This is something that may be near and dear to your hearts: Mom and Dad are calling to ask about this porn pop-up phishing thing they just typed all their credit card info into. Or maybe Grandma wants to make a MySpace page. Regardless of the situation, you have some older folks in your life who probably have a computer. If you’re reading this, you’re good at computers. Therefore, you’re the one who gets the call. This Help Key is for you. → Read More
As we reported recently, Presto is a service that aims to bring e-mail to those incapable of operating a computer. It uses a special printer designed by HP that hooks up to your phone line to print e-mails. The thought is that those without the slightest inkling of technical knowledge will still be able to receive e-mails from their friends and family. In some capacity, the idea makes sense. I currently live with my parents (I know, I know) and their lack of technical knowledge often couldn’t be more infuriating. Giving them easy reign over e-mail seems like more of a benefit to me than it’d ever be to them. But is it really a good idea? → Read More
A new service has launched that aims to bring the joys of receiving emails to the Luddite horde. Presto uses a special printer designed by HP. The printer hooks up to a regular phone line, no need for broadband, and automagically prints emails that come to a unique users@presto.com address. Now the first thing I questioned was how the system avoids spam. Well to circumvent this obvious problem, it only receives emails from accepted friends, so no print spam for Viagra and/or midget porn. → Read More
A silicon valley startup called Presto has quietly launched a new service aimed at people who don’t currently have Internet access, but want to be able to receive emails and photos from loved ones. It combines a special printer produced by Hewlett Packard with a web service that sends data to the printer over a normal phone line – no need for internet access or a computer. Featured prominently throughout the Presto website are pictures of happy old people receiveing photos from (younger, presumably tech savvy) loved ones. My guess, based on those ubiquitous pictures, is that old people are the target demographic for the Presto service. Teasing aside, Presto looks like a pretty cool service for some people (possibly the parents and grandparents of TechCrunch readers). The printer costs $150. Take it out of the box and feed it electricity and a normal phone line. No need for broadband internet service. You are assigned a special @presto.com email address, and when someone sends photos or other content to that email address, it prints out on the printer. The old person user simply takes it off the printer and looks at it. We’ll be getting a test version of the printer and service and will post a more lengthy review after a hands on experience. The service itself costs another $10 per month, which is where Presto makes their money. HP makes their money off of the ink cartridges that people will buy after using the service. I do have a spam concern. It’s a pretty good bet that spammers will be sending mass emails to %@presto.com, knowing that a hard copy will be printed out and delivered to the end user. I’m sure Presto will have filters in place to deal with most of this. But I also wonder if Presto’s incentive to sell advertisers the right to send a limited amount of “special offers” to Presto users will become too great to ignore over time, perhaps in exchange for a free or reduced price account. We’ll see. Presto is backed by Kleiner Perkins and Clearstone Venture Partners. Update: I should have done this before, but I dug into the potential spam issue a little more. You have to be an accepted sender for the printer to accept the email, so unsolicited spam will not be printed. However, to access the user account to accept/reject friends requires a computer, → Read More
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