little_printer1We’ve taken websites, that we used to print out on full-sized paper, and shrunk them down to fit on handheld devices. So shouldn’t we shrink the print down, too? That seems to be the premise behind the Little Printer, a cute little device about the size of an alarm clock whose purpose is to print out information from the web onto a cash-register-receipt-sized paper strip.

The device will sync with a smartphone app so that you can decide what services you want to print out, then print paper copies of to-do lists, social network notifications, news stories, and so on. It’s the first element of a household appliance cloud system from its manufacturer, Berg, and should soon integrate with other home electronics.

It’s kind of the opposite of the “paperless office”—indeed, it seems to hark back to the days when strips of paper bearing stock symbols emerged from under little glass domes—but it might very well catch on with people who would like to have the tactile experience of interacting with their electronic lives on paper.

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