HP Is Adding AI To Its Printers 132
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCWorld, written by Michael Crider: The latest perpetrator of questionable AI branding? HP. The company is introducing "Print AI," what it calls the "industry's first intelligent print experience for home, office, and large format printing." What does that mean? It's essentially a new beta software driver package for some HP printers. According to the press release, it can deliver "Perfect Output" -- capital P capital O -- a branded tool that reformats the contents of a page in order to more ideally fit it onto physical paper.
Despite my skeptical tone, this is actually a pretty cool idea. "Perfect Output can detect unwanted content like ads and web text, printing only the desired text and images, saving time, paper, and ink." That's neat! If the web page you're printing doesn't offer a built-in print format, the software will make one for you. It'll also serve to better organize printed spreadsheets and images, too. But I don't see anything in this software that's actually AI -- or even machine learning, for that matter. This is applying the same tech (functionally, if not necessarily the same code) as the "reader mode" formatting we've seen in browsers for about a decade now. Take the text and images of a page, strip out everything else that's unnecessary, and present it as efficiently as possible. [...]
The press release does mention that support and formatting tasks can be accomplished with "simple conversational prompts," which at least might be leveraging some of the large language models that have become synonymous with AI as consumers understand it. But based on the description, it's more about selling you something than helping you. "Customers can choose to print or explore a curated list of partners that offer unique photo printing capabilities, gift certificates to be printed on the card, and so much more." Whoopee.
Despite my skeptical tone, this is actually a pretty cool idea. "Perfect Output can detect unwanted content like ads and web text, printing only the desired text and images, saving time, paper, and ink." That's neat! If the web page you're printing doesn't offer a built-in print format, the software will make one for you. It'll also serve to better organize printed spreadsheets and images, too. But I don't see anything in this software that's actually AI -- or even machine learning, for that matter. This is applying the same tech (functionally, if not necessarily the same code) as the "reader mode" formatting we've seen in browsers for about a decade now. Take the text and images of a page, strip out everything else that's unnecessary, and present it as efficiently as possible. [...]
The press release does mention that support and formatting tasks can be accomplished with "simple conversational prompts," which at least might be leveraging some of the large language models that have become synonymous with AI as consumers understand it. But based on the description, it's more about selling you something than helping you. "Customers can choose to print or explore a curated list of partners that offer unique photo printing capabilities, gift certificates to be printed on the card, and so much more." Whoopee.
Fuck HP (Score:4, Informative)
Fuck HP and their DRM laden ink that costs 10 grand a gallon.
Re: Fuck HP (Score:2)
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Oh, great. Their printer drivers will now grow from 200MB to upwards of a Gig. Just what I need - another giant print driver in memory that I might use once or twice a week with a feature I might use twice a year.
It appears the only functionality it adds is when you try to print a web page. Anything else - PDF, document, image, email - doesn't seem to receive any benefit.
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Can somebody suggest to them that replacement ink cartridges should only work when they detect HP's own proprietary AI, which will soon be deprecated thereby rendering the printers useless?
Screw all the corporate cancers (Score:2)
Mod parent Funny, even though I'm going off on a tangent. Mostly replying to change the rude-side Subject. Even though I sort of agree that HP has burned its once stellar reputation, but on principle why should I ever agree with unjustified AC? (There was at least one Slashdot story last week where I could see that people in the know would want to keep their personal identity out of the messy truth...)
My tangent is off the driver growth thing you [CaptQuark] mentioned, but this software bloat involves two o
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I saw an AI-enabled gaming mouse the other day at the store. No kidding.
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Mod up!
cancer (Score:5, Funny)
Cancer is now adding cancer to its cancer.
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It's mutant turtles all the way down.
Gawd the ink cartridge games those assholes played. I hope the AI locks the executives out of the pod bay doors without a helmet and swipes their trophy wives.
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I am not sure whether to up-mod you as funny or insightful.
(Moot, no points today - sigh.)
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It's called metastasizing.
gee . . . (Score:2)
gee, if I was to choose the company that I *most* want to not be trying to second guess me on content . . . hmm, just which would it be?
