly if they are off the beaten path. The local paper (if there is one) doesn't cut it and they can't get delivery of a current paper, so they print out an electronic edition formatted to fit on plain paper. It's rather better than no paper at all, and they often include the local weather forecast and calendar of events on another page. Nice to grab off the front desk on the way out to read in the car or shuttle.
Re: (Score:2)
Lastly: Who would want to print their newspaper in the morning?
If the advertising meant free ink for me, I'd consider it.
Of course, I'm thinking in the mindset of how web-services like GMail work. I doubt reality would work that way and I didn't bother reading the article. :D
Re: (Score:2)
Reading the article wouldn't help. It was as light on details as the /. summary.
But they aren't talking (currently) about isolated ads being printed. Merely things that include the ads that they choose. ("People weren't bothered"..."I think that's because they're already used to ads".)
If you want to believe that their plans won't go any farther than what they're currently offering, be my guest. But I really doubt that you'd come out ahead, even if they continued to offer coupons for free ink.
Re:Spammers will LOVE this (Score:4, Insightful)
Er, really? I'd kill to have newspaper printed letter-size, two-(or three-)column. The size of most newspapers is unwieldy, and especially if i'm trying to read it while walking (a frequent occasion as I commute on foot and pick up a free local daily on the way), i have to fold it over so that it's letter-size; or the wind blows it all over the place.
As for who would actually want to get newspaper on paper, well, presumably people who are not stuck to their computer all day and don't have a Kindle, iPad, etc. And some quaint people still like things printed on paper, like books; I don't understand them but they do exist.
Re: (Score:2)
There are two ways to fold a newspaper. You have discovered method one: the broadway show guy-on-a-park-bench method. Most people not about to enter a song and dance number do not read it this way.
The other way is to fold it over till it's about book-sized. the pages are set up so that this is convenient, except for stupid papers that don't break columns on the fold. This is how real people read the newspaper with their breakfast, or on the train. (but not the subway, where you need to keep an eye out
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I don't think this is what you have in mind, but I am reminded of an occasion on a British Snail train in the early '80s, when a hung-over colleague vomited noisily and copiously into a stockbroker's briefcase. Way to make yourself popular...
Re:Spammers will LOVE this (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
at around 7 cents per page for inject prints, how bloody expensive is the newspaper in your area that you'd pay that bloody much to print it out on your extraordinarily expensive per-page desktop printer? Just so you can accomplish what a different fold would accomplish...
go ahead and pretend money is no object, and that you bought the low-cost web printer (printers are cheap, printing is expensive) because it matches your drapes. In a very short period of time, the cost of printing a newspaper daily woul
Dont Know (Score:2)
Does sending a page to a printer count as a "fax" as far as the law is concerned?
Re:Dont Know (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Silly boy (Score:2)
Everyone knows that wires are just tubes with a bit of metal inside to give them strength. You got big tubes beneath the road and small tubes called wires inside the house.
Here I will proof it by removing the useless metal from my network tube[CARRIER LOST]
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, these "faxes" must be very small to fit into the wires! Are you sure they don't use regular tubes ?
Re:Dont Know (Score:4, Funny)
Or, you know, you actually pay thousands of dollars minimum to fight it in court, all the while HP is bleeding you dry through court costs and still continuing to spam your printer.
Re: (Score:2)
Or, you could, you know, just NOT BUY such a STUPID printer. This is so not going to be a problem for me, since I won't buy the printer, so I don't give a rip. If you decide to buy this printer, I guess you've chosen how you'll make HP richer.
Post title here (Score:5, Insightful)
But if you're going to put ads on my paper, you dang well better be paying me for it.
Re: (Score:2)
If by "paying", you mean "subsidizing your purchase", you'd be right. That's generally how ad-supported publications work. (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, websites...)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> I search for all kinds of weird things as it is...
So do I.
> I get all kinds of weird ads as it is...
I don't. Do you think that just might have something to do with the fact that I block all ads and most cookies and scripts? It's your choice to be "targeted".
Re: (Score:2)
"What we discovered is that people were not bothered by it [an advertisement]," Nigro said. "Part of it I think our belief is you're used to it. You're used to seeing things with ads."
Better yet, I pay for the printer, the Internet access, the ink, and the paper they will be using to spam? People may not be bothered by ads if they get them free stuff as in public tv, or people is used to seeing things with ads as in online magazines or sports events, so prices go down. How is this going to benefit me?
So let me get this straight .... (Score:3, Interesting)
When I am printing my very important sales proposal - and HP/Yahoo inject spam into it - and this costs me my sale .... I can sue their balls off yes?
