Kodak Hero

Could be the paper (think of the butterfly wing effect)
I have some glossy white document paper which has a faint pinky-purple lustre in certain lights, without even being printed on


Too late bought one, probably won't print too many pics though as we frequently wait for offers from the various photo-sites. Nobody would want copies of all my pics anyway (even me). Happy to look at them on screen [tis rumoured that I'm tighter than a.......fill your own in here]

Bernard

What is Cloud printing all about?

When my wife wants to print from her iPad she gets messages telling her to open a Google account and print to the Cloud (or words to that effect)

So does that mean she has to send the text to a server in who knows where so that it can send it back to the printer which is metres away. So it will only work when we are connected to the internet? (which was down for 30 odd hours recently)


I'm getting old

Bernard

With the Kodak printers you can set them up for "Cloud" printing. Ie. printing over the internet. You can setup the Kodak printer to have an email address that you email stuff to, or a Google Cloud printer, the setup is on the Kodak software on your PC. (Kodak All in One Home Center, Cloud printer setup).

What’s wrong with just pressing a button, tell about technical complications for complications sake.

Take care.

But thats just it.
The internet has proven to be unreliable and even when apparently fully working emails can and have take(n) several hours to get through.

The whole idea is that she can print without having to rely on my PC, otherwise whats the point.

Printer upstairs
iPad down stairs

Internet Cloud somewhere in California?
Might just as well have a long USB cable


Bernard

If you print a monochrome picture the printer still uses some coloured ink. To get true B&W you need to check the grayscale box in advanced settings.

I wonder if we'll be able to get Kodak ink for much longer?

I would hope that while people still have these printers, there'll at least be someone out there making compatible ink cartridges even if Kodak cease to trade. I would have thought that printers would be part of the Kodak business more likely to survive though.

Kodak are not dead yet and much of the organisation across the world may well survive. Chapter 11 gives them time to sort things out hopefully, but we'll see.

One analyst commented that part of Kodak's downfall was not only their late entry into digital and particularly the lack of a digital 'Brownie' but their commitment to printers and printing when everyone wants to view on screen rather than paper.

I have no doubt that the Kodak name will be around for a while yet. It is too big a marque to vanish and has a vast, untapped vault of intellectual property to exploit.

The strange thing is that most domestic printers are (effectively) given away. You can buy a good printer for £30 which is far less than the cost of manufacture, the idea being that you then buy ink which keeps the company in profit.

The problem is, when ink costs more than the printer many people just throw the printer away when the ink is finished and buy another!

I recently bought the Canon Pixma for £40, not for printing but because it has a form-feed fax and scanner. I will probably never buy ink for it.

Although a much smaller company, Blacks Leisure recently went under, and the assets were immediately purchased from the administrator, which was cheaper than buying the company before it went down.

The same could easily happen to Kodak. I can't see many people wanting to buy the company, with all its unknown liabilities. I suspect that it will disappear totally, just like Woolworths and Blacks. There is apparently some intellectual property in the form of patents which will have a value, but I don't see the printer division finding a buyer, especially in the current market.

G

Kodak has to be one of the dumbassed companies ever. The company that invented the digital camera, didn't exploit it, stayed in the compact market. Didn't start to exploit its patents until it was too late.

Invented Kodak CD & when Bill Gates approached Kodak to include it within windows & thus a percentage of every Windows sale, the Kodak CEO fell asleep.

Concentrated on printers when the market had bottomed out & people started to post images to facebook & twitter..

Finally they turned down the opportunity to be the official film for Olympics 84 LA leaving the path wide open for Fuji Film to do it instead, compare Fuji to Kodak...

I hope they do survive, but to be honest when companies drop clangers like Kodak have somehow they deserve to fail...

How Kodak squnadered every chance it had link

Just as people used to buy film in bulk and freeze it, I wonder whether it would be worth buying a lot of Kodak ink and storing it somewhere cool (freezing might be a bad idea).

In a year's time it might be difficult to get Kodak ink (or expensive) and compatible stuff is seldom as good as the original.

At least with a printer, they cost so little that if you have to throw it away, it won't be the end of the world.

G

Generally in the past my printers have ended up becoming defective / temperamental / possessed by evil spirits after a relatively short while so it was always a pleasure to throw them out and get a new model. The Kodak one seems to have them licked on reliability and user-friendliness, so I hope ink will be available for a good while yet! And compatible stuff will be fine for everyday printing...