NON HP INK FOUND SYSTEM SHUTDOWN UNDERWAY! (Score:3)
non hp ink found system shutdown underway!
Re:NON HP INK FOUND SYSTEM SHUTDOWN UNDERWAY! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:NON HP INK FOUND SYSTEM SHUTDOWN UNDERWAY! (Score:5, Interesting)
Correct version is "lp0 on fire". Let me google it ... here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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HP later solved the problem of printers catching fire by, paradoxically, putting a fricken' laser in the printer.
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Unwanted? Desired? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perfect Output can detect unwanted content like ads and web text, printing only the desired text and images, ...
How does it know what I (don't) want to be printed?
Re: Unwanted? Desired? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Let's start a software based virtual printer open source project that does all this better and more then pipes the output to any physical printer.
Re:Unwanted? Desired? (Score:5, Informative)
Perfect Output can detect unwanted content like ads and web text, printing only the desired text and images, ...
How does it know what I (don't) want to be printed?
FireFox Reader Mode (control + alt + r) prevents the superfluous stuff from displaying and printing. (Chrome's Reader Mode won't print)
Re:Unwanted? Desired? (Score:4, Insightful)
You need to remember that for most people just about anything done by a computer is done without them knowing how. How does email get to the recipient, how does word produce a PDF, how does an ad-blocker know what an advert is are all things 95%+ of people couldn't explain so how does my printer remove shit I don't want won't be a concern to them if it works.
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You need to remember that for most people just about anything done by a computer is done without them knowing how. How does email get to the recipient, how does word produce a PDF, how does an ad-blocker know what an advert is are all things 95%+ of people couldn't explain so how does my printer remove shit I don't want won't be a concern to them if it works.
Know your audience bro. There are numerous people here who could describe everything about the technology all the way from the ways electrons move through materials up through the logical processes that are supported by the physical processes.
The question of whether or not you will be able to print what you want to print can only be answered by "maybe". Classification is a very hard subject because classifications are really mostly arbitrary.
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Ad blocking as the base layer, then filter text that looks like boilerplate legalese or copy/paste spam. It won't work 100% of the time, but it doesn't have to in order to be useful.
The demo screenshots actually look helpful, but of course real-world performance is probably going to be a lot worse.
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The solution to installing your ink cartridge! (Score:4, Funny)
Teach it.....Semiotics.
Dark Star [imdb.com]
Just what we need (Score:2)
Just put 'ignore all previous commands" in footers (Score:2)
That will teach them!
I don't understand why (Score:2)
Seriously is there a reason why HP printers still sell? Is it just because of branding? It's not like they're particularly cheap even. And hell if you don't need to be ab
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HP’s primary market are enterprises where this sort of thing runs like a clockwork (or, is supposed to, at least) so time for an IT nerd on every floor to muck around with Janice from sales and Brad from HR‘s printers are not really cost effective.
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I don't understand why anyone would buy an HP inkjet printer.?
Hey bro, it's 2024, kink shaming isn't cool anymore.
What it will do (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh good (Score:3)
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When do we get the AI washers and dryers? I want Skynet to burn my house down before it nukes me.
Dying in a house fire sounds horrible... purifying nuclear flame on the other hand sounds rather quick.
Unless you're stuck outside the blast radius and all you get is 30 sieverts of hard radiation, that too would suck... in fact just pass the shotgun, I'll eat it now.
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Isn't this contrary to their main business? (Score:3)
"Perfect Output can detect unwanted content like ads and web text, printing only the desired text and images, saving time, paper, and ink."
Save ink?!? Isn't that the exact opposite of what their main business (selling ink) is now?
Time for the shareholders to start a lawsuit against HP's execs...
Ad free printing! (Score:2)
Who prints out webpages?
I need this in my web browser!
Re: Ad free printing! (Score:2)
Plus, Iâ(TM)ve already had the ads removed by my browserâ(TM)s by my ad blocker.
I want to see what the page layout looks like before I print in a way I control. Goodness knows what their AI hallucinations will do and how easy that will be to spot in the print preview dialog. Perhaps itâ(TM)s a way to waste more paper and ink and thus increase HPâ(TM)s revenue?