Re: (Score:2)
It depends on the printer. A cheap inkjet printer that will eat a set of cartridges on the first color photo, requires special drivers that only that model of printer needs (and are either only available on the driver CD and not for download, or a 4GB lord-king-God executable file that installs all sorts of crap), and only works with a few versions of Windows might be deserving of a choice spot at a "hardware compression" party.
However, there are good printers that don't suck sold today. HP Color Laserjet
Re:So let me get this straight .... (Score:4, Funny)
and put the little paper wasting fucker through the wall.
In my house you won't put a printer to any wall. Most are made of real bricks. And even the few light walls are made plywood tougher then a printer casing.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
> Now instead of someone in the office screwing up, it will be a corporation
> arbitrarily printing on them.
No. It will be someone in the office screwing up by buying this printer, agreeing to have ads sent to it, and then using it for payroll.
BTW using this printer for payroll could have much worse consequences than the mere waste of some expensive paper.
Reason #9839 not to buy HP printers... (Score:4, Interesting)
But really this is Quid pro quo, HP give you access to "free" services - in this case the web elements and in return you have to put up with a few adverts. It is in no way different from how GMail or HotMail operate. Will it cost you ink and make HP money, yes, but will you get the ability to e-mail printed documents to your printer and to automate printing web-content, also - yes.
If you want an honest printer than invest in a Kodak already -- or better yet a laser printer for B&W documents.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We have a Canon Pixma MP550 in the office, connected to a linux PC. Canon even provides drivers for it (as opposed to hunting for third party drivers, though for 32bit only, but the PC has less than 4GB of RAM) and everything seems to work.
Firewall it (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Firewall it (Score:5, Insightful)
You can easily disable this feature. It's opt-in. Disable it by not opting in. See? Wasn't that easy?
Seriously, is the article that complicated? you have to log into Yahoo's page, ask for content, and the content will be delivered as you ask for it, and Yahoo! will add an advert so they can justify setting up the system that automatically delivers the articles to you.
Personally, I think the idea is asinine - I prefer my articles on-screen and I hate the idea of printing out everything I want to read on paper.
But no one will be sneaking into your house and making your printer print anything you don't ask for.
Yet.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, but it really depends on how easy it is opt out for someone who thinks that the harddrive is the big box sitting on his desk (which happens to describe a LOT of people somehow). Knowing marketing people, I envision the process to be something like that ...
Initializing Printer ... ... ... Martha Grannyapple ... 01234987654 ... Y ... ? ... H ... Y ... ... ...
This is your first time. Please answer a few question to setup your new printer correctly
What is your full name?
What is your phone number?
Are you behind a Firewall If you don't know the answer, press Y
Enable HP IntelliAd Professional (tm)? If you don't know the answer, press Y
If you don't know the answer, press Y. Enable HP IntelliAd Professional (tm)?
If you don't know the answer, press Y. Enable HP IntelliAd Professional (tm)?
Processing
Thank you for enabling HP IntelliAd Professional (tm).
You can easily disable HP IntelliAd Professional (tm) by unchecking the 4rth option from the top in the MAIN->CONFIGURATION->INTERNET->SERVICES->INTELLIAD->SUBSCRIPTION->CONTROLS->OMGPONIES->NOODLYAPPENDAGE->ENABLE menu.
Processing
Please choose now which daily content should be used to fill the blanks between the ads
Re: (Score:2)
Correction ... (Score:2)
The probe looking for the whales was from a species that was, to the best of my knowledge, never identified but it was not intentionally trying to kill all the humans, it just didn't care that its comm beam was ionizing the ocean and flooding the land.
But you do have a good point, how will these printers (mis)behave if they can't
LCD Screens (Score:3, Insightful)
My HP photo printer has a touchscreen LCD. I think most have an LCD of some sort. I can imagine HP thinking they could reserve some of the space for ads...
No HP For Me (Score:4, Interesting)
Me: "Hello, Kodak? Yes, I'd like to buy one of your printers as long as you don't spam me with ads."
Kodak: "Sure, not a problem. We aren't like HP."
Me: "Awesome, I'll take ten."
Of course that wasn't a real conversation, but if I had the money for ten printers, you better believe I'm giving my money to Kodak (or Canon, Canon makes good printers).
Re: (Score:2)
Okidata has some nice heavy-duty color laserjets...
Re: (Score:2)
My mom has a Kodak printer.
When she first got it, it only worked with Windows XP, Vista and OS X Tiger. Nothing else. It wasn't long until Leopard support was added.
