Xerox Reveals Transient Documents

Heartless Gamer writes "Xerox has lifted the veil from some of its research and development work in the field of printing. They demoed the very intriguing 'transient documents.' These offer the prospect of reusable paper in the sense that the content is automatically erased after a period of time, ready for fresh printing. Inspired by the fact that many print outs have a life-span of a few hours (think of the emails you may print out just to read, or the content you proof read on the train journey back home), the specially prepared paper will preserve its content for up to 16 hours."

Comments

Nothing new, Concept-wise

[ackthpt]

I've got receipts which fade if left exposed to air, off those stupid thermal printers. And, as a bonus feature, they turn utterly black if you set something very hot on them. Possibly useful for taking pictures of the sun with a magnifying glass, if done with care.

We have a practice in our shop of taking non-sensitive documents and flipping the paper over and running it from a tray for re-use on the blank backside. Fine if people haven't scribbled on it or added a staple.

Re:Nothing new, Concept-wise

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got receipts which fade if left exposed to air, off those stupid thermal printers. And, as a bonus feature, they turn utterly black if you set something very hot on them. Possibly useful for taking pictures of the sun with a magnifying glass, if done with care.

I think the whole point of the Xerox thing is that you can then reprint on the same paper. I doubt you can reprint on the thermal paper for those receipts.

Re:Nothing new, Concept-wise

[njh]

We have a duplex printer.

Re:Nothing new, Concept-wise

[gooeee]

no I think this is a way to sell more ink or toner, or what ever this new printing mod uses!

Re:Nothing new, Concept-wise

[nacturation]

And your printer only accepts print jobs with a multiple of two pages?

Re:Nothing new, Concept-wise

[desenz]

What if the next job needs to be printed on both sides? Of course, you could just put in paper when its practical.

Great idea

[LiquidCoooled]

I can see this being used all ov r t e p a e i t a p o m n t w !!

PAPERLESS OFFICE

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Xerox can DIAF. They, Minolta-Konica, Canon, Kyocera, Mita, and others are perpetuating the paper-ful office.

Killing trees, and destroying our environment.

Who speaks for the trees?

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[andytrevino]

Who speaks for the trees?

The ents..!

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[ackthpt]

Who speaks for the trees?

I do. They're pleased these printers aren't made of wood.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, you do.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[glwtta]

Wouldn't a fire sufficient for Xerox to DIAF need a lot of wood?

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[AusIV]

It'll be a long time before paper can be completely eliminated from the office setting. Reusable paper decreases the number of trees killed.

As for destroying the environment that's just FUD.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[milatchi]

What about the Paperless Bathroom?

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[ackthpt]

What about the Paperless Bathroom?

Yeah! How about that?

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[ardor]

Well, Demolition Man introduced The Three Seashells.
Now I just have to find out how to use them.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[geekoid]

It's not FUD.

not all paper products come from tree farm, probably not even half.

Of course, the paper farm also destroy the local trees to make way for special trees.

Also, you can pull things out of the soil for so long before nutriens are used up. What's their plane for maintaining the soil?

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[Anonymous Coward]

Xerox can DIAF.

They can Drag In A Fir? Why do you hate trees?

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[ack154]

They, Minolta-Konica, Canon, Kyocera, Mita, and others are perpetuating the paper-ful office.

But wouldn't this help to reduce the amount of paper actually used? I mean if you can print on paper multiple times, that's quite a bit of savings. 50 printed emails a week suddenly becomes only 20 sheets of paper. Or maybe less!

Now where problems might arise... how many times could a sheet be used? How much more expensive will it be than normal paper? Will that price be worth the usability of this in place of just more plain paper?

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[Macgrrl]

Just in case you didn't know, Xerox does far more than build and sell copiers. They also have significant investment in digital document management systems such as workflow solutions, content management and DAMs. The also propmote zero-landfill remanufacturing for thier print engines, have a corporate policy of using recycled paper where ever possible including client presentations (at least in Australia).

I notice you left HP and Lexmark off your list of DIAF candidates, did you realise that most organisations use MFDs (multi-function devices) now, and that probably 80% or more of their volume is PRINTING not COPYING.

Also, on the topic of recycled paper, can I suggest you find a copy of the "Penn & Teller's Bullshit" episode on recycling. You might find it enlightening.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[Kelson]

Who speaks for the trees?

Dryads, of course!

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[Anonymous Coward]

The Lorax?

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[suitepotato]

What's their plane for maintaining the soil?

I wasn't aware this involved aviation. Maintaining soil by plane does sound interesting though. It sorta happens when chutes don't open if only those pesky next of kin and their friends would stop removing the remains.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[HUADPE]

Also, you can pull things out of the soil for so long before nutriens are used up. What's their plane for maintaining the soil?

Assuming you meant plan there. Even on tree farms, other shrubs tend to grow (trees taking more than one season to farm), so the soil composition will be like that of a normal forest, just with the trees in a more rectangular pattern.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[devilspgd]

What a horrible link... Bite sized information spread over seven pages and it STILL needs scrolling.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[zero_offset]

Speaking as part-owner of one 450 acre tree farm, and part-owner of another 778 acre tree farm, I can assure you that most paper does actually come from tree farms. The best and most obvious reason is that it's simply a lot easier to harvest wood from tree farms. Undergrowth is controlled, quality and yields are known, roads are available... the good reasons go on and on. In fact, in order to make paper, you only need trees that are about two years old. Three to five is better, but two works just fine. It's very, very easy to indefinitely sustain the production of paper.

Generally tree farming is most profitable when you can do it nearly year-round, so it is done more often in the southeast. Slash pine occurs naturally. About the only thing that is displaced by most tree farms in this area is a bit of uninteresting (and certainly not endagered) undergrowth of various types. So no "local trees" are destroyed for "special trees".

Finally, a great deal of effort goes into the care and maintenance of even small tree farms like mine. To some degree this is even regulated by various state and federal forestry groups.

Your entire post is speculation, and isn't even remotely close to accurate.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[RealGrouchy]

It doesn't matter if the pulp is from new trees or from recycled paper or card.

The fact is that a lot of (a) energy, (b) chemicals, and (c) clean water to produce and/or recycle paper, not to mention the energy required in distribution and recovery.

Paper is one of the things that we're consistently okay at recycling, but as PP implies, after a while the fibres just break down, and you can't recycle it any more.

Reduce and Reuse are the first two "R"s for a reason.

- RG>

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[sp0rk173]

Still, a good chunk of nutrients in a forest (the majority, actually) are held in standing biomass (trees). When you take out the trees, you take out a lot of nutrients that would go on to enrich the soil for more trees in the future. You get a net decrease in soil productivity. This is why a lot of tree farms inject your standard gassified NPK fertilizers. Ironically enough, these gasseous fertilizers easily and readily convert to nitric acids, which are not only detrimental to foliage, but are easily oxidized to produce NOx and Ozone. Ozone is also very detrimental to foliage, and NOx is again oxidized to yield...guess what...more ozone and more NOx. What you end up with is a weakened, stressed stand of trees that's highly susceptible to disease and pests, along with soil that's sub-par. You basically get an economic loss to tree farmers and a huge fire hazard.

And i didn't mention the impact of soil perturbation as a result of mechanized tree harvesting (the way it's mostly done now-a-days). Soil takes decades to centuries to form and be productive. If you disrupt it on a large scale, as is done in mechanized tree harvesting, you basically get a retarded growing environment, as well as allow a small fraction of the worlds largest CO2 sink to let loose some scruptious heat-trapping gas. Basically, what this all boils down to is tree farms are bad news for disposable goods (paper products). It is extremely costly to run a tree farm that can sustain itself for more than a few decades, and they're usually run at a loss. Economically, you get your tax dollars used to aid tree farmers because paper pulp is seen as a neccessary good in our economy (and it is). A much better solution, economically and environmentally, is hemp. Hemp will grow in just about any soil condition, use markedly less water and fertilizer, and can be used to produce just about any disposable paper good you can think of.

And if you don't believe me about the tree farm stuff, do a little googling. This is all standard, undergrad level environmental chemistry. Or, just look at your original statement and try and remember the first law of thermo: energy/matter can not be created nor can it be destroyed. If Nutrients in a system prduced a tree, then you take that tree out of the system, you've taken nutrients out of that system. That's a net loss, and in this case it's a net loss directly to the soil as that's where most of the nutrients would have ended up had that tree stayed in place. Thus, the soil composition would not be like that of a normal forest. It would be poorer.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[inviolet]

Killing trees, and destroying our environment.

Killing trees, turning them into paper and lumber, and then wasting the aforementioned paper and lumber, is the only way to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

A tree pulls carbon out of the air (i.e. photosynthesizes CO2 into O2 by removing C) insofar as it is growing. A matured tree removes no additional (net) carbon from the air because its leaves rot and give the carbon back up to their air via decay, ants, and termites. And when it falls over and rots away, all of its lifetime accumulation of carbon is re-released.

The only way to keep the tree's carbon from getting back into the air, is to bury it deeply, as occurs when it has been logged, turned to paper, and then wasted and sent to a landfill.

If forests or rainforests really removed net carbon from the air all by themselves, then they would quickly develop coalbeds of carbon underneath themselves. Guess what? They don't. The Lorax is a big fat liar. Well, a small fat liar, anyway.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[sporkme]

The findings (as expressed by Penn and Teller and a governmet agency) in ?New York City? were that:
-A) Most regular garbage was manually sorted and recycled by fairly paid workers at a conveyer before being sent to the landfill.
-B) More pollution was created from mass recycling due to: the fuel burned by recycling trucks that would not normally be burned (not to mention the manufacturing of these trucks), the caustic materials produced/consumed/dumped in the recycling process, and the extra electricity required to run yet another set of sorting plants.
-C) Most people would not sort for recycling (as the processing facilities for NEARLY ALL garbage facilities US NATIONWIDE do anyway, for profit) and those that were willing would do so did it obsessively anyway--they offered a new system involving more than ten new containers and the avid recycler was more than willing to sort everything, including garbage items that are soiled from those that are wet.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[inviolet]

The recycling of paper is bad for the environment. Paper represents carbon that a tree took from the air by converting CO2 to O2. If you bury that paper, the carbon remains sequestered, and then a new tree can take new carbon from the air to make new paper.