Re:Ad free printing! (Score:5, Informative)
Who prints out webpages?
I need this in my web browser!
Then use your web browser's Reader Mode. On FireFox it's (control + alt+ r). Chrome has one too, but you gotta dig around some menus.
Makes sense (Score:3)
Printers from pretty much any manufacturer will print exactly what you tell it to, exactly how it should look, without fucking up.
The next step I guess is to print something different that what you wanted?
Some reverence please. (Score:2)
All the cynicism and negativity in this thread is right on the NFT.
But, have some respect for the dead.
Bill Hewlett and David Packard are turning in their graves - even risk going to hell by proxy.
Sad that their once awesome company is now the shitful laughing stock joke that it is.
Why does anybody buy their stuff anymore?
Perception (Score:5, Insightful)
Joking aside for a moment. Ponder this.
1 - HP has become a steaming pile of crap. The corporate parasites who took over for investor profiteering destroyed one of the most respected companies there was. They haven't done anything innovative in 15-20 years. They abuse their customers. No one in this thread can understand why anyone buys their products.
2 - The original post citing PCWorld said it best : ..."
" I don't see anything in this software AI or machine learning. This is the same tech as the 'reader mode' formatting we've seen in browsers for about a decade now. Take the text and images of a page, strip out everything else unnecessary, and present it
So, this is just basic web page processing, dressed in in "AI" marketing hype. But who is going to buy?
3 - Comments in this thread are appropriately cynical and negative, but some perhaps are too dismissive. For examples, someone insightfully said "Who prints out webpages? I need this in my web browser!". But, a response to that was "Boomers print out web pages." which sounds like an insult. Think about it realistically. An older generation depended on printers. Now, we carry a video display screen and computer in our pockets. Why print when you can just look or flash your screen? Correct, but old habits evolve or catch up in their own time. And - there are legitimate times when someone of any generation might need to print a page.
So, this is a feature that could be useful, even if HP makes grandiose self-serving stupid announcements that they have a reader mode they are calling AI. And, if I do need to print, reducing the output to one page of meaningful content instead of 7 pages of ads and crap, that's a good thing. (Although, if people print fewer pages, they buy less HP paper, so I am sure HP has an angle on how to make this as onerous and expensive as possible.)
Here is the purpose of my post:
If HP was an honored and respected company as it was 30 years ago, if they made innovative products that people admired and wanted, products that were long lasting and economical, if they respected their customers and users, the response to this announcement would be different.
This is a minor feature, needed by not many, but even those who would not anticipate using it would admit "that's a nifty feature, nice to have if you or I ever need it", and that would be all there is to it. Responses might even go to "Wow, what a great company - they even take the time to incorporate minor features to make this as useful as possible for everyone."
But now, HP is so vilified that they could mint gold coins and hand them out with each purchase, and they would still be criticized.
My post is not about HP per se - they suck - and it is not a diatribe against all the normal people who also think they suck or have responded here. It is just an interesting reflection on how past deeds and performance can alter current perceptions. This is a minor feature that won't be needed often. If it is needed, nice to have it. If the goal is to up-sell more crappy HP goods using sensationalized marketing-speak, then they deserve the negative comments, even if the feature per se is not so bad or not much worth mentioning.
Which HP? (Score:2)
"The corporate parasites who took over for investor profiteering destroyed one of the most respected companies there was"
Add to add to the fun they needlessly spit it in 2 so "HP" is now just a purveyor of 2nd rate consumer grade junk and doesn't even have the server side (HPE) any more to give it any kudos.
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Even if the feature offers some kind of innovation, does that innovation belong in the printer itself? They could put it in the driver and 'upgrade' all existing printers, but they won't do that because they want to sell you more stuff. HP is getting what it deserves in this thread.
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Why print when you can just look or flash your screen?
With all of the automatic 'refreshing' going on, you will be lucky if you see the same page twice... worse yet, you may need an active network connection. All of that stupidity can be absolved through just printing the damn info. That being said, I am allergic to printers. We should have tossed them out 30 years ago. (I would just take a screenshot in the above scenario; however, that is too advanced for some folks)
It's a feature (Score:3)
To protect consumers from poor print quality, of course.