To this day I'm not sure if it supports anything else or not, I left my parents on Tiger for classic reasons. It does NOT use any generic standard filters or drivers, Linux printing at last check was just a pipe dream, it might work now, I haven't bothered checking.
I wouldn't mind having a printer that doesn't gouge me on ink, but I'm not cha
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't mind having a printer that doesn't gouge me on ink, but I'm not changing operating systems to print, and I really want to limit my hacking around the problem time.
Then don't get a printer that uses ink. It's cheaper to use the dye sub machines at the drug store anyway, for the few things you actually want color for.
donotwant! (Score:5, Interesting)
I am dumbfounded by HP's decision-making here. "What we discovered is that people were not bothered by it [an advertisement]," Nigro said. "Part of it I think our belief is you're used to it. You're used to seeing things with ads."
That sounds like a ringing endorsement for the printer. "Buy our printer! It will make you feel all warm and cozy because it has ads, like everything else in your life!" Ugh. It's appalling.
Re: (Score:2)
"What we discovered is that people were not bothered by it [an advertisement],"
Ahh! So that's what it said? I couldn't tell due to a pop-up that appeared on that very page.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem here is they asked Catherine Tate if she was bothered by it...the conversation went a little like this:
"Am I bothered by it?"
"I'm not bothered by it."
"I said I'm not bothered."
"Look, I'm just not bothered."
"I'M NOT BOTHERED!"
You asked for it (Score:5, Informative)
From the article it seems that the ads are part of on demand publications that you choose to have sent to you. So this is definitely an opt-in sort of thing. It is conceivable that printers with preview displays could be perverted to show ads as well but that doesn't seem to be in the works yet.
20 minutes. (Score:2)
That's how long it's going to take the community to figure out how it works and create a proxy for it that allows you to use all the cool services without the advertising. It'll probably even be built right into the next version of CUPS. BTW: Fuck you HP, It is my printer, not yours. That's why I don't print much (and if I do, I use my Epson printer with alternative ink and continuous system)
wasted effort :/ (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure they'll be "solicited" somehow (Score:4, Insightful)
By purchase agreement of the free or subsidized printer? By perhaps getting a request to print on the lcd screen? Or maybe a popup on the computer that offers free coupons?
Not to say it won't be sleazy. Not to say people won't be surprised by the ads.
First let me say, I, like most of slashdot readers absolutely hate this crap. But to play Devil's advocate, suppose some consumers are not opposed to this kind of business relationship. Suppose they actually find value in it (ignoring the fact the you and I may consider it some kind of wrong). Should it be allowed to continue? I see insane ad practices happening time and time again. Sometimes they catch on and become normal. Other times they disappear (often quickly) as consumers revolt against them. Often, the ones that stick don't bother "normal" people. Whether it should or shouldn't is another topic, I guess. Where do you draw the line?
My view is that our outcries against this stuff have their place. Hopefully it makes "normal" consumers more aware. Hopefully. Sometimes these practices stick. Sometimes they don't. Maybe the ones that do are a fair tradeoff. My concern is that the absurdity and intrusion escalates.
There is a problem. Ads want to be targeted. We want to hate ads. Maybe it will always be that way. The best we can don is to keep people conscious so at least they're aware of what they could possibly be giving up when allowing them into their lives.
This printer thing. I don't see how it will stick. But HP and Yahoo! are sure as Hell going to see. Let's just hope it doesn't set a precedent, or at least some kind of civil middle ground can be found.
I absolutely hated Yahoo's new login screen. There was a Chevy Ad that took up the whole page. What I did like was the fact that there was a forum at the top of the screen to provide feedback on the ad. This is a new trend in my opinion. Let's hope our outcries continue to bring about changes like this.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Good point. Sure. Spammers should be allowed to spam "those" people. But not you and me. Of course, you can see how that would be a business model destined for failure. This comes back to what I refer to as "normal" people. "Majority" isn't the best word either, but maybe it's better. If most people actually found value in spam, then, sure. We who hate it would be the outliers. But most don't find value in spam, but most still receive spam.
Again. I made the previous case as a Devil's advocate more
Re: (Score:2)
My first reaction exactly. My second reaction, this just won't end up taking off. It's that terrible of an idea. Now, that's not to say some watered down form won't come our way soon.
Re: (Score:2)
You're talking about the driver upgrade and bug fix, which will be released after 3 months, and which won't be accessible except to owners of the printer. So nobody can see it until after they're already committed.
HP must have a death wish (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Your sig goes to an empty page.
Thanks for the heads up! I currently don't have any Japanese puzzle boxes up for sale on eBay due to extremely slow sales in this down economy. I usually put them up starting in September when people start buying gifts in preparation for the holidays. Feel free to leave me a message on eBay (username = e-dude2) if you'd like me to list some boxes.
