Google Chrome OS team announces cloud printing

Posted on 16 Apr 2010 at 18:13

The team working on Google's Chrome OS has announced that printing, like the rest of Chrome OS's web app based model, will take place in the cloud and has published design documents describing how this will operate.

An application, whether web-based, desktop or mobile, would send the print job to Google Cloud Print, which would then send it to a designated cloud-aware printer that you had access to.

According to the Cloud Print documentation: "the ideal experience is for your printer to have native support for connecting to cloud print services. Under this model, the printer has no need for a PC connection of any kind or for a print driver."

The document notes that such printers are entirely hypothetical right now, but it's a nice idea, and one that might not be impossible to implement in some way, with an increasing move towards smart printers capable of interacting with the internet like recent models from Lexmark and HP.

The proposed Cloud Print system has a couple of obvious advantages – no more printer drivers and convenient printing from mobile devices. However, it does seem slightly counter-intuitive to send a document across the internet to the cloud – effectively acting as a remote printer server in this instance – which will send it back across the net to be printed by the printer sitting next to your desk.

Author: Kat Orphanides

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