Inkjet printer manufacturers continue to pioneer imaginative ways to create real-world, desktop dystopias that make Black Mirror look optimistic by comparison: one such nightmare is HP's "subscription" printers where a small amount of money buys you ink cartridges that continuously communicate with HP's servers to validate that you're still paying for your subscription, and if you cancel, the ink stops working. Read the rest

You remember when HP tricked its users into downgrading their printers by sending them a fake "security update" that actually made the printers refuse third-party and refilled ink cartridges? Read the rest

Epson has taken a page from HP's dirty-tricks playbook to ensure that no one can compete with them by selling ink at affordable prices. Read the rest

In March 2016, HP sent millions of Inkjet and Inkject Pro owners a fake "security update" that was really a timebomb: six months later, in September 2016 (one year ago!), the "security update" code started rejecting third party ink, prompting nearly 15,000 complaints from HP owners. Read the rest

In my latest Locus column, "Demon-Haunted World," I propose that the Internet of Cheating Things -- gadgets that try to trick us into arranging our affairs to the benefit of corporate shareholders, to our own detriment -- is bringing us back to the Dark Ages, when alchemists believed that the universe rearranged itself to prevent them from knowing the divine secrets of its workings. Read the rest

The Swiss security research firm Modzero just published a report documenting a grave flaw in HP laptops: an audio-driver made by Conexant that captures every keystroke (to detect volume up/down and mute-button presses) and saves them to an unencrypted file on the local system, which can then be exfiltrated via a debugging API that allows remote parties to see every keystroke in realtime. Read the rest

The "nonpology" is a corporate standard: a company does something terrible, and then it tells you it's sorry that you found its behaviour upsetting. But HP's October 2016 public statement on its secret, aftermarket attack on its customers' property has made important advances in the field of nopologyology.

Only three days after EFF's open letter to HP over the company's deployment of a stealth "security update" that caused its printers to reject third-party cartridges, the company issued an apology promising to let customers optionally install another update to unbreak their printers. Read the rest

More than 10,000 people have signed onto EFF's open letter to HP CEO Dion Weisler, taking the company to task for its dirty trick of using a security update to revoke its customers' ability to print with third-party ink. Read the rest

I've written an open letter to HP CEO Dion Weisler on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, asking him to make amends for his company's bizarre decision to hide a self-destruct sequence in a printer update that went off earlier this month, breaking them so that they would no longer use third-party ink cartridges. Read the rest

On September 13, owners of HP OfficeJet, OfficeJet Pro and OfficeJet Pro X began contacting third-party ink vendors by the thousand, reporting that their HP printers no longer accepted third-party ink. Read the rest

Flagging computer company HP hasn't had a great decade, but for the new Spectre laptop it reintroduced a daring minimalist logo that's been spotted once or twice before, but is only now hitting products. Everyone loves it! So do I.

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HP's Spectre is thinner than all the others, and the company says that it is "more artisan than manufactured" in a promo video that touts its slim, jewelry-like design. The $1,170 laptop has an Intel Core i7 processor, 8 GB of memory and a 13" display. It's 2.5 pounds: heavier than the 12" MacBook and Lenovo Yoga, but lighter than pretty much anything else and much more powerful than those machines. Read the rest

Boing Boing is proudly sponsored by HP’s newest Color LaserJet Pro, the MFP M477!

Boing Boing is a truly distributed company. Each member of the team maintains a separate office, or lair, from which they work. Our Publisher, Jason, shares his home office with his two dogs, a cat, a lot of books, guitars, and a bunch of toys. In typical Happy Mutant style, Jason combines functional efficiency with his own offbeat aesthetic to create a space from which to publish Boing Boing.

Here are a few things that help make his office great:

Jason likes to have a lot of desk space, but physically can’t sit down for extended periods. He needed a very large standup desk. They don’t make them. As an aficionado of classic mid-century furnishings, he thought a mechanical Hamilton drafting table would do the trick. It did! By depressing a pedal with his foot, Jason adjusts the height of his work surface from sitting to standing and between. Swinging a lever lets him adjust the angle of the desktop from horizontal to vertical, transforming the surface into a whiteboard as needed.

Space is another huge consideration for Jason. His office is packed with musical instruments, props for various magic tricks, and a lot of books. The devices he needs to conduct business, like a printer, must be very carefully chosen. Through this course of this program, HP sent Jason an amazing new Color LaserJet, the MFP M477, to replace a seriously outdated C series inkjet. Read the rest

When National Security Agency director Michael Hayden told then-CEO-of-HP/now-Republican-presidential-hopeful Carly Fiorina he needed servers to put the entire USA under unconstitutional surveillance, she leapt into action to supply him with the materiel he needed. Read the rest

Sold! I love it. A breath of fresh air in a sea of MacBook clones, from the company responsible for half of them. How about a Windows model in similar vein, HP?

Meet the new HP Chromebook11 – an ultra-portable Chromebook made in close collaboration with Google. Inspired by the Pixel’s iconic design at an affordable $279.99(estimated street price), it’s made for everyone. The HP Chromebook11 is the first affordable Chromebook with a brilliant IPS display and first Chromebook ever to use USB charging. The 11.6-inch diagonal IPS screen provides clear images and a wide 176-degree viewing angle, making it easy to share your screen. With USB charging, you can use the same charger to charge your Android phone or tablet.

HP Chromebook11: Made with Google [HP] Read the rest

HP refused to service Chris's busted, warranty-covered Elitebook, because a small quantity of cat hair in the fan and on the board constituted a "biological hazard."

He seemed to relent later, and he pretty much agreed with me, so he talked to his supervisor (to make an appeal). Then he gets back on the phone with me and says that the supervisor said that there was SO MUCH cat hair that it's considered a biological hazard. That's absolutely ridiculous, and he wouldn't even give me the number for his supervisor or transfer me to him (why not?).

I probably have more cat hair on my shirt than what was in the laptop. Am I a walking "biological hazard"? I don't think so. Why don't they lock me up and throw me in jail for sending such a dangerous computer into HP's service center? Oh wait... because that's just an excuse to get out of a warranty.

Cat hair or not, I just want my computer fixed. It's a manufacturing defect, and it just so happens that the laptop is sprinkled with a bit of hair.

Can Owning A Cat Void Your HP Warranty? Read the rest