Printing in ubiquitous computing environments

Abstract

Document printing has long been considered an indispensable part of the workspace. While this process is considered trivial and simple for environments where resources are ample (e.g. desktop computers connected to printers within a corporate network), it becomes complicated when applied in a mobile context. Contemporary mobile devices have the computational resources required for document processing and are affordable enough for an increasingly large number of users. Therefore, document printing using mobile devices is now both technically feasible and relevant to users' needs. In this study, we present an infrastructure for document printing using mobile devices. In order to realize the vision, we utilize an existing set of network protocols, a set of common programming languages, standard concepts of ubiquitous computing, and machine learning, in order to automate the printing process. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.