Recycling reduces the demand for this cycle, and therefore reduces the rate of atmospheric carbon removal rate.

Ditto for lumber.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[zero_offset]

Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for paperless if it's possible, though it's hard to see it ever really happening. I was just responding to a bunch of utterly incorrect crap in the earlier post. If nothing else, we tree farm owners make a LOT more money selling much older trees for things like lumber and so on. My preference is to sell blocks of trees at about the 10 year mark.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[inviolet]

Now where problems might arise... how many times could a sheet be used? How much more expensive will it be than normal paper? Will that price be worth the usability of this in place of just more plain paper?

You also need to factor in the greatest expense of all: person-hours. How many sheets of paper would a human need to gather up, stack, straighten, and then reload, in order to offset the cost of the paper?

Person-hours get more expensive by the day, because they are a function of society's total productive output which is climbing continuously. I expect that this issue is like the issue with pens and paper plates: it's wasteful to take steps to avoid wasting them.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[sp0rk173]

I like how you provided a link from a pulp and paper special interest group, clearly created with the express purpose of brainwashing elementary school children into believing that growing managed forests explicitly for wood pulp is good. It even has a word match at the end to make sure you've learned an important lesson: hippies are bad! Reminds me of a certain simpsons episode, "When i grow up, i'm going to bovine university!" Or, should i say, Paper University. Being someone who's been trained in environmental science and forestry resource management, i gotta say that this is a very dumbed down argument they're presenting that easily evades answering the really tough questions: air pollution from pulp plants, disease potential and fire danger associated with timber monocultures, nutrient depletion stress from overcrowding and net soil loss, urban pulltion stress (yeah, the pollution from pulp plants actually feeds back to timber stands and makes them weaker, more suscpetable to disease and catastrophic fire), and ecosystem marginalization from a decrease in biodiversity. These are all real threats, not FUD, as shown by the recent fires in California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, etc, that were all exacerbated by bad forestry practices perpetuated by the timber and pulp industries.

Now, i'm not saying that we should stop harvesting all together. That's stupid. The forests are so screwed up now that we NEED to thin them, but as an emergency precaution. Thinning should not be long-term policy. And the pulp industry needs to diversify into non-woodland sources like hemp and papyrus, which have a smaller ecological footprint than tree farming, and generally a larger, cheaper yield.

Bottom line: it's well accepted in the resource management community that tree farming DOES fuck up the environment. Selective thinning is really the best solution, but that can not satiate our hunger for wood products - something needs to take up the slack and start replacing timber in the pulp industry.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Indeed. Let's burn our paper and lumber instead of recycling them!

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[n3m6]

wait.. are you telling me that tree farms clear out the land to plant.. gosh.. more TREES ?

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[ajs318]

You really haven't a clue about forestry management, have you?

Paper is made from fast-growing softwood. This is grown on privately-owned land. Since growing land that isn't actually growing anything is not making any money for its owner, there is an automatic financial incentive to replant every tree you cut down to make paper, accounting for "hit rate" (since not every sapling will grow into a good tree). Trees for paper are a cash crop. If you don't object to farmers pulling up carrots, you've no right to object to the way softwood is produced.

This is a (rare) instance of capitalism working well, because the monetary value (in pounds, shillings and pence) of the commodity being produced closely tracks the non-monetary value.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[porl]

Ozone is also very detrimental to foliage, and NOx is again oxidized to yield...guess what...more ozone and more NOx.

i call a patent on the first proven perpetual motion machine!!! :)

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[squoozer]

I can't quite decide whether to laugh or cry. I really hope you're joking.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[neoform]

Tree farming takes decades.. You're telling me that the nutrient levels in the ground don't recover after such a long period of time..?

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[orasio]

But you could plant hemp!
You know, all the stoners are saying that, 4 times the yield of trees, yearly harvests, is there something fundamentally wrong on those numbers, or are people who make paper just stupid?

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[Anonymous Coward]

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[jonadab]

Yeah, but as a slogan, "Save a tree!" has more emotional appeal to it than "Help the county landfill last longer!"

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[Damek]

You are probably correct (I don't know since I don't own a tree farm). The GPP was uninformative and counterproductive.

Still, there are great savings to be had by recycling paper instead of producing virgin paper:

For every tonne of paper used for recycling the savings are:
  * at least 30000litres of water
  * 3000 - 4000 KWh electricity (enough for an average 3 bedroom house for one year)
  * 95% of air pollution.

And I see in a lower post that you'd rather be selling 10year wood for timber, so maybe it doesn't matter to you if there's more paper recycling :)

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the poster totally should have linked to a site that disagreed with his position.

Asshat.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[bodan]

Exactly. If after growing trees and removing them the nutrients were restored, than after growing trees and not removing them (as in a natural forest) there would be an "overflow" (sorry, not my first language) of nutrients. Thus, it follows that each iteration decreases by a certain amount the amount of nutrients.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[bodan]

um... how old are you?

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[jafuser]

Paper represents carbon that a tree took from the air by converting CO2 to O2

As you pointed out, a plant's mass comes from CO2 rather than nutrients in the ground, which goes against what most people seem to intuitively believe. However, what's fascinating is that the excess O2 that plants produce comes from *water*, not the CO2. So, both concepts are counter-intuitive. =)

From wikipedia's article on photosynthesis:

Oxygen is a product of the light-driven water-oxidation reaction catalyzed by photosystem II; it is not generated by the fixation of carbon dioxide. Consequently, the source of oxygen during photosynthesis is water, not carbon dioxide.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[Ken_g6]

Only if the landfill is dry and sealed. If the wood or paper gets wet, it rots, releasing methane (CH4) into the atmosphere. Methane is a greenhouse gas 20 times stronger than CO2.

Besides, recycling reduces the demand for fossil fuels burned to process the raw trees.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[pclminion]

If you bury that paper, the carbon remains sequestered, and then a new tree can take new carbon from the air to make new paper.

This argument is ridiculous. Why bother making paper? Just take the trees themselves, bury them in such a manner that they will not decay, and allow new trees to grow where the old ones stood. Sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it?

Also, you are asserting without proof that trees can only grow where previous trees once stood, a premise easily refuted by the existence of a fine apple tree in my front lawn, planted last year, which takes the place of no previous tree.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[inviolet]

This argument is ridiculous. Why bother making paper? Just take the trees themselves, bury them in such a manner that they will not decay, and allow new trees to grow where the old ones stood. Sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it?

That depends on how desperate you are to remove carbon from the air.

Right now, we aren't. Therefore, paper and lumber is the most profitable -- if indirect -- route for taking atmospheric carbon and re-burying it.

Also, you are asserting without proof that trees can only grow where previous trees once stood, a premise easily refuted by the existence of a fine apple tree in my front lawn, planted last year, which takes the place of no previous tree.

How am I asserting that? I just said that paper recycling reduces demand for new carbon that began life as a CO2-eating tree. Your apple tree is a carbon sink too, but not on the scale that paper- and lumber-production are.

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[pclminion]

I just said that paper recycling reduces demand for new carbon that began life as a CO2-eating tree.

What does demand for new carbon have to do with whether or not new trees grow? So grow the trees and DON'T make paper out of them -- hell, why not leave them standing? It's something called a "forest."

Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE

[zero_offset]

Why? Because I prefer to sell trees at 10 years? I'm 37. It's pretty common for tree farmers to swap land around, particularly in cases like mine where you're surrounded by many thousands of acres owned by large corporations with very long-term interests. For instance, I recently swapped about 35 acres with Rayonier, about 30 of which was populated with 15 year trees. That gave them 20 cleared acres which they sold to a residential developer, and I came out with 15 extra acres and about $30K worth of trees that I can sell immediately.

It isn't what I do as primary income, but once you hit a certain point, you can make pretty good side money at it. Or you can go big and make huge money, but there are risks, and it's actually a lot of work.

I prefer racing. :)

Pay Per View

[Speare]

Meanwhile, the Disney and Circuit City folks are trying to figure out how to leverage forward-frame synergies and shift new paradigms into cross-functional matrix adaptive committee clusters so they can provide new proactive technology-centric solutions to use this in a new "pay to see" limited shelflife consumer product.

Re:Pay Per View

[dotpavan]

rest of the world: you destruct the printed message (shred/tear)
Soviet Russia: the message destructs you
????: the message destructs itself

Now if they can only get the ink

[Anonymous Coward]

...back in the inkjet cartridge.

Re:Now if they can only get the ink

[ackthpt]

...back in the inkjet cartridge.

You don't think HP already has a patent on this to protect their ink sales?

I can find a use for this...

[solevita]

16 hour pornography? Should be just enough time...

Ladies, call me.

1 major prob...

[Brad1138]

After you run a piece of paper through a printer and then handle it, even a little, it isn't suitable to run through the printer again. Usually it causes jams.

Re:1 major prob...

[geekoid]

Good point. You should call Xerox right now, because I am sure it never occured to them.

Re:1 major prob...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well don't you think it should have been answered in the article rather than begging the question?

Coming soon...

[themushroom]

The next use of this paper will be for printing those Microsoft Genuine Advantage certificates with your Windows registration code on them. Made expecially for those rare folk who do know where their documentation is.

Your message, should you choose to accept it

[Kesch]

This memo is set to self-destruct in 16 hours.

Re:Your message, should you choose to accept it

[ackthpt]

This memo is set to self-destruct in 16 hours.

"What did you think of the Grundgefeld, Bobworth & Snerdowski report I left on your desk?"

"Didn't see it, I was out yesterday and all I saw on my desk was a ream of blank paper."

Re:Your message, should you choose to accept it

[cptgrudge]

16 hours to get to a Kinko's! What ever will I do?

Re:Your message, should you choose to accept it

[Anonymous Freak]

Which would be a good thing for security-sensitive documents. If the person didn't get to it, then there's little risk of someone doing something wrong with it. (Of course, if someone has truly malicious intent, they'll just photocopy it on permanent paper; this would just cut down on someone getting a hold of it when they shouldn't have, then coming up with malicious intent later.)

