Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink • Hacker News Board

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#161

Post by Al-Khwarizmi » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:12 PM UTC

vlovich123 wrote: post #85

chaoskanzlerin wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of jurisdictions where "pasting a scanned signature into a pdf" doesn't produce a legally valid signature. Germany requires some signing software for pdfs - though printed-signed-scanned documents are also legally valid signatures

Show me someone who can tell the difference between pasting a signature in a pdf vs printed-signed-scanned? There was a legislature in America that tried to define pi as 3 so irrational laws are not surprising.

If you go that route, most people can't tell the difference between a person's signature and a different person faking their signature.

By the way, in Spain printed-signed-scanned wouldn't be legally valid either, unless a notary has seen the original and can certify that it coincides with their own handwritten signature. Otherwise it's either original handwritten signature, or digital signature in a digital PDF file, or printed digital signature with a secure validation code that you can verify in some URL.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#162

Post by EvanAnderson » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

colanderman wrote: post #112

alerighi wrote: post #18

I stopped buying inkjet printers. They are a scam, the ink costs a fortune and they are built as cheap as they can, meaning that they will break and you have to throw them away because they are impossible to repair, they are slow and when you need them they don't work because they were not used for too much time. After having 5 broken printers in the garage I said enough, that is a useless waste, and invested some mo…

Careful with off-brand toner. The toner particles are often jagged rather than smooth, which can damage the fuser roller, requiring replacement. This happened to me after a few years of using off-brand toner. I was able to perform the repair myself, and granted the cost wasn't as much as buying on-brand toner, but it was challenging (lots of delicate parts) and I don't wish to repeat the experience.

The bigger problem I've seen w/ off-brand toner are refilled cartridges that are poorly plugged and end up leaking toner all over the inside of the printer. Toner is a nightmare to clean up, and once you get toner deep into the nooks and crannies of a printer you'll never get clean paper output again.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#163

Post by toast0 » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

dreamcompiler wrote: post #101

alerighi wrote: post #18

I stopped buying inkjet printers. They are a scam, the ink costs a fortune and they are built as cheap as they can, meaning that they will break and you have to throw them away because they are impossible to repair, they are slow and when you need them they don't work because they were not used for too much time. After having 5 broken printers in the garage I said enough, that is a useless waste, and invested some mo…

Inkjet printers can do a fantastic job of printing photos and color documents, and maybe four times a year I would really like to do that at home. Unfortunately nobody seems to have built an inkjet printer with nozzles that don't gunk up, and cleaning the nozzles doesn't work very well and uses more ink and time than the document you wanted to print in the first place. It's probably possible to design an inkjet print…

Inkjets work ok and get a lot less gunky if you use them frequently. The problem that I have (and I assume you do too), is if I'm printing a couple of times a year, it's hard to spend two or three times the amount on a laser printer than a cheak inkjet. Even though the laser printer is the right answer. I did end up getting a laser printer last year when my child was printing a lot from chromebooks and Chrome OS stopped supporting cloud print, but also didn't support my inkjet (via network or usb). Shopping at CDW Outlet helped a bunch with pricing, but you have to be in the shopping phase when the right inventory is there.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#164

Post by NAG3LT » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

aboringusername wrote: post #9

To me it is a reminder that all cornerstones of society are entangled in this battle for rights and freedoms, others include Sideloading on iOS, alternative app stores etc Farmers getting access to diagnostics for their tractors Not having to buy subscription-ink (looking at HP here...) Standardized charging systems (USB-C) over proprietary cables like Lightning. Amazon fighting the definition of a library - they mos…

Not just now - EU has pushed for a common phone charger previously and most manufacturers went with Micro-USB at the time, except Apple. Now, EU is just pushing that further with less loopholes.