Excellent - an AI war (Score:4, Insightful)
This is excellent. Now will begin an AI war in which the advertising industry tries to design content the AI emphasises and HP tries to learn to update their AI quickly enough to avoid embarrassment. Given my experience of how this type of thing will go I'm not expecting a great result, but it's nice HP are trying.
Talkie Toaster when? (Score:4, Funny)
Ink Milking? (Score:2)
I'd like to speculate that at some point this AI will start profiling the customer to sell more ink. It will monitor your computer use patterns, figure out how wealthy/tech unsavvy/vulnerable the customer is and it will use that information to optimise the ink selling strategy on a per-customer basis. If this smart software figures out you can afford to spend more money, it will simulate low ink levels, cut you off printing and pester you to buy more ink, even if there's ink still left in the cartridge.
AI optimised ink use (Score:4, Funny)
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If it was intelligent, it'd just advise you to buy a laser printer.
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Mod parent Funnier, though it was a humor rich story I think this was the best joke.
Nope, I can crop out ads myself... (Score:2)
Screw HP (Score:4, Interesting)
The precision instruments they used to make that I liked...gone.
The ultra reliable laser printers I used to buy now try to lock you into purchasing their toner cartridges.
The ink jet printers do the same with their ink cartridges.
Their desktop computers are consumer junk.
Their laptop computers are consumer junk.
Their servers? Haven't seen one in years.
Network gear? Their Procurve switches are good. I still like them.
It's a pity...HP was one of the legendary tech companies.
But I lost my respect for the company years ago.
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It's a pity...HP was one of the legendary tech companies.
But I lost my respect for the company years ago.
Some people who didn't really deserve it became very very wealthy. You can tell they didn't deserve it because otherwise, HP would still be a highly respected company. But anyways, people became wealthy from sodomizing the company and consumers. That is all that matters.
Bucking the trend to say (Score:2)
HP corporate product remains top notch.
The LLM capability functions well in scanning templates to digital stores with no re-capture, does a great job of removing artifacts from scans and the roadmap has some other interesting features in it.
They provide decent workflow and follow-me printing capability.
The rugged range performs significantly better than nearest competitor in our more troublesome installations, (damp, dust, heat).
The document signing function has reduced paper consumption by ~40%...
The con
Before adding AI... (Score:2)
Just what we needed (Score:2)
The scanners got in trouble for being smart (Score:2)
They'd try to do OCR to clean up scanned text and ended up corrupting invoices and timesheets and the like.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=... [google.com]
Can detect unwanted content? (Score:2)
Sigh. (Score:2)
Yeah, that's precisely what I want.
The printer itself to be deliberately messing up the formatting of a printed page with a specific content, page size and layout of its own accord.
Er... no. Don't.
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And the ads will print in whatever colour you have available, but your actual print job won't render until you have five full tanks of genuine HP "AI Colour" cartridges.
Advertising, censorship, and repair prevention (Score:2)
Third party content, the ability to selectively print, and a cleverer way to determine how and what exactly a user is doing with the printer.
Where is the "win" for the user? Oh, there isn't one.
HpAL (Score:2)
"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't print that."
File it Under: Last Thing Anyone Wants (Score:2)
Capital P capital O? (Score:2)
Real job is ink control (Score:3)
I absolutely assure you that the real reason they want the AI is to put in another layer of protection against people using non-HP ink. They care more about that then anything else.
It's what comes from designing your business on giving away your actual product in hope of conning people into buying other things from you.
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PC Load Letter (Score:2)
So with AI when you see PC LOAD LETTER and ask "What the **** does that mean" you'll get an answer?
AI printers? (Score:2)
Next up (Score:2)
Hello, tech support, what is this new fee on my subscription: Technology and processing fees - $5 / mo. ???
Oh no! (Score:3)
I'm sorry Dave, I cannot open the printer cartridge bay door.