Firewalled (Score:2)
Who the hell would put a printer online anyway without a firewall or some kind of IP whitelist?
I mean it's not going to be the first time that hackers will jump into your network from a "bit too intelligent for it's own good" printer.
Also, as a busy system administrator, do we really want another device to add to our security patch weeklies?
Yeah Samsung (Score:2)
We've got a color samsung printer at work. I think we got it on sale for $150. That's even affordable for most home users. I think my dad's spent that much in HP ink this year.
Ads aren't supplied with regular jobs. (Score:5, Informative)
While the article is a little confusing, if you read it a couple of times, it becomes clear that the advertisements are only supplied with their "scheduled delivery" service. Basically, HP is signing up with content providers and Yahoo to provide content in your printer every morning.
The subscriber selects the content (newspaper sections), HP is responsible for fetching + formatting + advertisement insertion. Yahoo provides the localised (through IP address lookup) advertisements.
Basically, this is the Sci-Fi print-on-demand newspaper where the paper includes content from multiple sources.
So, no, advertisements aren't inserted into the middle of your print job.
I would say that the demand for the service is probably dwindling, but who knows. It will probably be a good little money maker for HP and Yahoo.
Re: (Score:2)
And probably the outcry won't be all that great due to the fact that it's mainly to print "web stuff". And we're so used to seeing ads on the web.
Lexmark Lasers Rule (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't buy a computer to run HP software I bought it for many things a very small thing being to occasionally print. But HP seems to want to pretty well turn my desktop into an HP dedicated print server.
I have only "Office Spaced" one electronic device in my life and it was my HP all-in-one. It was very satisfying to smash the crap out of it. All that thing was built for was to get me to buy ink. Every time I turned it on to scan the thing would go through this 2 minute cleaning cycle and use up some more ink. I would literally go through more than half an ink cartridge without printing a thing. A printer that uses ink when I am only scanning is just stupid. Then when it ran out of ink the whole menu system basically wouldn't let me get past the no-ink-complaining so that I could do hardly anything else with the printer. It wasn't an all-in-one is was a single purpose ink selling machine.
So no surprise that HP is figuring out a way to screw their customers even harder. "Yes I bought your printer so that you could make money selling advertising." Or maybe people buy printers to print stuff; their own stuff.
Nod to Brother (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sitting next to a Brother ink jet printer right now. I really prefer lasers, but in this case I wanted a large format multi-function machine. My Brother will both print and scan up to 11x17" (equivalent to A3) and it cost me less than $200, shipped to my front door. It shipped with full, high-capacity ink cartridges, not HP's half cartridges. And while it does include some software it's pretty lightweight, and is basically used to handle features like networked scanning and a monitor program to let you know when the ink is low. Both are optional. And yes, Brother explicitly offers drivers for Linux.The print quality is what it is -- could be better, could be a lot worse -- and the build quality seems fairly plasticky, but that seems par for the course with today's printers. Overall my only complaint was that the price was so low it wasn't even a significant tax write-off.
Re:Nod to Brother (Score:4, Informative)
I had a brother multifunction inkjet for a while. It worked well right up until the time when it ran out of one of the ink colors. At that point it started demanding a new ink cartridge and refused to do anything else. Fax? Nope. Scan? Nope. It was locked up until you replaced the ink cartridge. It was after midnight and I just wanted to fax out a contract. I did go to the office supply store the next day, but I replaced the printer instead.
The InkJets rip you off in ink price, though. (Score:2, Informative)
I got rid of a Lexmark because their inkjet printers had ink that was too expensive, though, so pay attention to the model as well as the brand.
I was also unhappy with Lexmark for trying to abuse the DMCA to lock people out from making compatible ink cartridges.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Hmm, maybe not all then, but Lexmark printers are also guilty of installing must-have services. My 3 year old Z1420 installs 2. It also goes fails if you disable those, or at least bidirectional printing (to allow the otherwise low-ink dialog from requiring a local click that kills the functionality of remote print-jobs.) My printer croaks up license agreements on the printer-connected PC whenever I add a remote PC, and like every USB printer in existance, randomly fails to be recognized as 'Connected'" [youtube.com]
Anyw
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You just listed all the reasons I swore to never buy another lexmark, bloated barely functional drivers along with "rebate" ink cartridges. You can also tack on the idiotic proprietary scanning methodology and the windows only compatibility.
