Slog
News & ArtsTuesday, November 29, 2011
Media The Little Printer Stole My Heart
Posted by Paul Constant on Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 4:15 PM
This is not a practical idea. I can't imagine it will take off. But I don't care, because I want the Little Printer in my house:
You choose the sources you want from an app on your iPhone or Android smartphone, and the data is beamed wirelessly to the thermal printer (no ink refills!) from the included Berg Cloud Bridge, which plugs into your router...BERG's CEO, Matt Webb, sees it as the perfect medium. He says that "paper is like a screen that never turns off. You can stick to the fridge or tuck it in your wallet. You can scribble on it or tear it and give it to a friend."
Adorable!
4
Fall in love if you must, just make sure to buy BPA-free thermal paper, or you'll be printing out articles on why your nards shrank to the size of olive pits.
5
Do thermal printers (and paper) work better than they did 20 years ago? Or will the ink fade and paper curl fairly quickly?
6
Fall in love if you must, but make sure you buy BPA-free thermal paper, or you'll be printing out articles on why your nards shrank to the size of olive pits.
9
(Sorry for the double comment; got a page full of Gyrobase software error messages after hitting "post" the first time.)
10
I can't imagine the actual print will be as crisp and contrasty as it is in the video.
It's so cute. I want one. I would never have a practical reason to use it. I would have to go out and find small-paper-appropriate interests to quasi-justify my ownership of such a device.
It's so cute. I want one. I would never have a practical reason to use it. I would have to go out and find small-paper-appropriate interests to quasi-justify my ownership of such a device.
11
@3; Have you tried blowing your nose with thermal print paper? It's about as snotsorbant as a magazine.
Yeah, I know. First World Problems.
Yeah, I know. First World Problems.
16
PS, here is the obvious quasi-technophobic TECHNOLOGY THESE DAYS GOLLY GEE WHIZ joke:
"Hey, if you want to print out tiny little notes and small amounts of information, here's a gadget for you: A NOTEPAD."
There you go. Late night TV, here I come.
"Hey, if you want to print out tiny little notes and small amounts of information, here's a gadget for you: A NOTEPAD."
There you go. Late night TV, here I come.
18
Tempting, but without Scott Joplin playing in the background, it might come across as merely backward, instead of charmingly retro.
21
You know why this is brilliant? The face. The goddamned face on the front of that thing. If this were just a white cube spitting out paper, well, it's just a networked printer. That is boring and nerdy, and PEOPLE will never want one.
But that goddamed face...
But that goddamed face...
22
Wow. Paper becomes the perfect medium. Who would have thought. You can stick it on your fridge, folks. Give it to a friend. Write on it. Read it. Amazing. Why didn't I come up with this brilliant idea? Paper. Wow.
23
I never, ever, ever expected thermal printing to come back. Humanity tried this in 1979. It was a bad idea called "Apple Silentype". Let's never speak of it again.
25
...aaand in 2014 long forgotten novelty 'Little Printers' litter the bottom utility drawers of millions of American homes.
To be replaced by "Teeny Printer" that prints our personalized fortune cookie sized prints from the iPad4!
To be replaced by "Teeny Printer" that prints our personalized fortune cookie sized prints from the iPad4!
28
Why, yes, @27, yes they do.
Best general discussion is here.
Watching the video, I realized it prints that cute little face after every print job, because it has to move the paper far enough from the print head to clear the tear-off edge. So basically it wastes a couple of inches of paper each time you use it (though that's not bad compared to the multiple feet of register tape full of fine print, coupons, return policies, blah blah blah that now come with every purchase at chain stores). Still, dumb design.
Best general discussion is here.
Watching the video, I realized it prints that cute little face after every print job, because it has to move the paper far enough from the print head to clear the tear-off edge. So basically it wastes a couple of inches of paper each time you use it (though that's not bad compared to the multiple feet of register tape full of fine print, coupons, return policies, blah blah blah that now come with every purchase at chain stores). Still, dumb design.
30
do you understand how thermal printers work? yeah you don't have to buy ink but you do have to buy special thermal paper that costs as much as ink and has worse print quality and fades quickly...
31
And they're going to make millions selling them to people that need fake receipts for their expense reports.
32
I don't know why everyone loves the face so much. Add a little toothbrush moustache and you've got Hitler...
35
I'm onboard with this for so many reasons. It's not just the printer, but the BERGcloud that has me really excited. It's what Instapaper should be.
36
Just FYI, thermal paper used to use BPA for the thermal part to happen. Like 1000 parts stronger than the stuff leaching from your plastic bottles, and it gets all over your wallet, your hands, your clothes, etc. The paper-makers are trying to stay ahead of the anti-BPA torches-and-pitchforks thing by coming up with an alternative called BPS, which I'm absolutely sure is in no way toxic. (Here's a source I picked at random for more information.)
37
I looked, expecting to find something cute and novel, instead I get something that prints out advertisements, tweets, and garbage. All noise! Why on earth would I want this piece of shit?
I get enough spam on my phone and in my inbox, I don't need it "greeting" me in the morning.
I get enough spam on my phone and in my inbox, I don't need it "greeting" me in the morning.
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