back to article Lexmark adds Twitter to printer

It was recently joked that Twitter's downtime marked a boom in worker productivity - or would have if World+Dog hadn't been spending its time by posting 'why is Twitter down?' messages on Facebook. So popular are these social networks in the workplace that Lexmark has added the ability to use them through its networked …

COMMENTS

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  1. handle

    Shirley

    ...it should print out every tweet, thereby using up the extortionately-priced inks more quickly?

  2. as2003

    srsly?

    It's April 1st already?

  3. martin burns
    FAIL

    This is the stupid way round

    Would it not be better for the printer to tweet completion of long jobs, so you know when to wander back over and pick up your 20 copies of the 100page report?

  4. Hayden Clark Silver badge
    Happy

    Or, perhaps more usefully...

    It could tweet to @myprinter when it runs out of ink or paper!

    1. Jeremy 2

      Be careful what you wish for...

      @HaydenClark PC LOAD LETTER

      If they do that, the printer better come with a free baseball bat and a rap CD...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What a stonking idea

    And with equally brilliant inspiration, I'm going to spend the weekend turbocharging the lawnmower.

    1. The Unexpected Bill
      Go

      It's been done, you know!

      Somewhere I saw a video demonstrating a turbocharged, electronically fuel injected Briggs and Stratton air cooled engine. It wasn't highly practical, but it was cool. And it even made neat little spooling up and down sounds.

  6. pctechxp

    I'm.....

    releasing yet another paper jam from this !#~'!ing printer! lol

  7. Sam Liddicott

    great idea

    It will make the printer more attractive to the sorts of folk who are willing to pay those prices for printer consumables and don't mind paying extra to lock out competitors with special chips, etc.

    I just switched a lady to Ubuntu 10.10 and had to tell her to buy a non-lexmark printer to replace her current lexmark one.

    Seems there is more demand for twitter on the printer than for linux drivers.

    Ah well

  8. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    This seems to be based on the idea that people read the screens

    my experience of watching folks randomly opening and banging various doors closed until they find the piece of paper which the graphic on the screen had been telling them about all along suggests otherwise...

  9. Chad H.
    Pint

    so

    So people can't even be disconnected for the minute or so it takes to scan or print a document.

    Clearly Social media has become a threat to public health. We need to start putting restructions on it like other threats to public health.

    1. Code Monkey

      "Restrictions"

      Do you mean a tax on printers?

  10. Tom 35
    FAIL

    It could be worse...

    They could give the printers email address so they could spam your printer... oh wait...

    This is what happens when they fire everyone and have marketing come up with the new features. I guess they are just trying to out stupid HP. If only they spent half the money they spend on making it had to use no-name ink on making the printers work better.

    Now were is my toaster / wifi hotspot combo?

  11. adnim

    Nice!

    Can I have one. I want to see if I can own a corporate LAN by storing malicious code in this printers buffer. There has got to be an exploitable flaw in the implementation of this wonderful cannot do without feature.

    Web connected printers, how have we managed without them?

  12. LinkOfHyrule
    Joke

    WTF!

    Love how printer makers are feeling so left out from the twitter craze!

    What's next? Is Armatige Shanks going to add twitter and Facebook apps to toilets and urinals?

    "doing a wee, nice selection of urinal cakes today!"

    1. Eddie Edwards
      Thumb Up

      Twitter on the shitter

      I like it

  13. unitron

    Plenty of room for it.

    It's amazing how much junk you can stuff in there if you leave reliability and repairability out.

  14. heyrick Silver badge

    It's not a *bad* idea, on the face of it...

    ...but it is SO wasted on Twitter. There ought to be an RSS reader and simplish HTML parser so we can use our printers to check El Reg and BBC News headlines, plus read the articles that interest us.

    Of course, we will know humanity is doomed when your kettle includes an LCD display in the handle that provides scrolling Twitter updates from Stephen Fry.

  15. CmdrX3
    Paris Hilton

    ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Am I the only one on the planet that sees Twitter as a complete waste of time. To me it's nothing more than personal spam with people every dump and coffee break as the product. I just don't get it.

    1. Robredz
      FAIL

      RE twitter

      What a waste I'm sure many people like me who cannot be bothered with Twatter will look elsewhere when buying a new printer.......

  16. Goat Jam
    FAIL

    Oh noes!

    This is terrible! Years back I vowed that I would never buy another Lexmark printer but this amazing new feature leaves me having to reconsider my stance.

    <0.2 nanoseconds later>

    OK, I have reconsidered and I'm still not going to buy one of their craptastic printers.

  17. Ball boy Silver badge

    Just because it *can* be done doesn't mean it *should* be done

    title says it all

  18. Chris Haynes
    WTF?

    Like fitting wheels to a tomato...

    ...time-consuming and completely unnecessary. (Courtesy of Blackadder II.)

    Why would anyone, ANYONE, want to tweet from their printer? Oh, you don't need to switch on your computer to get your tweets? But you do need the computer on to make any sensible use of the printer, right?

    I think my HP has Scrabble on it. I haven't tried it yet as I have a life.

    1. heyrick Silver badge

      @ Chris Haynes

      HP with Scrabble? I'm tempted to make a nasty comment about it being "something to do" while waiting for the tech support helpline...

      I dunno, I'm with most of you here. A printer is a thing that sits in the corner and drops paper on the floor. Once in a while I put something on top of it and, by some sort of magic, a copy of that something appears on one of the pieces of paper heading floorwards.

      Twitter? No. Scrabble? No. Apps? No. Just, please, cheaper ink. That's ALL.

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