Economies of Ink
Welcome
© Joe Casad, Editor in Chief
The "paperless office" was once the dazzling vision of futurists and keynote speakers. Tech blogs and efficiency gurus have been talking about eliminating printers for at least 20 years, but it never really happened – or at least, not yet.
Dear Reader,
The "paperless office" was once the dazzling vision of futurists and keynote speakers. Tech blogs and efficiency gurus have been talking about eliminating printers for at least 20 years, but it never really happened – or at least, not yet. Despite the predictions, contracts, school compositions, tax forms, and other essential documents sometimes require the corporeal manifestation that comes with a printer. In other cases, printing is just easier. I often print the articles I'm editing just because I like to make notes in the margins and draw lines and arrows to sketch out changes.
Printers are still around, but they are subject to the same forces that are affecting the rest of the industry. So even though they look the same, the business arrangements surrounding them are rapidly changing. So-called cloud printing has been with us for several years now. How do we make printers even "smarter"? And is "smart" always good?
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Digital Autonomy
• How the Fediverse Found Parts for Its Platforms
• The Answer Was Already on the Shelf
• Changing the Chip Industry: How Public Investment Has Grown Open Silicon
• United Nations Open Source Portal Goes Live
• EU Open Source Strategy Plays Key Role in Tech Sovereignty Package
• France Says “Au Revoir” to Microsoft
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Working Exploit for a Linux Kernel Flaw Made Public
Even before a bug received its CVE identifier or an upstream fix, the local privilege escalation vulnerability exploit found its way into the wild.
-
r/opensource Bans AI-Assisted and AI-Related Projects
The de facto subreddit for all things open source has not only banned AI-related projects but also users who "don't speak English."
-
Bottlenecks Discovered by Meta Engineers Lead to Scalability Improvements
Thanks to a small group of engineers at Meta, the Linux kernel module kernfs has been improved, which has led to some serious gains.
-
PwnEscape Poses VM Vulnerability
A guest-to-host escape flaw in Linux KVM, named PwnEscape, might be yet another means of attacking Linux.
-
Linux Mint 27 Set for a Christmas Release
The developers behind Linux Mint have announced a Christmas release, and it looks like Santa's sack will be brimming with features.
-
Is Linus Torvalds Vibe Coding?
The creator of Linux has added AI into his process for Linux kernel development, and it's more than just for debugging.
-
openKylin 3.0 Released with Expanded AI Integration
The latest release features a pre-installed AI agent to help perform tasks.
-
DigitalOcean Ends Open Source Credits Program
In a change that has surprised many open source developers, DigitalOcean has decided to sunset its Open Source Credits Program.
-
Office 365 Available for Testing on Linux via Bottles
Linux users can now test the official Office 365, thanks to Mirko Brombin's work on Bottles.
-
Dutch Government Turns to Open Source for Digital Sovereignty
Following in the footsteps of other European countries, the Netherlands is looking to increase its sovereign digital infrastructure with open source software.