Presto: It's for Printing!


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.

The printer costs $150 and then the Presto service is $10 per month. It’s a reasonable enough price, that shouldn’t be an issue given the demographic—old people are swimming in cash.

The main limitation in my eyes is that there is no reply function. I know this sort of flies in the face of the error-proof design, but I think people are quickly going to want to send their own emails. Just because their customer base isn’t tech savvy, doesn’t mean they don’t want to talk back. Maybe they won’t think so initially, but I’m willing to bet that they change their minds quickly. I wonder how Presto will respond to that new demand.

Presto: Because Computers Scare Old People [TechCrunch]