HP announced at Internet Week in New York today that it will begin making printers with their own email addresses so users can send print jobs to them from portable devices or anything connected to the web..
Vyomesh Joshi, HP executive vice president of the company’s Imaging and Printing Group, said the new Eprint service would let customers store documents in the cloud and print them with any device. He demonstrated the service using an Ipad, which has no built-in printing capability.
The Inquirer quoted, HP’s Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and Communications Tariq Hassan saying that the printer email addresses have password protecting and the process has anti-spam protection.
Inquirer story: “HP printers can get emails”
It will be interesting to see where the dark side goes with this. One can imagine malicious spam downloading malcode that will compromise the security of the printing process and set up botnets to deliver printed malvertising. Then there will be “male enhancement” and Canadian pharmacy ads waiting for you in your printer.
Tom Kelchner