Little Printer: A Newsfeed of Your Internet Life

Remember how all the offices of important businessmen in old, black and white movies had that strange, ticking, glass-domed device that sat on a pedestal and churned out a constant steam of narrow paper strips? All the important information from around the world--war, Wall Street, politics--seemed to come through that little contraption. 

Well what do you know? Looks like the 21st century just welcomed something similar of its own--though vastly updated to work with your phone or computer via the Cloud. The Little Printer prints out "news, puzzles and gossip" from your friends or whatever you subscribe it to, creating a timely, mini-newspaper of only what you want to read. You can get "deliveries" as often as you like, printing your very own, personalized morning and evening newspaper.

It works like this: you set up your Little Printer to subscribe to a few friends on Twitter, the Wall Street Journal or your favorite food blog, whatever you want really. Hit print when you wake up and review your 10" - 12" strip of news over your morning coffee.

Necessary? Maybe not. Damn nifty though? Yes, yes we think it is.

The printer runs on thermal paper, meaning it doesn't use any ink. If you print once a day, a single roll will last about two and a half months. It collects ephemeral web content into one space and makes it tangible. No clicking around from site to site, sorting through the usual Internet junk to get to what you want. This puts it all in your hands. Of course, not everything is worth a print out, but that's why you decide what you want to read and what you don't. Think of it as your way to filter all the unnecessary status updates and pointless Tweets, like the one about the amazing blueberry muffin your semi-acquaintance just ate.

"Printing really makes a statement, so Little Printer makes beautiful and concise deliveries: it prints out only what matters. That’s why publications have to be designed – Little Printer doesn’t print out entire activity feeds, and you can make an informed choice about the publications you receive."

Fall into the "I want one no matter what you say" camp? Well, Little Printer is still going through a bit more testing, but it should be available in June 2012. Preorder yours or join the mailing list to receive updates (and then print this here blog out every day!)

-- Perrin Drumm