Im looking at an epsom A3 next I think, theres no reason you can't refill them indefinitely with the reset tool because the print heads are fixed (i.e. not part of the cartridge), can you imagine having an A3 printer where the cost of ink is 'negligible'
Some assembly required (Score:2, Insightful)
HP's ePrint printers, some of which will become available next month, are connected to the user's home router, which means they will have an IP address.
Good luck getting your users to correctly configure their routers to make this work.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd wager this isn't a push service. I bet there is some 600MB client that has to be installed on a computer on the network. Or perhaps, it uses UPNP and the printer just opens the ports it needs. Most people have all their network gear running with default settings and almost all recent consumer routers have upnp enabled by default.
Power off (Score:2)
Tray 3? (Score:5, Funny)
You think if they started advertising for penis enlargement that they'd start going for my 11x17 tray just to prove a point/overcompensate?
This is bad (Score:2)
'Targeted'?? (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean these printers will ALSO leak out possibly sensitive information to the world (Yahoo) in order to target the advertisements that will be printed using the owner's ink and the owner's paper?
Talk about the mother of all bad ideas. Even if this printer was FREE with these ad subsidies, you still have to pay for ink cartridges that are excessively expensive and the paper as well, so this will also add to waste and user costs.
I guess this is just another in my long (and ever growing) list of reasons why I will never, EVER purchase a HP inkjet printer. I suggest everyone else vote with their wallets and abandon support for HP in favor of another company that doesn't steal information about what their users print in order to make users PAY with the ink they purchased to print advertisements based on information swiped from those very same users!
That's out of hand (Score:3, Insightful)
What fucking bright spark in marketing thought this would be something ANY customer would want their printer to do, and what idiot manager approved it on the basis that people would put up with it? Someone should bill them for the paper, ink and recycling costs. $1000/picoliter isn't it? Fuckers!!!
Port 631, anyone? (Score:3, Informative)
Test the laws (Score:3, Interesting)
I know I've mentioned this before (Score:2)
Sigh, harmless but bound to explode (Score:2)
So basically what this new service is that you get a free "newsletter" that is automatically printed for you at a scheduled time. Bit like getting your own newspaper printed before you wake up like a coffee machine and bread maker on a timer but instead of just printing the same page for everyone, they make the ads in the newspaper dynamic, targetted specifically at you.
Pretty harmless... sure, the inkt and paper cost you money but a regular newspaper also costs money.
But then, there used to be unwritten
It's not "your" printer (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not "your" printer. You don't own the software in the printer, or the driver, or the service that handles spamming you. You're just licensing that. You're renting a printing service, and the landlord controls what you can do with the printer. Read your EULA.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They did sell you something: You own the cardboard box the printer came in and possibly, only possibly mind you, the actual plastic and metal the printer is made of... just don't expect to own the firmware, the drivers or any software bits.
Yet another reason NOT to buy a HP printer (Score:3, Insightful)
With all the crap HP are doing lately, you would have to be stupid to buy a HP printer.
Get a printer from a decent company such as Canon or Epson or Brother.
Wow, just another excuse ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's bad enough that HP printers INSIST on printing a test page seemingly every time you cycle the power, or remove and reinsert a cartridge after shaking it to see how much ink is left.
It's bad enough that they insist on bundling over 100 fucking meg of software when all you really want is the bloody printer driver.
It's bad enough (environmentally) that it's probably more economical to buy a new printer that comes with "free" starter cartridges than to buy replacement cartridges for your existing printer ... at least here in Philippines prices about 1500 pesos ($33 USD) for a printer, and 1700 pesos ($37 USD) for a b/w and color cartridge.
Now they're being allowed to spam your printer with internet ads (full colour of course) ?
Fuck HP, tired of their bullshit.
Can't Firewall it (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait... (Score:3, Informative)
Wait, people still print?
Honestly, I only print stuff when someone insists these days. I haven't owned a printer at home in years; everything I need to reference is sent to a PDF which is then sync'ed to my iPhone. Signatures... digital. I think the last thing I printed was a gift affidavit that I had to get notarized in order to give a car to my ex wife in my divorce :)
On topic though; when are we going to see the printer now with the optional automatic shredder attachment (spam filter)? :)
HP Monitors are next... (Score:3, Insightful)
I can see it now. Your new LCD monitor is sold to you as a 22 inch, but 1/4 of the screen is actually an ad server, so your actual display area is smaller than 22 inches.
This is the new way.
I see it happening on TV. Between the logos, the market ticker, the oil gusher cam, and the pop-up ads promoting upcoming shows, all we're left with on TV is a talking head and all you can see of him/her is an eye or nose jiggling about the screen.
Re: (Score:2)
Ads are making their way into every form of media we use, including our self-produced stuff.
Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.