RFID tags are an alternative technology to printed barcodes, which provide an automatic means of delivering product data without direct contact between the tag, or transponder, and the reader device. Indeed, unlike barcodes there is no requirement for the tag to be in the line of sight of the reader. RFID tags are, unfortunately, relatively expensive compared to barcodes and their uses are not as widespread. The ability to produce RFID tags at a fraction of the present cost could change that.

There are several techniques used to deposit an antenna on plastics: etching, electroplating; and on paper: screen printing, flexography and offset lithography. Now, Camille Ramade and colleagues at the University of Montpellier have demonstrated how a simple thermal evaporation process can deposit an aluminum coil antenna on to paper for use as an RFID tag. Aluminum is a lot less expensive than copper or silver, which are used in some types of RFID tag. The researchers suggest that the approach would reduce the cost of RFID tagging to a fifth of current prices, which could represent significant savings for inventory users operating millions of RFID tags in their systems.

“Prototypes are functional and easily detected by the reader; the next step is to optimize the design for each family of RFID chips. This will significantly improve performance while maintaining the same low-cost technology on paper,” the team says.

Google says dozens of cloud-ready printers have been released by manufacturers like Epson, HP and Kodak. Back in March, it was announced that all HP e-print enabled printers were Cloud Print-friendly.

Google says developers have released “a flurry” of apps and extentsions to enable cloud printing from Android and iOS. Android apps include: Google Docs, Cloud Print BETA, PrinterShare Mobile Print, Cloud Printer and Easy Print. On iOS it’s PrintCentral Pro. On any mobile device, it’s Mobile Google Apps, The Web (any web page wher eyou see a “print” button with the Cloud Print logo), and Kodak Email Print.

I don’t know if that’s a “flurry,” but it’s certainly a start.

On Chrome OS, you can simpy use Cloud Print from Chrome. On Mac and Windows, there is Cloud Printer and again, the web.

“While developers and printer manufacturers have embraced GCP, we’ve also released a variety of improvements to the service,” says product manager Akshay Kannan. “You can now share and control access to your printers so your friends and family can use them too. With “Save to Google Docs,” it’s easy to save your online receipts and confirmation pages to an archive in the cloud. The management page has a new tablet-friendly design and a “Print” button so you can upload and print files to your cloud printers from anywhere.”

Webmasters can add the print button element to their site to printing.

“People with Chromebooks have always had access to the latest and greatest Google Cloud Print features, but today, we’ve reached a new milestone: starting with the latest release of Chrome, anyone using the browser on Windows, Mac and Linux will be able to print any webpage to Google Cloud Print,” says Kannan. “We’ve also turned on print preview for Chromebooks, so you’ll get the same familiar experience wherever you use Chrome.”

Google says Cloud Print will come to more Google products in the coming months.

“Connected to the Web, Little Printer has wide range of sources available to check on your behalf. We call them “publications”. Subscribe to your favourites and choose when you’d like them delivered. Right on time Little Printer gathers everything it needs to prepare a neat little personalised package, printed as soon as you press the button. You can get deliveries multiple times a day, but we find once or twice works best–like your very own morning or evening newspaper“, according to the Little Printer site.

Matt Webb of BERG states, “We have an incredible group of launch partners, and in the run-up to shipping we’re working with them all on custom publications.” The launch partners for the Little Printer are: Arup, foursquare, Google, the Guardian, and Nike.

Below are some of the items you can choose to print in your publication:

Daily Puzzles – Subscribe to puzzles to take on your commute. Choose between easy, medium and hard.
Headlines – Wake up to the world’s top headlines. Subscribe to specific sections for business updates or the latest sports news.
To-Do – Carry today’s most important tasks with you in your pocket.
Foursquare – Grab the latest check-ins on your way out of the door, and pick your destination on the move.
Partworks – Choose from a variety of subjects from art to architecture, typography to butterflies.
Running Coach – Plan your next run with the help of a personal running coach. Tick on completion and keep a record of your progress.
Publications – Use Remote on your iPhone or Android smartphone to add and manage new publications.
Birthdays – A useful reminder of who will be celebrating this week.

The Littler Printer will come with an accompanying iOS and Andorid app, so you can configure your publication and print wirelessly.

The question has to be asked: is this a clever gadget or will it just be a waste of paper? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

What AirPrint does, is automatically find printers on local networks and print text, photos and graphics to them wirelessly over Wi-Fi. There is no need to install drivers or download software. 

