Sometimes the deluge of digital content spurrs a fondness to touch paper, objects, or the real-physical world. This is no exception.
With this in mind, after its announcement back in November, the Berg miniature printer has spurred quite a bit of uncontrollable excitement. The British design consultancy firm Berg is using their new product to engage people with technology from a different approach. The printer uses cheap inkless receipt paper to print its news feed and can be customized to print out what you would like. Users can print out news headlines, puzzles, messages, and friend's birthday remainders through connections with Google and Foursquare. All the subscriptions can be organized and controlled through the Berg Cloud Remote smart phone app.
In addition, it can sit almost anywhere it can reach an outlet, without taking up much space due to its small size. The box itself is 3.3 inches wide and about 5 inches from front to back. Within the small box with a cute face on it is a zero-configuration wireless unit which allows it to connect to the web via Berg Cloud Bridge. Pre-orders are now available and will be shipped with 3 rolls of paper, an Ethernet cable, and a power cord.
Although the little box looks cute and has gotten much praise, everyone can agree it is something that is unnecessary. Most of the news you would have it print out can easily be accessed through a smart phone on the go, and a small slip of paper could not possibly hold that much information. At $259, this printer it almost seems too expensive for most people to afford. However, during a time of increasingly amazing HD displays for phones and tablets, something seems comforting about receiving your news on paper again. That may be enough to keep this little printer around and successful for a while.
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