I can't wait

[chowdy]

This will make for awesome practical jokes. "What do mean I just turned in blank pages professor!?"

How long will the paper survive?

[iansmith]

Interesting, but how many times can you reuse paper that has been out in the real world?

Spilled drinks, people drawing on it with pen, folding, crumping, tearing, chewing.

I know most printers can't handle the paper if it's not in 100% perfect condition.. I can just imagine the kind of paper jams this thing could produce when someone thwoes in 6 pages stuck together with bubble gum, corners torn off and grease from their lunch calzone smeared all over it.

Neat idea with the UV though. I love the idea of inkless printing, as long as the paper doesn't end up being more expensive than gold.

Re:How long will the paper survive?

[garcia]

I know most printers can't handle the paper if it's not in 100% perfect condition.. I can just imagine the kind of paper jams this thing could produce when someone thwoes in 6 pages stuck together with bubble gum, corners torn off and grease from their lunch calzone smeared all over it.

It would be like anything. People would begin to realize that you can't do that to it. That or it'll never become viable and it'll die.

Re:How long will the paper survive?

[yoha]

True - and with regular paper costing only $0.01/page, the existing solution comes pretty close to free. Even adding the $0.05/page of ink, it's tough to see why a company/university would make the investment in this sort of paper. Assuming it's costs $1.00/pg, you would need this to last at least 16 iterations, on average, to make it worth your investment.

Re:How long will the paper survive?

[kosmosik]

> Neat idea with the UV though. I love the idea
> of inkless printing, as long as the paper doesn't
> end up being more expensive than gold.

In case of data it gets like quite expensive? How much costs 1GB of data on paper and the whole infrastructure behind it (backup, access time and so on)???

Just get over it, get rid of papers. Digital/electronic devices cope better with data than paper.

Re:How long will the paper survive?

[cyberianpan]

I wonder could the paper be made more robust, the primary problem is curling or small pieces of dirt (spills, chewing gum etc would be a lot less common). So they could try plasticising the paper- yes that would produce problems re heat , & possibly make paper less susceptible to ink... whole set up is beginning to sound as far away as e-paper :-)

Re:How long will the paper survive?

[cptgrudge]

Assuming it's costs $1.00/pg, you would need this to last at least 16 iterations, on average, to make it worth your investment.

Or, you don't use it as a replacement for all of your paper, but as a compliment. Imagine, for a moment, if this paper occupies one of the trays on the office printer, and your print server software knows about it. Maybe you have certain sensitive emails or other documents that are cleared for short-term print, but not to be in print forever. Have your email software, office suite, or whatever be forced to use that tray for those types of documents. Then it becomes more of a CYA thing to avoid potential costs due to the release of information in the future.

Of course, I can think of at least a dozen ways to bypass that, but it's another possible use for this tech.

Re:How long will the paper survive?

[Lars512]

This is a very good point. They could make the paper thicker, but this wouldn't solve many issues. You couldn't fold it at the corners, staple it too often, etc...

Sci-fi novels which feature this sort of thing (e.g. for daily newspapers) often suggest some form of plastic which is much more durable than paper, and has the property that it can easily be de-creased and reflattened. Unless they find a print medium which is much more durable, or make printers much more forgiving, this will have limited use, which is a shame.

Nonetheless, a step in the right direction! (As are ebook readers with the "electronic ink" and terrible licensing restriction on book purchases. I'll buy one soon.)

Re:How long will the paper survive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you have certain sensitive emails or other documents that are cleared for short-term print

This paper isn't designed to make it impossible to recover old printouts. You'd better stick with a shreader for that.

I've seen this before...

[Brad1138]

Disappearing ink http://www.penguinmagic.com/product.php?ID=213 has been around for a long time.

I can see it now:

[klwood911]

Fred: Charlie, swap in some of that new transient paper and we can pull a fast one on the next guy that uses the printer. We'll get him good! Next morning: Greg to Boss: Hey I have those reports you were looking for. I worked all night and got them ready. Fortunately I printed them at the office because my hard drive crashed right after I finished working on them. Boss: What are you kidding, these pages are blank!

Re:I can see it now:

[chachacha]

Boss to Greg: You're fired for not using the raided shared drive.

Transients don't need documents

[TheSexican]

What kind of documents do hobos need, aside from IOUs, and you might want those to last a while...

Re:Transients don't need documents

[OldManAndTheC]

What kind of documents do hobos need...?

Vagabonds?

This sounds like...

[Jsutton1027w]

A really good way to play a practical joke on someone...

- Term papers
- Contracts
- I could go on forever :)

Re:This sounds like...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe this hasn't been moderated up. This is ripe for exploitation in so many ways.

Also this is not entirely new, I remember watching similar technology being demo'ed on TV years ago.

Re:This sounds like...

[Neoncow]

Term papers

1. Write term paper.
2. Print term paper with transient ink.
3. Hand in term paper.
4. Term paper disappears.
5. ...

Profs won't know what hit em. Suckers.

Re:This sounds like...

[Kiffer]

The joke isn't handing in a "blank" term paper but rather tricking someone else into doing so...

However, if you write a really crappy paper, and make a show of handing it in... have alittle chat with the prof. at the end of a lecture, asking some questions while you and others are handing in papers. He or she will remember that they saw your paper... but when they get round to marking that stack of papers wont be able to find yours... and hopefully will presume they lost it.
Giving you time to write a better one.
Of course this wouldn't work... because they will find a few blank pages stapled together and the only paper that will be unaccounted for will be yours...

Re:This sounds like...

[argStyopa]

Funny, the first thing that came to my mind was prenuptual agreements.

It won't be long before...

[Skee09]

DRM'd paperback books!

Re:It won't be long before...

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be very easy to "break" this Paper Rights Managment (PRM)

I'm worried

[raptor_87]

This seems like it can (and therefore will) be used to add "DRM" to paper.

Re:I'm worried

[griffjon]

Yeah, I see DRM newspapers, magazines, and the like coming soon. Oh, sorry, did you want to clip that article to save? You'll have to purchase an archival copy for $2.95/page

Re:I'm worried

[FuturePastNow]

Mwahahahaha

Ordinary people get inconvenienced... but not scanner-armed newspaper pirates like me!

This screams "SECURITY ISSUES!!!!" to me ..

[Entropy]

Interesting tech, but how easy will it be to recover other messages?
This could all to easily be a security disaster waiting to happen ...

Excellent!

[Bender0x7D1]

Now I can make sure all of my important financial documents are printed on this paper. When the IRS or SEC come after me they will have nothing but blank pages. MUAHAHAHA! (I'll take the fines for improper document retention, but it is better than going to jail for fraud.)

Seriously, think how bad some of the OOPSes will be....

I printed off your email before deleting it, but now I can't find it!

What happened to those photos I printed?

If you don't have your receipt, we can't take it back.

No, that section of the contract never existed. Can you prove it did?

Re:Excellent!

[eric2hill]

If you don't have your receipt, we can't take it back.

I went to Best Buy and bought a new cable modem before I went over to a clients' house to work on an "internet is broken" problem. Turns out the router just wasn't plugged in.

Anyway, the cable modem sat in my truck for a few days (a week maybe?), and it got quite hot a few days that week. When I took the cable modem back to Best Buy to return it, the thermal receipt was wholly blank. Best Buy would only return it for in-store credit since I "didn't have my receipt". I know it was partly my fault for leaving it in the truck, but I had the Best Buy bag, the cable modem still in shrink-wrapped plastic, and a piece of paper that looked like a valid receipt.

Fuckers.

Re:Excellent!

[Kelson]

Based on the description in the article, it looks like it'll require a different technology than a standard laser or inkjet printer. It's more like thermal printing. Rather than placing ink on the paper, it temporarily alters the paper.

If you put this paper in a regular laser printer, you'll still be putting ink on expensive paper -- it won't disappear. And if you put regular paper in the temporary printer, you'll probably get nothing.

So in the short-term, mistakes should be difficult.

Long-term, you can bet on dual-function printers, maybe even printers that can detect which type of paper is in the tray and select a printing method accordingly. And the article says they're researching ways to make this printing permanent after the fact. Once those are available, mistakes will be easier to make.

Re:Excellent!

[Anonymous Coward]

For future reference, pay for everything at Best Buy with a credit card. They can look up all of your previous transactions that way, and all you have to do is take your card and driver's license with you.

Re:Excellent!

[kcbnac]

If you paid by check or credit card, they can generate a new copy of the receipt...just visit Customer Service...

An interesting application...

[XorNand]

An interesting application for this would be for printable coupons. You get a piece of this paper in the mail with some sort of promotion. The instructions tell you feed the paper into your printer and visit a certain URL to print a "special one day only" coupon.

Sure, expiration ("expiry" for the rest of the world) dates have been around forever. However, knowing that your coupon will literally disappear tomorrow would be an added psychological incentive to use it. (I've *got* to stop giving marketers new ideas...)

Re:An interesting application...

[ampathee]

People would probably just print the coupon on normal paper though.

Re:An interesting application...

[merreborn]

The instructions tell you feed the paper into your printer and visit a certain URL to print a "special one day only" coupon.

This is why I print to a PDFcreator printer, and save the PDF any time I want to use a "Print-your-own-(coupon/tickets/postage)" service.

Not that I've ever tried to re-use postage, that'd be bad. -- it's just handy for the inevitable situation in which something misprints. Lots of print-your-own-postage software only lets you reprint once; and there's been more than once that I've had something misprint on me twice.

Re:An interesting application...

[g0at]

An interesting application for this would be for printable coupons. You get a piece of this paper in the mail with some sort of promotion. The instructions tell you feed the paper into your printer and visit a certain URL to print a "special one day only" coupon.

Why would anyone choose to do so, rather than print the coupon on a regular piece of paper?

Furthermore, it would be far cheaper and easier for every party to simply print an expiration date. I guess it's a novel gimmick idea, though.

-b

Re:An interesting application...

[Kadin2048]

I think the online-postage people already thought of this; printing it to a PDF and then running multiple copies really isn't any more dangerous/creative than just making photocopies of the printed postage; my understanding is that this is prevented by making each stamp/indicia contain a serial number barcode which is scanned as it is processed, and then noted by the system. If an identical indicia is sent through, it should be rejected as bad postage.

Now whether or not they check all the mail that's postmarked that way, or just spot-check some of it, I have no idea; but I'm pretty sure that just running off multiple copies of the same stamp-image won't do you a whole lot of good. Those online-postage stamp systems don't (at least I hope not) depend on the security or trustworthiness of the client system (not multi-printing) in order to function. You might be able to get away with it for a short while, though.

Re:An interesting application...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anyone choose to do so, rather than print the coupon on a regular piece of paper?

Because the vendor won't accept it on regular paper??

Re:An interesting application...

[XorNand]

Well, the paper could be preprinted (using a dye sub process or something) to look like some sort of official document with a blank space in the middle. Sure, there are cheaper ways to do it; but almost by definition, I think, promotional material has to be gimicky.

Rereading the article it looks like a special printer would also be required, so scratch the idea anyhow. ;-)

Re:An interesting application...

[ScaryFroMan]

On behalf of all those who have worked in retail and have been subjected to idiots with expired coupons, I praise you and your idea.

Re:An interesting application...

[dodgyc]

What would stop you from using a normal piece of paper to print the promotion onto, thereby making the transient paper redundant?
A more useful implementation would be if they made had a 24 hour+ version of this type of paper. Stores/cafes/restaurants could hand out coupons with something like a "Come back tomorrow for a free ____" deal that ran out after the allotted time.

Re:An interesting application...

[zobier]

Yeah, and you could just print it out on that special paper whenever you felt like it anyway.

PS: I think you'd like the halfbakery if you don't already know about it.

Let me guess...

[Anonymous Coward]

... their marketing wizards will probably call it Paper-RW!

Re:Let me guess...

[Kelson]

... their marketing wizards will probably call it Paper-RW!

Of more concern is compatibility. I mean, will you be able to use Paper-RW in a Paper+RW Printer?

And let's not get into Paper-RAM.

Re:Let me guess...

[nnn0]

PapEPROM

Re:Let me guess...

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Flash Paper

Re:Let me guess...

[bkocik]

I would call it "Enron Paper".

Oblig. Dr. Suess Quote

[PakProtector]

I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees!

Confidentiality Issues...

[rettridg]

Not necessarily a good idea for use with sensitive corporate data...

Just say no

[joe_schmoe_the_geek]

Paper is for people stuck in the past. This is a ploy to make money off of people resistant to using new technology. There are many more advantages to using digital data than just saving trees.

Re:Just say no

[antonlacon]

Paper is for people stuck in the past. This is a ploy to make money off of people resistant to using new technology. There are many more advantages to using digital data than just saving trees.

Paper is for people needing a physical record; deeds, titles, court documents, contracts...
"I'm sorry, but the hard disk crashed," isn't acceptable.

Re:Just say no

[Kelson]

Paper is for people stuck in the past.... There are many more advantages to using digital data than just saving trees.

On the plus side, you can read a sheet of paper without technology.

Just look at the fiasco with those 30-year-old NASA tapes that no one has the equipment to read. I wrote stuff in the 1980s on an Atari 800 in a word processor whose name I don't even remember. If I needed anything (not likely, since I was 10 and they were mostly bad stories or school reports, but consider that the technology was used by adults at the time), I wouldn't be able to take those 5.25" disks and read them on my modern PC. But if I had a hard copy...

These are things only a few decades old that are difficult to retrieve today. We have bricks from ancient civilizations thousands of years old that can be read with nothing but a pair of eyes and knowledge of the language.

Digital has its advantages, absolutely -- but it also requires constant vigilance to make sure you keep transferring it to modern storage media and formats. 3,000 years from now, a stack of CDs is going to be useless to future historians -- with the possible exception of the labels printed on them.

But then I suppose none of that really applies to this case, since it's all about avoiding permanence.

Re:Just say no

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really think any of your important personal information, like bank account balances, car loans, home loan balances, payroll information, or anything else that matters is anything but a printout of what's in a database? If you fear hard drive crashes wiping your contract from existence, then you definitely have a lot to fear in today's world. Luckily, the I.T. professionals of the world figured that problem out decades ago. I would suggest you ask someone from Lexis-Nexis or your bank or your credit card company how they do it. Remember that paper can burn, and data is much easier, cheaper, and more secure to back up and store at commercial data storage sites than fragile slips of paper in some government office will ever be.

Re:Just say no

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the personal computer was only invented in the late 1970's (I'm not counting the Altair), I would give the industry some slack for not really having a standard storage data format until the late 1980's. Even so, there is nothing stopping you, aside from possibly some legal matters, from downloading games made for a C-64 in 1986 and running them on the PC you got from Dell yesterday with an emulator. Anyone on the planet can securely store the data, mirror the data, do google searches to find it, and basically do anything you want with it. The same can't be said for out-of-print books from 1986 that are only in paper form. Many of them are falling apart by now. Since you bring up museum exhibits, there are hundreds of millions of people who lack the resources to travel to museums, so the museums have put some of their artifacts and art on the internet. Better to see it on a screen than not at all. Check out http://icom.museum/vlmp/

Re:Just say no

[antonlacon]

Hear "That wasn't in your file..." enough times and you can become concerned with hardcopy records too. Is it the only way to keep records? No, and it shouldn't be. Is the Age of Paper over? Not a chance.

In the words of Egon Spengler...

[Eq 7-2521]

"Print is dead."

He said that in 1984, mind you.

You mean like...

[ackthpt]

Meanwhile, the Disney and Circuit City folks are trying to figure out how to leverage forward-frame synergies and shift new paradigms into cross-functional matrix adaptive committee clusters so they can provide new proactive technology-centric solutions to use this in a new "pay to see" limited shelflife consumer product.

You mean like DIVX? I could actually expect someone nuts enough to try it.

Congratulations on your purchase of Mickey and Goofy's Opium Den Adventure! Now that the seal on this booklet has been broken you have 16 hours to read and enjoy this publication before it will reset and you will need to return.

"Erasable" printouts would be more useful maybe?

[atlasdropperofworlds]

They should just make a printer (and ink) that can erase and reuse printed pages. I maybe not want something to disappear after 16 hours, or I might decide to keep it after printing it out, or any other number or reasons. I can see wanting emails to self-erase for security reasons, but you'd be able to print it and photograph it so what would be the point?

I see a major problem with this

[Locke2005]

Every time you run a sheet though a printer, it wrinkles slightly. To say nothing of how much you wrinkle it by reading it. Just like running the old sheets through again to print on the other side, this greatly increases the probability that the paper will jam. This "transient document" sounds like a printer maintenance person's worst nightmare!

Re:I see a major problem with this

[Kazoo the Clown]

Every time you run a sheet though a printer, it wrinkles slightly. To say nothing of how much you wrinkle it by reading it. Just like running the old sheets through again to print on the other side, this greatly increases the probability that the paper will jam. This "transient document" sounds like a printer maintenance person's worst nightmare!

Only if they're on contract. Otherwise, it's billable hours and job security.

Re:I see a major problem with this

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time you run a sheet of paper through a printer, Chuck Norris uprights an extremely rare albino redwood tree, sets it on fire, and plays tee-ball with a kitten.

Re:I see a major problem with this

[LiENUS]

Every time you run a sheet of paper through a printer, Chuck Norris uprights an extremely rare albino redwood tree, sets it on fire, and plays tee-ball with a kitten.
Bravo! As of 10:35AM CST that is my new email sig.

Insert appropriate Inspector Gadget reference here

[Atmchicago]

Xerox must be using inspector Chief Quimby's (gadget's boss) technology: "This message will self-destruct in 5... 4... "

Good idea... bad idea....

[Illserve]

Bad idea!

If the point is for security, I don't buy it. There must be ways to reconstruct the content after it disappears.

If the point is for saving paper, I don't buy it. no paper that's been in my hands for more than 30 seconds is going to fit back into the paper tray!

So what's the point?

Re:Good idea... bad idea....

[FuturePastNow]

The point is to make books and newspapers that can only be read for a limited time.

This kind of shit has gone on long enough and been tolerated by the ignorant populous... but somehow, I don't think DRM'd books are going to fly.

Re:Good idea... bad idea....

[brother sloth]

Quit picking your nose so much then. All of the crusted snot and boogers on your nasty fingers will surely prevent the paper from being reinserted into the printer without totally gumming up the works. I know that as a 40 year old weenie who still lives at home booger farming is an attractive hobby for you, but if you ever want to save some trees you have to embrace change.

That is the motivation for reusable paper after all. Surely nobody reasonable would print anything sensitive on this type of paper. I mean, after all if you don't want your mother to find out that you enjoy looking at pictures of overweight elderly transvestite midget amputee pr0n, then use traditional paper and stuff it under your mattress like every other loser like yourself. It's really simple.

Security. ha.

--
Your mother is a horse

Manual duplex and recycling paper

[Macgrrl]

Most paper I see used around an office is not suitable to be run through a printer a second time, it is often dog-eared, creased, distorted from someone holding it too long in sweaty hands, stapled, etc...

It is not uncommon to see loose paper piled next to a printer waiting to be laoded which is already mangled. It is best to store paper in it's pack until ready for use, it keeps the paper clean, dry and undamaged.

I could have done this already!

[Stonent1]

Just remove the fuser from your printer, make a printout, and when you're done reading, take a "can of air" and blast the toner off the page.

Re:I could have done this already!

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll probably need to electrically simulate the presence of the fuser for your plan to work. I haven't seen any modern printers that don't check a thermistor to make sure the fuser has heated appropriately and/or otherwise check the fuser & bulb are present and intact. There'a also the issue of paper feed errors due to the absence of the fuser, since fuser rollers are usually a pretty intrinsic part of the entire paper feed path and mechanism. Of course fusers are also, often, in the back of the printer, so you might just have the paper feed out the rear of the printer. But then you'd have to either cut a hole in the printer or defeat the rear door interlock switch that prevents the printer from printing when the back is open.

Putting that aside, your idea is practical and useful, especially for people you don't like and whom you want to suffer chronic lung disease from breathing toner dust suspended in diflouroethane.

But aside from those issues it's a pretty good idea. Have you considered a patent?

Re:I could have done this already!

[Compuser]

You laugh but this could work. Make the paper and toner chargeable. Printing would be
as simple as coating the paper with clear toner and "burning" in text with a laser.
The coating would be electrostatic and thus reversible - feed the page into the printer
and it reverses the charge on paper, collects ink that was blown off the page and is
ready to print again. The charge on paper will degrade with time (e.g. due to many
touches) and so the print will not last, making it transient. Making toner reusable
would also save a lot of money and reduce cost per page several times.

Re:I could have done this already!

[ajs318]

Chances are, just disconnecting one of the terminals from the heater element and shorting out the sensor will work. The most common type of temperature sensor is an NTC thermistor (resistance decreases as temperature increases). There's very unlikely to be any direct monitoring of the heater element integrity: the heater almost certainly is running straight from the mains without isolation. Measuring its temperature with a thermistor is a good enough way to check working / faulty status, and implicitly gives isolation.

What next...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wino 5.25" floppies? Poor, neglected ancient technologies...

Finally, contracts ...

[tomhudson]

Finally, contracts that aren't worth the paper they're written on.

1. Get signatures on contract
2. Let the rest of the text fade
3. Print contract again, with new terms
4. Permanent photocopy of new contract
5. PROFIT

Re:Finally, contracts ...

[ThisNukes4u]

Make photocopies.

Re:Finally, contracts ...

[DrDitto]

Sorry, you haven't uncovered a grand new scheme with faking ink. Just replace steps (2) and (3) with "Scan and Photoshop in new contract"

Re:Finally, contracts ...

[phatvw]

No you have it all wrong..

1. Get signatures on contract
2. Steal underpants
3. ...
4. ...
5. Profit

Now if only the stains in my Hanes faded away like Xerox's growth.

Re:Finally, contracts ...

[TheShadowzero]

Except that when doing that, the signature printed on the new contract isn't the original. It's not incredibly difficult to tell when a signature has been reprinted, especially on standard letter paper (generally the pen pushes the paper a bit on the other side, etc. etc.).

Re:Finally, contracts ...

[RealGrouchy]

Finally, contracts that aren't worth the paper they're written on.

      1. Get signatures on contract
      2. Let the rest of the text fade
      3. Print contract again, with new terms
      4. Permanent photocopy of new contract
      5. PROFIT

You wouldn't need to make a "permanent" photocopy of the new contract; you'd just have to print it with standard ink (as opposed to using the UV-sensitive photochromic "ink" on this special paper). If regular ink disappeared, too, then the signature would disappear along with the original contract!

- RG>

Re:Finally, contracts ...

[Amouth]

that is why you do a dual printing.. do the contract on one printer and then the sig on another printer with a diffrent toner makeup and then go over the sig with a ballpoint that is out of ink..

might take you a few tries to get it right but it works..

Re:Finally, contracts ...

[Plutonite]

Yes but in that case a handwriting expert in a court of law will prove your forgery (due to different speeds/areas of emphasis), whereas in the original poster's scheme there is nothing they can do.

You have the perfect crime, execpt the paper is of a special type, so courts may require this new material to be excluded from printing all official documents.

Re:Finally, contracts ...

[Gulthek]

That's why real contracts require a pen color that isn't black.

Re:Finally, contracts ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Where could I possibly get color photocopies?

Re:Finally, contracts ...

[tomhudson]

I've signed contracts with black ink. There's no legal requirement that the ink be in blue. Heck, one time I signed in red (it was the only pen I had close at hand). Someone asked "Is that legal?" I said "Of course it is." Nowhere in the law on cotracts does it specify a pen colour. I've even seen old contracts (dated from the 1800's) signed in pencil.

Re:Finally, contracts ...

[Amouth]

oh no doubt .. nothing can replace the real one... but somethings can come damn close

MODS ON CRACK

[Anonymous Coward]

i fail to see how this post is baiting people into flamewars

Paper Tiger

[Doc Ruby]

Now when people send me paper documents, I will require digitally signed digital copies as the authentic "masters". Because the "paper trail" could disappear after I accept the paper copy.

Apparently Xerox is trying to get all the electronic voting business that Diebold is losing because the people are demanding paper trails.

Security - Palimpsest Vulnerability

[rocketlawyer]

Assuming that they can make this work, the question that arises is how "transient" are these documents. If there is some possible form of post-processing that can recover the information on a printed document after it has faded from ordinary view, then the risk exists that sensitive information may unknowingly be distributed.

Xerox is proposing the 21st century palimpsest, but, if they are not careful, they may create the same scenario that makes pamplisests of so much interest to historians. (Palimpsests are documents which were written on recycled vellum. The original writing was scraped off the vellum, which was costly, and the vellum reused. Palimpsests are of great interest to historians because it is often possible to recover the original text, which may not exist in other form.)

Print email?

[Ancil]

think of the emails you may print out just to read

I'm sorry, this article has been misrouted. You meant to send it to my boss.

I'll print out a copy and show it to him.

Oblig. Homer Simpson Quote

[Sideshow Coward]

I dunno... the coastguard?

geeks printing pr0n

[x-caiver]

16 hours is more then enough time to get multiple uses out of the paper I'd say!

hehe

[nnn0]

"i didn't sign this paper - i swear ! you have to believe me !!"

Sweet!

[LiquidEdge]

It's been quite a while since Xerox has come out with something that the rest of the market will do better and cheaper and take over dominance of the innovation. Nice to know that they're still providing the world with cool stuff that they'll never figure out how to make money on.

So.. that explains it!

[AnswerIs42]

I have been sending out hundreds of resumes lately... and not ONE return phone call or job offer!

Toshiba did something like this years ago

[coleopterana]

They made a copier that could lift the toner back off the paper. I remember it being featured in the NY Times and forwarding it to the college department I did work-study in at the time, a place that such an item would actually work out pretty well, since most paper stops being useful and stays in-house.

The Lorax

[clean_stoner]

Didn't you ever read Dr. Seuss? The Lorax speaks for the trees. Geez...

Re:The Lorax

[WilliamSChips]

7625597484987 is the perfect number. Do you know why?

I'm pretty sure it isn't because the only perfect numbers we know so far are even.

Re:The Lorax

[clean_stoner]

Well I didn't say *a* perfect number, I said *the* perfect number... however, to be honest, I don't even remember what my reasoning was for choosing that number.

Re:The Lorax

[HUADPE]

7625597484987 = 3^3^3

Re:The Lorax

[jazir1979]

it's a tower of 3 numbers, 3^3^3

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/cyc/g/graham. htm

Re:The Lorax

[clean_stoner]

Thank you, I knew it was something along those lines, but I could only think of (3^3)^3, 3^(3^3) didn't occur to me.

Just what I need for college!

[The MAZZTer]

Now when I forget about a paper, I can just print out some pages of Lorem Ipsum! Then when the prof goes to read my paper, he won't be able to find it, and in the meantime I'll have finished it. Then he'll have to ask me to print him another copy, bwhahaa.

Waste of paper

[pan_piper]

Forget transient paper - someone needs to sort out that pesky 'last-line-of-the-email-disclaimer' that requires a whole new page when you print an email. Perhaps transient paper you can 'fix' somehow if you want to keep it. A spray of some kind?

Disappering Ink Anyone?

[djsmiley]

So.... you've got some paper which the ink disappers after some time....

Im sure i just saw that in the joke shop for $2! and your charging me HOW much?

problem in the process of usage.

[3seas]

how well do you keep the paper flat and staple hole free?

we can expect more paper jams

Your mission, should you decide to accept it...

[Anonymous Coward]

????: the message destructs itself

That would be the Impossible Mission Force.

DIVX and EZ-DVD were different technologies

[WidescreenFreak]

They're not quite the same.

The DIVX stupidity was based on electronic DRM. It required (for those who don't know) a special DVD player that was authorized to play an triple-DES-encrypted disc for up to 48 hours for a fee. After that, additional 48 hours periods could be purchased electronically. The main key is that you bought the disc, which gave you 48 hours from the start, but after that you would pay and play for another 48 hours as often as you wanted.

Disney's abomination was a format called EZ-DVD. These were regular DVDs that were coated with a special chemical that darkened after approximately 24-48 hours once it was exposed to oxygen after breaking the seal of the disc case, rendering the disc unplayable. It would then have to be trashed or "recycled", but the customer had to pay for the recycling postage and I sincerely doubt that it would have been truly recyclable anyway. Because it was priced to be about half that of its "normal" DVD counterpart, it made little to no sense to pay 1/2 the cost of the real thing but get only two days of playability.

Both had their benefits and drawbacks, but the overall consensus is that both formats had far more negatives than positives, which is why both formats failed miserably; however, I'd love to get my hands on an unopened EZ-DVD, open it while submerged in clear polyeurethane, take it out, wait until it dries, then see if the coating still darkened. :)

Re:DIVX and EZ-DVD were different technologies

[Anonymous Coward]

In contrast to CDs, a DVD's dye layer is sandwiched between two plastic layers (for a single layer, single sided disk -- you do the math for different configurations). CDs place the die...excuse me, Freudian slip there, meant to say "dye"...layer above the substrate underneath the metal reflective layer, and that metal layers usually has very little above it but a tiny bit of lacquer. The lacquer, in this configuration, provides little meaningful protection for the fragile reflective and recording layers underneath. From the bottom CDs are well protected by a nice thick sturdy substrate, but from above they're very fragile. Due to this design, CDs get killed by being scratched from the top; scratches on top rip right through the data. Scratches on the bottom -- even severe scratches -- are often recoverable because the data aren't harmed.

The practical upshot of all this, as it relates to disposable DVDs, is that if those DVDs depend on a thin outer coating, it might be possible to just buff the coating off. The data are safely sandwitched in the middle of the disk, so you could perhaps carefully buff away the coating and even a little bit of the substrate to recover a readable disk. Now if, on the other hand, the color changing chemical was mixed in to the substrate itself this wouldn't work; you'd only, at best, buy yourself a couple more days, but a thin varnish might be removable.

Not that anyone should ever try this, lest Disney commandos in black jumpsuits, wielding Uzis, trans-dimensionally re-materialize in your living room to drag you off to the gulag for DMCA infringement... but it would be interesting to know you could.

Re:DIVX and EZ-DVD were different technologies

[Anonymous Coward]

Both had their benefits and drawbacks, but the overall consensus is that both formats had far more negatives than positives, which is why both formats failed miserably; however, I'd love to get my hands on an unopened EZ-DVD, open it while submerged in clear polyeurethane, take it out, wait until it dries, then see if the coating still darkened. :)

Heh. Another thing you could do, for those of us without lab coats and fume hoods, would be to open the disc, stick into a computer, and burn the data onto an ordinary disc.

The funny thing is that I rent DVDs reasonably often, and the only one I've bothered ripping and copying was the pseudo-documentary that the CBC produced about about Tommy Douglas, which I copied because CBC was in the process of pulling it from the shelves due to historical inaccuracies (odd...since when has CBC cared about accuracy?) and I wanted to have a copy around for future reference. Yet in spite of not really being one who copies DVDs, I'd probably do so with EZ-DVDs (if I had any) just because of the principle of the matter.

Brilliant, Brilliant Idea.

[donnacha]

I'm no raving hippy environmentalist but, all the same, there are some wasteful things I don't do, even though they would make my day easier. Probably the best example of this is that printing out much of the content I currently read on a screen would save me time every day, be less tiring and healthier for my eyes BUT I can't bring myself to do this because I feel it would be wasteful. With no environmental or cost concerns, I would print out at least 200 A4 pages daily.

An even bigger consideration is the current massive increase in the amount of previously print only material being made available online (i.e. Google's scanning projects, Amazon promotion of PDF sales, publishers such as Pragmatic Programmers selling online versions prior to print publication etc). Converging with this 16hr technology, you could rotate the same 100 pages on a daily basis, printing out a few chapters at a time. This convergence could really boost online publishing.

An interesting side effect of the 16hr deadline is that, for the first time, printed material would gain the same immediacy as television, meaning that you'll be less inclined to print out reams of material and stashing it away to read "later".

Re:Brilliant, Brilliant Idea.

[FLEB]

Hell, I can't stand it just because I'll lose anything that's of minimal importance. I've got a boss who always prints-out and hands me emails, rather than just forwarding them. I also have an unwieldly pile of printed-out unimportant emails. There are advantages to paper, but if you're going to be sitting at the desk anyway, I'll take the copyability, searchability, and indexability of digital any day.

Re:Brilliant, Brilliant Idea.

[grumbel]

BUT I can't bring myself to do this because I feel it would be wasteful.

It actually isn't really wastefull, trees are a regrowning resource, so as long as we plant new ones for those we cut for the paper production there should be no problem, no matter how much paper we use. And in terms of CO2 emmisions it might actually be better to not recycle the paper and just dump it instead, because that way we can catch some CO2 in the form of good old paper, the more paper we use, the less CO2 ends up in the athmosphere.

PS: I am no expert on the topic, so if am totally wrong feel free to correct me.

term papers?

[krunk4ever]

several of you mentioned turning term papers with this special toner, but isn't that just a practical joke on yourself when you get an F?

Re:term papers?

[mrbobjoe]

several of you mentioned turning term papers with this special toner, but isn't that just a practical joke on yourself when you get an F?

No, the joke is to put it in someone else's printer when they go to print their term paper.

They're On To Something.....

[IHC Navistar]

Too bad the guys at Enron didn't hold off on their scams...they could have really used stuff like this! If it does become widespread, and I can certainly see possible uses for it, what is the image quality like? The example in the article looks eerily like it was from one of those old mimeograph/Ditto machines that our homework was printed on in Elementary school.

Ken Lay: Hey, Jeffrey! We don't have to shred anything anymore! With this stuff, the paper trail just disappears----- and it won't be out fault!" :::::does little dance through the office:::::

-----

Sig Sauer

Transient print outs?

[DragonWriter]

inspired by the fact that many print outs have a life-span of a few hours (think of the emails you may print out just to read, or the content you proof read on the train journey back home)

About the only thing I can think of that I ever print for "transient" use is driving directions, and usually by the time I'm done with them the paper wouldn't be usable even if the ink did disappear. I can't imagine, more generally, printing material for read-once purposes; if I print something, its not transient.

I expect Xerox has done some market research here, but it sounds to me a solution desperately searching for a problem.

Re:Insert appropriate Inspector Gadget reference h

[Kelson]

I trust you're aware that the running gag in Inspector Gadget was a reference to a recurring element in Mission Impossible?

If needs to work out some kinks...

[oktokie]

Sometimes, People are driven by pure ideas only without
too much experience in consumer market.

1. Inventor has to be the in the shoes of an actual user before releasing the new technology.
2. Invention has to be justified before being introduced to the market. Market research anyone?
3. I am not sure how much research xerox did on the need of the reprintable materials?
4. If the regular paper isn't obtion to be refed into the printer, which will cause the break down
      of the pick-up rod on the poor printer...then some other materials would have to be invented.
5. there are 3 ways product can be introduced.
        a. paper like thin layered palstic may be introduced which can be used instead of paper.
              paper won't fold or creased...and materials will be protected from coffee, soda and water?
              maybe it will be foldable and creasable...but the heating up the material will flatten out
              the plastic paper..
        b. maybe low cost storage bin will be introduced. Where paper can be stored before being used
              again. Maybe, ink is heat sensitive...only losing the print when heated up artificially
              while creases formed on the paper is being flattended out again in neat stack. Maybe with
              combination of tech a + b together will form the usable solution.

        c. maybe heating and flattening mechanism will be added onto new printer platforms heating and
              pressing document flat befofe going into the actual printing process. Maybe, printer will
              have two seperate bins. First bin will contain the brand new paper materials which will skip
              the heat/press process when printing and there will be recycle print paper try which will go
              through the full process of rejuvenating paper and actual printing process.

Hem...I think Xerox should hire people like me to the project. I have 7+ thinking cap on my head.

Oktokie

Re:Insert appropriate Inspector Gadget reference h

[Drooling Iguana]

At least this sounds like it'll be a fair bit less painful than the old method.

Perfect for me, I vant vun!

[freeschwag]

I work in a calibration lab and we print out test procedures all the time, we get updates monthly and have to make sure we always use the latest revision of each procedure. This typically means we print out each procedure every time we use it, then toss after 1-2 hours of use. If I could just throw that paper (typically 10 to 50 sheets) into a bin to be reused the next day...well we'd use about 5 reams of paper a year, vice the 10 reams a month we currently use. Some how I see that paper being $5 a page and the printers $50,000 so the savings is moot. At least we save some trees huh?

I Smell Paper Jams!!!

[ElboRuum]

You're missing the point, Samir, the idea is to think about what you'd do if you didn't have to work, then that's supposed to be your...

PC Load Letter?! What the fuck does THAT mean?!

Re:I Smell Paper Jams!!!

[ajs318]

"PC LOAD LETTER" is an error message found on Haitch-Pee laserjets. It means "load US Letter paper in paper cassette". Americans absolutely despise having to do anything the same way as the rest of the world, so they have their own special paper size: 216 by 279. Everybody else in every country in the entire world is using ( BS | DIN | EN | JIS | ISO ) A4, 210 by 297. The ratio long side : short side is sqrt(2) : 1, which means that there is no wastage when cutting down from one size to the next: cut it in half (with a very, very sharp blade so as to leave no swarf) and the ratio is now 1 : sqrt(2) / 2, which is the same. And of course it's important that the long : short ratio be the same throughout the range of paper sizes, for the sake of enlargement and reduction.

Anyway, what the message actually means is that some luser has left their PC set up to print on US Letter paper. Although Microsoft Windows has a paper size setting somewhere in its control panel, Microsoft Office has its own, completely independent paper size setting. And due to the fact that Microsoft are an American company, even although the US market accounts for a fraction of worldwide sales, and even although Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows CDs are specially tailored to the destination country, even despite all the overwhelming reasons why the default should logically be A4, Microsoft persist in defaulting to US letter anyway.

On the upside, it does give you an excuse to get the cluebat out ......

Re:I Smell Paper Jams!!!

[ambrosen]

Thanks. I was wondering why Office was having problems.

Ease of use

[Britz]

At the current price of paper, who is going to collect the pages and put them back into the printer? Just pulling a fresh load from the stack and inserting it is so much easier. Especially because used paper is not as easy to stack properly.

for the finance people:

[Lord Ender]

How much would you save on paper costs, vs how much would you pay to fix all the paper jams from wrinkled paper going back in the printer?

A solution without a problem

[Kohath]

Just throw away the used paper and print on new paper.

Paper is a crop. It grows on trees that are specially planted by paper companies on paper-company land. They're chosen to grow quickly and produce good paper pulp. Cotton is also used in most papers. Cotton is also a crop that's specially planted for this purpose. Paper is also extremely inexpensive.

This technology reminds me of waterless urinals. There are places locally that have them. They don't work well. I live within 5 miles of the 5th largest river in the world. Water is not scarce.

There's no reason to invent expensive, new technologies to be inferior substitutes to the use of cheap abundant resources. Why not fix a real problem instead?

Re:A solution without a problem

[SpaghettiPattern]

Water is not scarce.
Ever been to a desert?

There's no reason to invent expensive, new technologies to be inferior substitutes...
Yes there are. 1) Fun. 2) Because you can, 3) They might come in handy one day.

Re:A solution without a problem

[Thng]

Well, I can't say the same about Xerox's paper yet, but waterless urinals do have a purpose.

Rocky Mountain NP's Alpine Visitor's Center, for example has them. Why (other than being near a bunch of hippies in Boulder, CO)? The visitor's center is somewhere around 12,000 feet and its water and sewage needs to be hauled.

So, perhaps one day, someone will come up with a GOOD use for this paper. Maybe sensitive but unclassified type docs that you really don't want to sit around for too long, but need to print. Sure just use a copy machine... but how long before copy machines can ID the paper, and refuse to copy (much like with paper money now) or will only reprint it on the same special paper, and be illegal to circumvent? thng

Re:A solution without a problem

[soliptic]

Water is not scarce.

Are you sure about that?

Re:A solution without a problem

[Baloo Ursidae]

Paper is a crop. It grows on trees that are specially planted by paper companies on paper-company land.

I would like to point to the clearcuts on Mt. Hood National Forest and remind you that National Forests are not owned by Weyerhauser.

It's a lemon

[syousef]

Ah this brings back memory of the wonder you have as a kid discovering that writing on paper with lemon juice it disappears and dries until you iron it and the lemon trail browns. Of course you couldn't erase it afterwards and reuse the paper, so it's not the same. Then again I didn't have to spend millions on research.

The possibilities abound. Documents that honour privacy legislation and erase themselves in 7 years. Historians and investigators rejoice! Your work load is about to decrease dramatically. You see the key problem is that instead of treating the paper as disposable, you treat your information as disposable.

Diebold Paper Trail

[Frankie70]

Maybe Diebold can use this technology to generate the paper trail for
electronic voting.

I've got a better idea..

[Anonymous Coward]

White ink!
Print out your document like normal.. then when you are sick of those pesky letters, swap over to the white cartridge and print the exact same document!

copying on the same paper over and over

[p51d007]

It all depends on the type of machine. I've been working on these machines for 25 years. If it is a slow speed (under 20 cpm) you could probably get away with it for a while, as long as you feed it in landscape (8 1/2 x 11R) with the grain of the paper. On higher speed models, (seg 3,4,5) machines, the quality of the paper is the majority factor in producing a quality print. When the speed of the machine pushes above 60 cpm, the paper isn't spending much time over the drum/transfer section, not to mention the fuser section where the image is actually "saved" on the paper. Machines now handle "recycled" paper a lot better than they did 10 years ago, but the real problem you get in a dry process machine, is moisture content of the paper. A low quality paper, or a "DP" "dual purpose" paper doesn't work as well as a dedicated "xerographic" paper. Paper of the "DP" type is made to work in a large range of machines, dry AND wet process. Inkjet, offset machines obviously use liquids, and therefore the paper needs to be able to "absorbe" the ink. If that paper is exposed to a higher humidity, or stored improperly, it will inhibit the transfer process to some extent on a plain (dry) paper copier/printer. Also, a lot of recycled paper has LOTS of paper dust. This dust will get transfered to the photoconductor drum, and when the cleaning blade (works like a windshild wiper) cleans off the drum, sometimes this paper dust gets trapped between the blade and the drum and after a few thousand copies, can actually scratch the drum surface, causing blade lines on the copies. The drum is a VERY sensitive and easily scratched device. Paper is wood pulp, and very abrasive. I try to steer my customers away from recycled paper on high speed machines, since they will waste a lot of time clearing paper jams. It doesn't seem specific to any particular brand. I've seen it happen on Canon, Ricoh, Minolta, Konica, Sharp, Toshiba. If you want consistant output, use good quality paper. As for the "paperless" office, yeah right. I remember when the paperwork reduction act went through over a decade ago, and just laughed. ANYTIME the government is involved (or lawyers), the paperwork goes UP. A couple of years ago, the healthcare industry was forced into the HIPPA act (healthcare information privacy protection act), and you should have seen the increase in the volume of copies! One hospital I service, the output has increased at least by 1/3. As long as there is a government, or lawyers, paperwork will be a necessary evil. I have one account, a educational department that runs anywhere between 1.5 to 2.0 million copies per year! Even with a connected (networked) machine, where they can email the output to a mailbox instead of printing it for each department, they haven't cut their output by much, because when each department gets the email, they usually print the email. Everyone wants a "hard copy" to either file or have in their hands. The transition to a "paperless" office will probably take longer than accepting a "fax" as a real document was in the early 80's.

Re:copying on the same paper over and over

[Kenyon]

Enter key. Use it.

Re:copying on the same paper over and over

[p51d007]

bite me how's that?

Re:copying on the same paper over and over

[Killall -9 Bash]

That doesn't work here.
works, but how many people can be hassled to use HTML tags?

don't bet on it

[virchull]

Xerox has an amazing history of inventing cool, new technology and not making it a business success. The book, Fumbling the Future, documents many of these technology fizzles, but the list is much, much longer. Xerox continues to have very bright inventors, but no way to sell anything other than printers and copiers. Transient paper sounds cool, but Xerox will not succeed in creating the business "eco-system" (like the things mentioned in above postings), and their sales force can meet their sales targets by selling something they already know, so why bother with something low margin and complicated like weird paper. And like someone said, paper is dying - especially in the office.

Put your bets and your dreams on something else.

UN-PATENT!

[bigattichouse]

I unpatent the idea of an ink pen that the ink will immediately disappear or show in red if the document is on transient paper.

Hey, Dad...

[JoeCommodore]

".. can I um.. borrow the sheet of paper tonite?"

"Ok, Son, just have it clean by my meeting at 9:30 am."

Inspector Gadget

[JTSmith]

THe first thing that came to mind when I read this article is Inspector Gadget. Whats next self destructing paper? Although, exploding paper would not really perserve ink or paper very well. I'll get you next time GADGET!!!

slow process

[Anonymous Coward]

it's a very slow process. Have you ever been to a mature forest, what they call a climax forest? The humus layer is DEEP. Lot of carbon there.

Anyway, forests are a drop in the bucket, the ocean is where most extra carbon eventually gets to. Forests are good for moderating climate, acting as water sponges and air conditioners.

Commercial Flop in 3... 2... 1...

[patio11]

1) Its not environmentally friendly. The paper is going to have to be treated with a witches brew of chemicals, and most of it will not end up being "recycled" because paper rarely survives contact with the enemy (users). The energy cost to produce special paper at boutique sizes (regular paper gets produced on billion dollar machines at outputs you wouldn't believe if I told you, so you can average your costs, including energy, over the whole production run) is probably going to be worse than the energy cost of recycling regular "use it once and then pulp it" $3 a ream paper.

2) Its going to cost a heck of a lot more than basic paper products, which mean for the sort of transient documents that they're contemplating using it on, like the memo that won't mean anything in 24 hours, nobody will want to use it. People are willing to pay serious money for paper (I used to work for an office supply company -- $40 a ream for resume paper, anyone?), but thats *specifically* for paper that marks a very special occasion and has to either a) stick out from a stack of undifferentiated paper, like a resume or b) last for a good deal of time without wearing, like a diploma or library copy of a thesis. For daily use they will go somewhere else if you charge a premium of 10 cents a ream. (One ream is 500 sheets.)

3) Its not secure, and thats going to give people fits. When you shred/pulp a paper, people know that that data is (probably) not coming back to haunt them. Most companies are not going to trust that somebody won't be able to raise the previous version of the data with lemon juice or some other innovative chemical/physical inspection. For compliance-intensive industries (which seems to be all of them, nowadays), the whole "Hmm, that sheet of paper Bob is taking home with him to read on the bus could have customer data on it, we're just not sure..." is a nightmare. The government will expel building materials from their hindquarters before using this stuff.

This is a product which purports to solve a problem that does not exist. Regular office paper cheap, comparitively environmentally friendly, and secure. This product is 0 for 3.

Re:A solution without a problem!

[bussdriver]

we should all know that anything that sticks to paper-like ink- even after changing chemically hours later is going to leave SOME chemical traces on the paper, making it possible at some point afterward to see at least that the ink was used on the paper if not be able to read parts of it.

Talk about Orwellian

[davidwr]

The nice thing about print is it leaves a paper trail.

I guess the denizens of Orwell's 1984 won't have to burn each day's newspapers, they'll just let the print "fade away."

Re:Talk about Orwellian

[Achromatic1978]

Even better in Fahrenheit 451:

"It's better to fade away than to burn out."

Come on, there's a link for a reason!

[5of0]

Basic point from the article, for those of you who didn't read it: There is NO INK involved. It's like thermal paper in concept - chemicals in the paper change color in the presence of UV light. All the printer will contribute to the paper is UV light: From the article:

The paper has a photochromic compound that changes from a clear state to a coloured state under ultra-violet light. This can create the print face, which will duly fade with time.

That said... I can see it being useful, but in limited scenarios, as mentioned in the article - putting something from the screen to the paper so it's easier to read. Read it, then put it back in the printer. It could save money/resources, especially if it was a secondary printer - when you wanted to print an e-mail/proofreading copy/etc, print it to your temp printer. I would assume Xerox would have to come up with some kind of companion UV pen, to do proofreading that creates a slim laserish of UV light to write proofreading marks. The other question is: how are they going to keep the sun from washing it out, or whatever other stray UV wandering around?

The will...

[Kamineko]

It's ACME Magic Disappearing, Reappearing Ink!

Marvin Acme... what a genius!

The content you proof-read on train home?

[munpfazy]

That assumes you either need no corrections, or you annotate using a UV pen. And, that you are able to carry a stack of papers around the subway without creasing and wrinkling them.

There are only two good reasons to print a document:
* you want to scribble on it.
* you want to carry it somewhere that its likely to get lost or damaged or where an electronic reader is inappropriate.

In either case, this paper is unlikely to be useful.

Personally, I'd much rather see the Xerox R&D folks working on light weight, high-contrast electronic readers with robust note-taking features.

Wither the archivists?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can just see some Records Managers jumping out of windows on this one...

Or better, pushing Xerox employees out of them... ...but there are always more where that came from.

Am I the only one

[Nybble's Byte]

who was reminded of Mission Impossible?
"Your mission, Jim, should you decide to accept it, ..."
"This tape will self destruct in five seconds."

Not at all

[jesterzog]

Paper is a crop. It grows on trees that are specially planted by paper companies on paper-company land.

Perhaps you're in a different situation, but if it becomes available reasonably cheaply, I could see this being useful in my workplace as part of the recycling initiative that's going on here. If land wasn't required for producing paper pulp and cotton, it might be used for something more useful.

Even if you're thinking about it in selfish economic terms, all it takes is for a piece of reusable paper to cost less than all the regular paper that might have been thrown away. If Xerox is researching it, it's presumably because they think they can eventually sell it.

Old news

[Anonymous Coward]

This technology already exists, did anyone try to hold on to a receipt for a product with life time warranty.
The ink magically disappears as soon as you release that the product is toast.
That is intelligent erase for you.

Old Technology

[jd]

Inks that were made from slowly sublimating crystals go back a very long way. The idea is that the colour is in the form of something like solid iodine in a medium that slows down the rate at which it turns to its gaseous state. The medium can't follow the writing, though, or the writing is still visible. So Xerox has discovered a better sublimation process. Sounds like basic chemistry, not rocket science.

Sounds like a failed idea re-branded

[westcoaster004]

Not intending to be funny here, but this really sounds like Xerox had one of those didn't-work-but-we'll-sell-it-anyway accidents. Maybe they were just trying to make some nice cyan or magenta ink and suddenly, 'oh my... it faded! It wasn't supposed to do that. I wonder... maybe we could sell it?'
On the other hand, there have been people working on photochromism for UV-activated switches recently for light based memory systems (quite a buzz among some materials chemists). Maybe they picked up on the idea from that... perhaps they did it on purpose from the start.

Endless supply

[iron-kurton]

The quantities of wasted computer paper are minute when compared to the amount of toilet paper used. The world really needs toilet paper with this technology. Either that, or underwear made of the same.

Re:Endless supply

[FuzzyDaddy]

Or start reusing those old printouts.

"Excellent report, James! And nice and soft, too!"

Re:Insert appropriate Inspector Gadget reference h

[Anonymous Coward]

That's ridiculous! Tom Cruise wasn't even born back then!

perfect in some situations

[Anonymous Coward]

I see this paper as the ideal medium for software requirements, the print lasts about as long as the validity of the requirements

You insensitive clod...

[Rupert_Giles]

I can't read!

At last, a genuine step forward

[clickclickdrone]

I've been so bored with computing and IT in recent years. It's all just more of the same, a bit bigger, a bit faster. P2P was cool and portable MP3 players too but apart from that, it's all incremental changes by and large.
I would therefor like to say thank you to Xerox for finally coming up with something truly new and radical.
On the downside, seeing as most paper comes from renewable resources i.e. managed tree farms, is it really an issue these days? What is the cost of paper production versus reusing as per this system? When you take in to account the cost of the printer/ink/paper, is it better for us overall? What about the chemicals involved, benign or nasty?

Transient ?

[smoker2]

And here was I expecting to read about Xerox keeping secret copies of all documents that passed through their copiers.

Just imagine :

The definitive proof of Govt. involvement in the JFK assassination,
the contract with MGM to fake the moon landings,
the proof about WMDs.

Maybe it's true, and it's just your copy that fades !

Re:Insert appropriate Inspector Gadget reference h

[ajs318]

Yeah, and I invented real self destructing message tapes when I was about 8 years old. Took a few goes to get the prototype together, but they worked: one play was all you got. However, <adder="black">there was a tiny flaw in this plan</adder>.

If you can't see the flaw, apply for a job with the RIAA / MPAA now.

Reasons not to do this

[Flying pig]

Looking at the replies to this, some people seem idiot enough to think about trying it. Don't. Because:

• The dust will go everywhere and wreck your printer paper path
• Also clothes etc., and don't forget heating it makes it glue itself to things
• In its "active" unheated state it may be toxic
• No, it cannot be collected for reuse. Very stupid idea. It will get mixed up with paper dust and other dust. Toner is actually quite a high-tech product nowadays, and will not take kindly to major contamination

On the other hand, if the people suggesting trying it are actually printer salesmen - way to go, guys!

Re:An interesting application... problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is with balancing the books at the end of the month. Most stores accept coupons, but they send them to a central clearing house working on behalf of the company issuing the coupon. If these coupons fade away, then the store will be out the amount of the coupon because the clearing house won't be able to accept a blank piece of paper.

Many stores save up their coupons and send them in weeks or even months later, depending on how many they receive.

Printer types.

[jellomizer]

I am pritty sure this paper will only work with some types of printers.
Ink Jet is a possibility. But Laser or Solid Ink? They both work by melting stuff on top of the paper. I dont think that Solid Ink Printers will goaway that easially the best you can make those papers is so you can rub off the ink/toner.

Apps: Security, Intelligence & Lottery Tickets

[bratwiz]

This new xerox thing probably isn't all that useful for ordinary stuff. Most people have greasy fingers, bend/rumple the pages, spill ketchup and who knows what else on pages-- etc. I don't think stuffing that paper back in the printer is going to turn out to be a good idea for anybody-- except maybe the printer repair people (does xerox have a stake in any printer companies??).

However, I think the "killer app" for this type of paper is going to turn out to be the security / intelligence communities where what's written-down can be real liabilities. (Okay, also for Enron, President Bush, the Republicans in general, and all of the other greedy, nasty, up-to-no-goodniks out there). The idea of being able to print out a classified report, read it and then know it will fade away has got to have the intelligence communities very interested. Sure they'll probably shred and burn the stuff anyway-- but it will be much harder to dumpster-dive and reconstruct anything useful from the shredded wads.

Of course the most effective use of this new technology will be to use it to print lottery tickets. That way the states can rake in BILLIONS on lotteries they know they'll never have to pay out on! Now that's ingenious! :)

Ditto!

[Chelloveck]

[...] the purplish printing [...]

But will it have that wonderful mimeograph smell?

Disappearing Ink

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also the disppearing link (tm) product. which I'm proud to present to you here:

Not so useful for me.

[FuzzyDaddy]

As I can't handle a single sheet of paper for more than about 5 seconds without rendering it to wrinkly and/or coffee stained to use in the printer again. Now if they made some sort of permanent press paper that did this, THEN I'd be excited.

Is the data really "lost"?

[Covalent]

I see serious problems with the idea that the information on this paper is "lost" after 16 hours. We all know how hard it is to "lose" data on a hard drive. It seems to me that if a printer has printed on this paper, then some kind of indelible information is now stored on this paper. How long will it be until this paper is thrown away and that data is then stolen?

re: Don't think you'll print photos on this stuff

[King_TJ]

The article said something about the print looking purplish, despite having up to 1200dpi resolution. So if you do print photos on it by mistake, it's going to be immediately obvious.

what happened to e-paper?

[master_p]

A few years ago the e-paper was big news...a set of miniature black-n-white plastic spheres enclosed in a thin sheet of plastic and managed electromagnetically where enough to use as a gray-scale alternative to real paper. What happened to that?

Thanks for the info...

[ElboRuum]

That was quite a screed against the "American Way of Doing Things".

May I ask a simple question? Since 8x11in paper standard long predates these JCL standards, why didn't they simply adopt 8x11 as the standard?

Put another way, why should we reward obstinacy with anything but obstinacy?

Re:Thanks for the info...

[ajs318]

Whatever the dimensions you use, sqrt(2) : 1 is the perfect ratio for a piece of paper.

The most important property of a range of paper sizes, apart from all your papers actually coming out the size you specify, is that every sheet of paper must have the same ratio of long side : short side. Otherwise you would get odd effects when you tried to do reductions and enlargements.

Say your "normal" size paper is 216 x 279mm. Now 432 x 558 is four times the size. But suppose you want an intermediate size? The Geometric Mean is 305 x 395, but you can't make two pieces that size out of a single sheet 432 x 558. If you made your paper 279mm. wide so as to be sure of getting 2 pieces, then it would have to be 360mm. tall. And you can only cut one piece 216 x 279 out of that.

Why the strange figures? Well, A4 is half the size of A3, which is half the size of A2, which is half the size of A1, which is half the size of A0. And A0 paper measures exactly 1m2 (or 1 000 000 mm2). Unfortunately, Nature didn't make everything integers! No matter what base you count in (and you can have fractions in other bases beside 10 [actually, all bases are "base 10" in the base in which you're counting; I meant of course base ten]: for instance, 0x0.8 is a half in hex), sqrt(2) cannot be expressed exactly as one integer divided by another, and sqrt(sqrt(2)) hasn't a prayer. The actual dimensions of a sheet of A0 paper (which measures one square metre, and has its sides in the ratio sqrt(2) : 1) are (2 ** 0.25) by (2 ** -0.25)m. == 1.189 by 0.841m.

Privacy Scores

[955301]

Finally! A point for privacy. Print personal information on a page and not worry about it getting stolen or used against you.

This would be a welcomed advance.

Security?

[Powder_Keg_Monkey]

The privacy and security concerns of this technology are troubling. I deal with a lot of privileged and confidential information, and I cannot imagine resuing a piece of paper that previous may have had privileged and/or confidential information printed on it. If that paper fell into the wrong hands, the faded information it contains could likely be recovered, even if it was printed over.

As it is, you hear enough stories involving the release of privileged and/or confidential information using digital documents that are "redacted", or where the metadata has not be cleansed properly. Dead tree has been the only secure way of ensuring that what you see is what you get. With this disappearing ink, even paper is no longer secure.

Re:Security?

[tomhudson]

That's Xerox's NEXT marketing move - photocopy paper that DOESN'T fade! Only 10x the price of the same ordinary paper you've been buying for years.

Perfect for Mid-East Cease-Fire agreements!

[RexDevious]

Why go through the embarrasment of violating yet another cease-fire agreement, only hours after you've signed it? With Xerox's new "Transient Document" technology, your commitments on paper vanish just as fast as they do in real life!

Also perfect for:
-Disaster relief promises
-Nuclear non-proliferation treaties
-Campaign position press releases
-Celebrity Marriage Certificates
-Much, much more!

Xerox: Bring the concept of "Not worth the paper it's written on", into the 21st Century.

We tried this in the 80s

[Anonymous Coward]

With printers and fax machines. Anybody remember full page thermal printers?

They had the extra bonus that they stored easily rolled up, whether you wanted them that way or not.

Printing email

[Sloppy]

think of the emails you may print out just to read

Wow, I didn't realize that so many people have things so rough. I'm sure glad my computer has a video monitor!

A few wrinkles?

[EricTheO]

Will a Ream of this paper come with an Iron to remove the wrinkles and creases before reuse? -Eric

Contracts

[skipscum]

This could be exploited to do all sorts of nasty things with.

1) Get your boss to sigh a memo.
2) Wait a couple of hours for meno to dissapear leaving a blank sheet with a signiture.
3) Print yourself a new contract on the signed page with permanant ink giving you a pay rise.
4) Proffit!