HP’s existing and upcoming ePrint enabled printers will be the first to support Airprint. Compatible printers include: the HP Photosmart, Officejet, Officejet Pro and LaserJet Pro series ePrint enabled printers.

"AirPrint is Apple’s powerful new printing architecture that matches the simplicity of iOS—no set up, no configuration, no printer drivers and no software to download," said Philip Schiller, Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Product Marketing. "iPad, iPhone and iPod touch users can simply tap to print their documents or photos wirelessly to an HP ePrint printer or to a printer shared on a Mac or PC."

"We’re pleased to work with Apple to bring Apple’s AirPrint to our fall lineup of ePrint printers in time for the holiday shopping season," said Vyomesh Joshi, HP executive VP, Imaging and Printing Group. "Making it easy for our customers to print anytime, anywhere, is a key priority for HP. iPad, iPhone and iPod touch customers are going to love how easy it is to print using our new range of ePrint printers, creating high-quality printed pages in an instant."

Apple says Airprint will support a wide range of inkjet and laser printers. iOS 4.2 devices can print to printers shared through Macs or PCs. 

AirPrint will work with iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (second generation and later).

Google has a similar offering called CloudPrint, but it’s not yet available. It will be supported by web apps, Android apps, iPhone apps, Chrome OS, etc. – "any type of application" Google says.

"Rather than rely on the local operating system (or drivers) to print, apps can use Google Cloud Print to submit and manage print jobs," explains product manager Mike Jazayeri. "Google Cloud Print will then be responsible for sending the print job to the appropriate printer with the particular options the user selected, and returning the job status to the app."

It’s important to understand that Google Cloud Print is in the early stages of development, and there’s no telling when it might become available, but Google has released all the documentation and code as part of its open source Chromium and Chromium OS projects.

My guess is that they will want to make something available before too long, as the release of the Google Chrome OS devices gets closer. In case you don’t remember, that’s Google’s web-based operating system, on which all applications on a device are run from the cloud.

"While the emergence of cloud and mobile computing has provided users with access to information and personal documents from virtually any device, today’s printers still require installing drivers which makes printing impossible from most of these new devices. Developing and maintaining print subsystems for every combination of hardware and operating system– from desktops to netbooks to mobile devices — simply isn’t feasible," says Jazayeri. "Since in Google Chrome OS all applications are web apps, we wanted to design a printing experience that would enable web apps to give users the full printing capabilities that native apps have today."

Google says it will have more information to share about which Google products will use Google Cloud Print in the coming months. The company will eventually offer an API for any app to use it.

The company expects "cloud aware" printers to become standard, although it acknowledges that none exist today. Google says it will engage with the printer OEM community in the coming months to help drive the effort forward.

For regular printers, users will be able to install a print proxy on their PCs to enable functionality with Google Cloud Print.

The first stage of the partnership is anticipated to include an HP branded print button enabling MySpace users to preview and print photos directly from their MySpace profiles.

"The MySpace platform is home to approximately 4 billion images and our users, from teens to grandparents will now have an easier way to share their digital assets," says MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe. " We’re excited to partner with HP, a leader in the printer market, to provide them with new tools to now print their photos directly from MySpace and share their memories offline as well." I’m not sure what is so exciting about this feature, being how it’s not too hard to go to the URL of any posted photo and simply print it, but I suppose the added convenience of the print button isn’t a bad thing.

I don’t think I’m the only one unimpressed though. "It seems a little excessive – I can’t imagine wanting to print out anyone’s MySpace profile, and running promotions to print across the entire site isn’t very green either," says Jason Kinkaid at TechCrunch. "I wonder if MySpace’s official Green site Our Planet will include the Print widget, too." Mashable’s Leslie Poston brings up privacy as a concern as well:

In order for the technology to work, HP and MySpace will be “unlocking” user profile data to format for printing. What this means for users of MySpace with private profiles is that their friends will be able to print their profile photos once they are allowed to view their profile page. I’m not sure this will cause Facebook and Beacon level angst among users, but I’m thinking MySpace and HP might want to make this opt-in for those with private profiles before launch just in case.

Again, unless I’m missing something, I don’t see any difference than just printing from the image’s URL. I guess the main thing is that not everyone knows how to right click on an image, copy the link location, and paste it into the address bar and print it. Perhaps the new feature will let you size the image to the paper?

At some point the companies expect to provide the ability to create and print personalized merchandise with photos from MySpace. The new printing features will be rolled out on MySpace next month in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Western Europe.