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Via BoingBoing, here’s an article from the Wall Street Journal about region coding. This is the practice of restricting usage of technology to particular section of the globe. The classic example is DVD players, which are set by default to only play DVDs from, say, Eastern Europe, Russia, India and Africa. HP has extended that dubious practice to the already-fraught world of inkjet cartridges:

The company introduced region-coding on several printers in the summer so it won’t have to keep altering prices to keep pace with currency movements, says Kim Holm, vice president for H-P’s supplies business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. H-P eventually plans to introduce the concept across its entire line of inkjet printers, he adds.

That reasoning sounds questionable to me. DVD region coding exists apparently to try to thwart piracy (China is in a region by itself). The actual effect is that consumers in Europe can’t necessarily enjoy cheaper DVDs from North America. The same result applies to the inkjet cartridges.

Of course, there’s usually a straightforward firmware hack to convert your DVD player to ‘multi-region’, meaning your can watch DVDs from Nepal or Morocco if you want.

UPDATE: BoingBoing features a follow-up from an HP employee: “One thing is for sure, the average customer will not understand, or care to understand, the issue of currency fluctuations! The HP bean counters should be smacked for that short sightedness and the bad press it will bring.”