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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."
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.
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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.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
This memo is set to self-destruct in 16 hours.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
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.
What kind of documents do hobos need, aside from IOUs, and you might want those to last a while...
Hey, guys. Big gulps, huh? Cool. All right! Well, see ya later.
A really good way to play a practical joke on someone...
:)
- Term papers
- Contracts
- I could go on forever
This seems like it can (and therefore will) be used to add "DRM" to paper.
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.
Finally, contracts that aren't worth the paper they're written on.
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.
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.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
".. can I um.. borrow the sheet of paper tonite?"
"Ok, Son, just have it clean by my meeting at 9:30 am.""Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield