Tag Archives: ThinPrint
A Look at How Printing Will Be Done in Chrome OS
Posted on 16. Dec, 2009 by Daniel Cawrey. 
3 Comments
One of the central themes of Chrome OS is that the array of software and drivers that clog up a traditional operating system will be done away with in order to increase speed and usability. But users are still going to want the traditional features of a computer – and that includes printing. In the PC world of today, a driver almost always needs to be installed for a printer, which could possibly mean several print drivers if a user has a reason to use more than one, and there are so many makes and models out there that this could be challenging to accomplish in Chrome OS.
It hasn’t been discussed how this is going to be addressed before a Chrome OS release date in mid to late 2010. Is Google going to be able to come up with a standard one size fits all solution for the myriad of printing devices? It’s hard to believe that if Microsoft has not yet been able to do it after they had printer issues with Vista, although that did lead some companies like HP to release universal Vista drivers.
One novel approach is being taken by a virtualization company called ThinPrint, which has announced that they will work with Google to take the printer driver system that PCs currently use and place it in a cloud computing environment using their specially developed technology. In this situation, a device would probably need spooling capability but little else, acting as a communication tool between itself, the cloud and the printer. Below is a video demonstration on how the system works using an iPhone app as an example:
“Naturally, we don’t have all the details on the Google Chrome OS yet, but we are certain that we will provide the best Google Chrome OS print solution based on our patented technology,” said Carsten Mickeleit, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ThinPrint.
Pretty cool technology, and it makes me wonder what else the cloud can replace for us that we haven’t even thought of. I take that back – someone probably already has.
