I was just playing around in my Google Chrome preferences when I came across a weird setting called Google Cloud Print.
That seemed a bit odd, so I clicked on it. Turns out that there is a Google service called Google Cloud Print that allows you to print to your printers from any device. Who knew?!?
According to the site Google Cloud Print “makes printing more intuitive, accessible and useful, by letting you print to your printers from Google Cloud Print-enabled apps on any computer or smart phone.”
You will still need to have a computer that is online connected to the printer in order to print. Duh. Obviously. But still kind of cool if I were printing something off of my phone. But how do I get it on my phone? Aha…read further in the FAQ: We’re working to provide Google Cloud Print integration with many Google products and services, the first of which are Chrome OS, Gmail for mobile, and Google Docs for mobile. You can also print to 3rd-party native mobile apps on the Android and iOS platforms.
Turns out that Google Docs on my Android had a Print link all along that I never even noticed. I tried it out and low and behold I can print the doc to one of my work printers. Interesting. I’m not sure that this solves a great problem because I still need a computer that is on somewhere and connected to the internet and printer, but I still like the geekiness of it.
More info from Google here: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2011/01/cloud-printing-on-go.html
