Quite simply, HP’s new range of “ePrint” products enable any device to print to any printer, anywhere, as long as they’re all connected to the Internet.

Cleverly, HP will be issuing all of its ePrint-based printers with a unique email address; to print a document, users simply send documents to that address. Harnessing the ubiquity of email ensures that you will be able to print from devices that don’t even support printing!

It’s easy to consider the downside of web-connected printers; from a new generation of “printer spam” to transposing inbox overload into even more unmanageable paper form. However, I think the development is exciting for a number of reasons:

• The potential for a “social letterbox” perhaps limited to really close family and friends — sending a tangible, printed letter, article or photo could return value and intimacy to the printed word.
• Being able to use existing email filters and tools to determine what arrives at your printer’s inbox. I can envisage “print@yourdomain.com” becoming a useful communication end point for individuals and companies; finally killing the fax.
• A new means of permission marketing where the sender pays me to send me a printed flier.
• Postal services that transcode snail mail to electronically delivered prints that are also archived digitally.
• iPhone apps that locate the nearest available printer when you’re on the move and need a hard copy.

Looking further ahead it’s not difficult to envisage a time when a range of email-able “HP Deskfab” 3D printers will allow users to email real objects to each other, transforming bits into atoms. ePrint’s simple innovation of an email inbox for printers can inspire a multitude other ideas and is a true platform opportunity.

See also:

• Jan Chipchase’s “Thoughts on Cloud Printing“
• BERG’s “My printer, my social letterbox“
• HP’s ePrintCenter
• Google Cloud Print
  

(Editor’s note: If you’re interested in learning more about cloud computing and how it enables web apps like this, check out our Structure conference in San Francisco later this month).

So, I welcome this news that PlanOn is now shipping Printstik, its mobile printer which can print from Bluetooth-enabled devices.

Its list of features are:

• No smudging and no leaking of ink
• Prints up to three pages per minute
• Pocket size, including a cartridge roll of 20 pages and battery

With printers, it is the cost of consumables that turns me off. PrintStik, however, uses thermal paper which you purchase in packs of 3, or equivalent to 60 pages, for $24.99 or 41 cents each. That’s the cost already of color printing at Staples.

Price is on the high-end though starting at $299.99 but I guess that’s what we pay for portability.

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These tips from PC magazine serve as a good reminder of how to be more judicious with our printing. The suggestions include using your Print Preview more thoroughly, printing to PDF for digital storage and searchability, and really considering whether or not a print job is truly necessary.

Do you have any additional tips? Do you consider yours a paperless office?

(photo credit: Flickr user josef.stuefer)

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce