HP just announced a new printer that prints directly from the Internet. It's like an iPhone interface met a piece of office equipment, fell in love, got married and flipped off the matchmaker (in this case, the computer).

It's being billed as the world's first Web-connected computer. There are a lot of great wireless features like movie tickets from Fandango and photos printed directly from online sites, but the one HP executives were practically giddy about is the ability to print coupons directly from Coupons.com.

Monday's New York Times had a good story about retired HP employees serving the company in a variety of ways. The work is unpaid, and that's fine by these folks -- a group ranging from still-very-vital college professors in their early '60's, right on up to guys in their '90s (some of whom retired wealthy through years of HP stock accumulation), who recall lunching with Mssrs. Hewlett and Packard themselves.

If it's not about the money, and knowing that many of these people have other (paying) things to do, what gives? Particularly when you read that the work can include Saturdays at Circuit City touting HP laptops to listless aisle crawlers.

It's about social connection. During our working lives, and I'd argue even more in retirement, we need to feel like we belong to something bigger than ourselves.