Google Cloud Print

Google Docs is a service where you can get access to your documents, presentations and spreadsheets from any computer and/or mobile phone. But what about printing those documents? Wouldn’t it be great to not have to worry about which printer is hooked up to what computer and where? Or how about being able to print off that document at your home or office printer so it’s there waiting when you get home? Google thinks that this isn’t an impossible task and wants printer manufacturers to start thinking in the same way.

Just as Google Docs is setup in the cloud, Google thinks that printers could be setup there as well. Instead of printer manufacturers trying to keep up with different platforms that could talk to a printer, they could develop the tech to just have their models connect with Google Cloud Print. Then not only would regular laptops and desktops be able to print easily, but mobile phones and e-book readers could as well. IT staff eventually wouldn’t have to set up a separate server to manage all the printers in a company. Instead they just plug them into the network and register them in the cloud.

Don’t hold your breath quite yet though… there aren’t any “Cloud-aware” printers out there yet. But Google is developing ‘proxies’ to make any of your “legacy” printers connect up to the cloud through the computers/servers that are already managing those printers.

To find out more, including the programming service interfaces for this new service, check out the Google Cloud Print code page: http://code.google.com/apis/cloudprint/docs/overview.html