Printers and printer systems having cellular input/output
View Patent ↗In one embodiment, a system comprises a printer configured to provide one or more print services, one or more processors associated with the printer, and a cellular interface associated with the printer and through which one or more print services can be accessed by a cellular phone. One or more computer-readable media are associated with the printer, and computer-readable instructions on the computer-readable media are executable by the processor(s) to cause the processor(s) to enable the printer to be accessed by a cellular phone and provide one or more print services for a user of the cellular phone.
1. A system comprising:
a printer configured to provide one or more print services;
one or more processors associated with the printer;
a cellular interface associated with the printer and through which the one or more print services can be accessed by a cellular phone;
one or more computer-readable media associated with the printer;
computer-readable instructions on the one or more computer-readable media which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to enable the printer to be accessed by a cellular phone and provide one or more print services for a resource received directly from the cellular phone; and
a location service capable of providing a location of a nearest cellularly-configured printer to a cellular user.
2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the instructions cause the one or more processors to:
receive, from the cellular phone, an indication of a resource that is to be printed; and
use the indication to retrieve and print the resource.
3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the printer uses the indication by accessing a network and using the indication to retrieve the resource.
4. The system of claim 2 , wherein the printer uses the indication by accessing the Internet and using the indication to retrieve the resource.
5. The system of claim 2 , wherein the indication comprises a URL.
6. The system of claim 2 , wherein the indication does not comprise the resource itself.
7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the cellular interface is configured to facilitate direct communication to the printer via a cellular telephone network.
8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the locations service provides a location of a nearest printer having a cellular card.
9. A printer comprising:
a cellular interface;
a computer readable medium storing instructions for operating the printer including communicating with other devices through the cellular interface to receive, format, and print resources received directly from a cellular device via the cellular interface;
a processor for executing instructions stored on the computer readable medium; and
a print unit operatively coupled to the processor.
10. The printer of claim 9 , wherein the cellular interface comprises a cellular port and a cellular card.
11. The printer of claim 9 , wherein the resources received directly from the cellular device via the cellular interface comprise images to be printed by the printer.
12. A system comprising:
a printer configured to provide one or more print services;
one or more processors associated with the printer;
a cellular interface associated with the printer and through which the one or more print services can be accessed by a cellular phone;
one or more computer-readable media associated with the printer;
computer-readable instructions on the one or more computer-readable media which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to enable the printer to be accessed by a cellular phone and provide one or more print services for a resource to be printed; and
a location service capable of providing a location of a nearest cellularly-configured printer to a cellular user.