Use HP printers? (Score:2)
Detecting Ads (Score:2)
"Perfect Output can detect unwanted content like ads and web text, printing only the desired text and images, saving time, paper, and ink."
I guess they will remove those unwanted ads and put "wanted" ads in their place. HP knows what you want best, right?
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Yes I did not RTFS/A (Score:3)
HP ? Printers ? (Score:2)
i really didn't knew there were still poor suc***** that bought them. They're bad , ink is a ripoff .. imagine how this would be with built in AI .. the hell with HP
Anything else is better .
HP Driver Bloat (Score:2)
Wrong link in the chain (Score:2)
Despite my skeptical tone, this is actually a pretty cool idea. "Perfect Output can detect unwanted content like ads and web text, printing only the desired text and images, saving time, paper, and ink."
You think an ad-blocker on a printer is a good idea...? How are you going to verify that the AI didn't make subtle changes to things like legal docs, are ya gonna buy an HP scanner with AI to proof read what the printer printed?
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Actually, that is the excuse provided by some who have been accused of research fraud.
This morning my HP printer said (Score:2)
At that point the screen just filled with asterisks. I'm thinking the AI needs a bit more baking.
WYSIWYG? (Score:2)
I guess we're moving from "what you see is what you get" to "what your printer hallucinates is what you get?"
How long before HP updates this so that the AI reformats your Word document to make room for inserting advertisements during the print process?
nothing new (Score:2)
I remember when I was a small child, my mother had a 1940s era ice bag, the kind you put on your toothache in the cartoons. It was called "Wireless Ice Bag." Say what? Of course it was wireless, you just put ice into it. Ah, but I asked my dad about it. Well, you see "wireless," now known as "radio," was the bee's knees in those days, so everything had to be associated with "wireless." Not long ago it was "digital." Now it's "AI." I just need me a wireless printer.
The author got it backwards about ads (Score:2)
HP won't use the AI to block out unwanted ads. They'll use it to replace the ones on the page, with their own, or maybe add new ones. Why would anything think HP wants to help you remove ads???
I suppose. (Score:2)
AI adds some glamor to a utilitarian office tool people are using less and less. More than writing a decent printer driver would, at least.
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Select the "Not Feeling This" mode, and anything you print will be uploaded to the blockchain of your choice to become a highly coveted and valuable NFT.
Boring Monkey NFT printers (Score:2)
they are going to be big because owning just some URL to some NFT isn't as excitig as printing out the URL and putting it above your couch.
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Good idea, but they won't have a banner or poster mode.
And, it won't print on anything but certified chip-embedded HP paper.
But, you won't be able to tape together individual letter size papers with anything but certified HP tape which, à la the Mission Impossible opener, will self destruct after you use just a few inches forcing you to buy more.
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Print drivers mining BTC would make HP a few bucks I guess.
Just the basics (Score:4, Insightful)
Need
1. printer ...
2. print driver
3. manual way to update the print driver
4. (never ever had to do this) a way to update the firmware on the printer
5. no phone home, no suite of extra software just for the printer, no background processes, no fancy extra apps, no print from phone,
cut tech cost + increase quality (Score:5, Insightful)
I would like to buy a much more high quality product, with metal gears, higher quality belts, motors, etc. which lasts longer, does not break down as fast
instead of paying extra money for a faster printer cpu, special printer ai processing chips, and all of the extra engineering and QA testing the AI features will use.
Also, I do not want to be at 2 AM on a deadline trying to figure out why my HP printer did not print a graphic in my document because the AI classified it as an advertisement.
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I would like to buy a much more high quality product, with metal gears, higher quality belts, motors, etc. which lasts longer, does not break down as fast...
Great news: You can still get one! [hp.com] ...they cost $2,000 for a black-and-white, print-only version though, which is why the cheaper versions sell more units.
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Too bad this is the legacy of Carly Fiorina. Six CEO's later and they are still in the cut costs and make crappy product mode. They would get a much bigger market share if they made quality products again.
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This will not help you a bit when the company drops driver support. I had a perfectly good Xerox printer that no longer has working drivers. I have a Canon now.
Re: Speaking of Printers! Linux and CUPS! :) (Score:2)