Nokia, Samsung, and Siemens have teamed up with big names in printers to ensure that printing from mobile phones becomes as easy as desktop printing.
The Mobile Imaging and Printing Consortium (MIPC) today announced that mobile handset makers Nokia, Samsung, and Siemens have become strategic members of the consortium. MIPC is an industry group founded by Canon, Epson, and HP to drive solutions and implementation guidelines for providing users with easy to use mobile printing of pictures taken with camera phones.
MIPC expects to have their first set of printing guidelines available during the second half of 2004. Existing connectivity technology standards and solutions such as Bluetooth wireless technology, printing from memory cards and PictBridge will be the underlying connectivity platforms for the consortium's work. What if any licensing conditions there will be for the consortium's guidelines is unclear.
According to research firm InfoTrends, camera phone users will print over five billion images in 2004. That number is expected to grow to 37.2 billion printed pictures in 2008, when, InfoTrend predicts, 85% of all mobile phones sold will include an embedded camera.
Many models of printer already include Bluetooth support or flash card slots to facilitate printing, but most do not. Elements such as directory structures on cards and file naming standards would also have to be included for a ubiquitous "plug and print" standard to take root.
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