14 DAY TRIAL // Seiko and Canon, the second and the third ranked inkjet printer makers in the world, are hoping to include in the future home networks their printers, but not anywhere - in the living room.
Both companies announced that are developing printers that can be connected to digital TV sets. The future printers will work with services that broadcast data and that could offer coupons related to TV commercials or program related information like travel destination or recipes. All of them will work only formatted for printing on regular paper sheets.
Seiichi Hirano, Chief Executive of Epson's imaging products division said that "Digital TV printing is something you might hear a lot about soon". He added that "people want to take information from anywhere they can and we think digital TV is an excellent way to achieve this". "Epson believes the role of printers will expand even more as new printing contents become available. Epson is aiming to promote a new printing culture as TV moves from analog to digital," said Hirano. "We believe the opportunity for digital TV printing is unlimited."
Cannon estimates that almost 5 million TV connected printers will be sold by 2001. Also, last year in Japan a similar service was launched, but the lack of standard for connecting TVs and printers led to unsuccessful service.