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Google Cloud Print, a service that enables any application (web, desktop, or mobile) on any device to print to any printer.
Rather than rely on the local operating system (or drivers) to print, apps can use Google Cloud Print to submit and manage print jobs. Google Cloud Print will then be responsible for sending the print job to the appropriate printer with the particular options the user selected, and returning the job status to the app.
Google Cloud Print is still under development, but today we are making code and documentation public as part of the open-source Chromium and Chromium OS projects.
Google has explained how it intends to print from its browser-obsessed Chrome OS netbooks. Naturally, it will send all your jobs across the net, through its servers, and back down to a PC elsewhere in the room.
In fact, Google intends to send all your print jobs through its servers, whether they're coming from a desktop or a mobile or some other notebook that has nothing to do with Chrome OS. Well, through its servers or - in theory - someone else's.
The company has open sourced the code for its online print service, hoping to encourage other outfits to duplicate this contraption hat takes print jobs across the world and back again.
We would argue it would be easier to create a common protocol that lets any machine talk to any printer. But Google likes it when stuff goes through its servers. It likes it a lot.