As for the time between adoption and enforcement - there has to be reasonable time given between for everybody to adjust to the new regulation.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#165

Post by juniperplant » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

dsego wrote: post #77

alerighi wrote: post #18

I stopped buying inkjet printers. They are a scam, the ink costs a fortune and they are built as cheap as they can, meaning that they will break and you have to throw them away because they are impossible to repair, they are slow and when you need them they don't work because they were not used for too much time. After having 5 broken printers in the garage I said enough, that is a useless waste, and invested some mo…

Are the new ones with refill bottles instead of ink cartridges any better?

I own an Epson EcoTank ET-2650.

Despite costing more than traditional inkjet printers, I find that build quality is not that great (cheap creaking plastic, scanner bed occasionally detatching from its hinge).

Another issue I have with it is that ink level reporting is inaccurate; indeed, the manual itself recommends to visually inspect the tanks, which are semi-transparent and can be observed without opening the printer. However, I found that it's impossible to do that because dried ink covering the inner surface of the tank makes it impossible to distinguish the actual ink level line. Because of that, I have to remember to look inside the tanks to check if a refill is needed from time to time.

That said, ink lasts ages and refilling is cheap compared to cartridges, so overall I'm happier with it than with any other traditional inkjet printer.

If you don't need color printing, laser is the way.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#166

Post by EvanAnderson » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #20

alerighi wrote: post #18

I stopped buying inkjet printers. They are a scam, the ink costs a fortune and they are built as cheap as they can, meaning that they will break and you have to throw them away because they are impossible to repair, they are slow and when you need them they don't work because they were not used for too much time. After having 5 broken printers in the garage I said enough, that is a useless waste, and invested some mo…

The exception is if you print photos. There’s not really a good alternative to inkjet, except RA-4, which is out of reach for consumers.

There some thermal dye sublimation printers targeted at the home market for making 4x6" prints. The cost-per-print is pretty hideous compared to a local store's photo dept. or online photo printing services, but the quality is pretty good and the units seem to get good reviews. I've seen them used for print-on-demand at events (think "photo booths", etc).

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#167

Post by foofoo4u » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

egberts1 wrote: post #47

Brothers LaserJet. No malware, no adware, no funky drivers; just colored, WiFi, LP-protocol, multi-tray PCL and PS support. Best thing since sliced bread.

Same here. Brother is the only printer brand I have used thus far that doesn't feel like its trying to scam me for my money.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#168

Post by kqr2 » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

egberts1 wrote: post #47

Brothers LaserJet. No malware, no adware, no funky drivers; just colored, WiFi, LP-protocol, multi-tray PCL and PS support. Best thing since sliced bread.

Don't the recent Brother printers require a chip id for toner cartridges? I believe you can transfer the chips but it still seems user unfriendly.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#169

Post by 13415 » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #52

dv_dt wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After similar shenanigans from HP, I went to Brother laser printers and haven’t looked back since.

I do not understand how the other printer brands are even in business when Brother is an option. I feel like their reputation for being the best in the consumer space would have spread far and wide by now. I have been able to scan all of my documents with their MFC line directly to my Dropbox (or box or drive or onedrive) account for over 6 years now, AND Brother Web Connect automatically OCR’s them.

They can be surprisingly hard to get in some areas of the world. For example, I live in Portugal and larger shops like Worten, Fnac, El Corte Ingles have anything but Brother printers. Even IT providers for business and PC shops rarely have them in stock. You can mail-order them from Brother Portugal but not many people know that and will do that.

It's quite mysterious and I'd like to know the reasons.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#170

Post by bootlooped » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

jsilence wrote: post #44

Not to be meant snarky, but I think the office world should strive to print much less at all. Working at a University it is mind boggling to me how much paper is waster because someone internally decided they need a real signature. Not all my colleagues are savyy enough to paste a scanned signature into a pdf.

I had a networking class in a computer lab where there was an unmetered printer. Almost all student accessible printers on campus cost money to use; I can only guess this slipped through the cracks somehow. Every day some idiot would be printing off entire power point presentations for all the lectures she was in and who knows what else. The printer would be running for the first half the class. Disgusting wastefulness.