Self-Recycling Paper

fermion writes "Xerox is reported to be working on some interesting forms of digital paper. The New York Times reports a 16 hour reusable paper. This system uses a coated paper and special ink to produce a copy that will fade over 16 hours, or sooner if the paper is put back in the copy tray. It can then be reused for a new copy, up to 10 times. According to the article, the rational for this is that paper is no longer used to store information, but merely to temporarily display it. The research suggest that in the typical office many copies end up in the recycle bin by the end of the day. The main obstacle to commercialization seems to be the question of whether people need this product. Will people have digital displays that will take the place of paper? Will something radically different from plain paper, but with competitive costs and characteristics, become popular? Xerox itself is working on something called gyricon, a system of tiny bichromal beads encased between sheets of plastics. Evidently the beads can be set electrically to either reflect of absorb light, thus allowing images to be generated at will. According to the page, the images can be set by a printer or a hand held wand. The 'paper' could even be combined with electronics to create a flexible display. So, /., where is our display technology headed? Coated conventional paper? Plastic reprintable paper? Glasses with heads up displays and wireless data feed?"

Your mission, if you choose to accept it...

[Centurix (249778)]

"This message will recycle in 5 seconds."

Teacher

[killa62 (828317)]

This goddamn piece of paper self-recycled.
I did my homework.
I swear!

Reusable paper good idea but only in volume

[SuperKendall (25149)]

The reusable paper, I could see being used a lot by businesses - but the problem is one of coexistance with other paper. If you have reusable paper, do you have no real paper? That seems impractical. Or, do you seperate the two and perhaps have reusable paper get mixed up with real paper and tossed? What happens if you forget what you have and take notes that end up on someone else's copy later?

There are indeed many items throughout the day that people need to temporarily display in a dense format, to which paper is ideally suited. But i think electronic paper fed data from the table it sits on or by some other means is probably better suited to this task, since it's truly reusable and probably not something you'd confuse with real paper.

Re:

[pilgrim23 (716938)]

Nothing new about reusable paper. In the middle ages, Monks would take priceless copies of the works of Archemedes, scrubbed them clean then bleach, cut to quarto and fold sideways, so a copy of the far more important records of the bowel movements of St Cuthbert could be imortalized for all times. The resultant volumes is called a "Palmiset"

Re:Reusable paper good idea but only in volume

[uhlume (597871)]

That anything like a "palimpsest"?

Re:Reusable paper good idea but only in volume

[flyingsquid (813711)]

The problem I see is that it's hard to know for certain how long you will need that printout for. Perhaps in the morning you figure you'll get to that printout in the next couple of hours, but it's a busy day and it sits on your desk all day long. The next morning you decide to take a look at it, but the paper has already recycled itself.

It would make more sense to allow the user to decide when the paper needs to be recycled. Create some sort of "de-printer" or "un-printer" that would zap the ink with UV and make it invisible, or something.

Also raises some corporate security issues. A lot of paper currently ends up in the shredder. If the recycled paper preserves minute but detectable traces of what was written before, it may be that it will have to end up in the shredder anyhow.

Re:

[b0s0z0ku (752509)]

Or, do you seperate the two and perhaps have reusable paper get mixed up with real paper and tossed?

Two printers. One for reusable paper. One for normal paper. Reusable paper should be marked with something like a red stripe across the top so that everyone in the know will know it'll fade after a day.

-b.

redundant

[slidersv (972720)]

This was posted @ /. almost two month ago.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/ 07/2243222 [slashdot.org]

Come on... just search for "xerox"...

Re:redundant

[camperdave (969942)]

Of course it was, but it faded.

Neat idea.

[Somatic (888514)]

A neat idea that will never, ever, ever get used in a million years by any office that I know of.

I appreciate the sentiment, but business is about getting business done. The first time work was lost because someone left the memo on their desk for more than xxx hours would be the end of the system. I can imagine some cruel managers getting a kick out of it, but that's about it.

The "paperless office" was a 100x better idea than this (and an idea that's not entirely dead, either. I telecommute, and my office is 99.9% paperless).

Re:Neat idea.

[revolu7ion (994315)]

Have you ever spoken to a photocopier technician?
I used to work in a library - and had to deal with the photocopier and lazer printer issues. You can't stick any old pieces of paper in those puppies - it destroys the printer, makes it jam etc. The reams have to be preferrably kept inside their box till used. Don't open half a packet and leave it there -moisture gets in and makes the paper jam more, drum life decreases - print quality decreases etc...
I'm pictring some secretary jamming creased, folded, curled and otherwise munted pieces of 'recycling paper' into the tray of the work copier... Jim from xerox would probably faint

Hurdles to overcome

[shirai (42309)]

This is an interesting concept but I see it having a major shortcoming:

You are now forced to make a decision before you print on whether the output should be temporary or permanent. Sometimes I will print something thinking it's temporary but I decide I need it longer. Or imagine the potential disaster of writing notes on the printout "in context" and that context disappears after 16 hours. Stuff like "ask Mary about this part" or "copy editing" marks.

I applaud the idea of paper recycling like this but couldn't see myself using it.

I think it has a few other issues too:

1. Needing two printers to print

2. Possibly not being able to distinguish between the two types of paper (assuming they look similar)

3. Having to print twice if you decide that you want a permanent copy

4. Cost(?)

Should consult the Russian space agency

[iamacat (583406)]

They will give some tips on using pencil and eraser as a low cost alternative

Spelling Nazi

[irishstallion (1008667)]

"According to the article, the rational for this is that paper is no longer used to store information, but merely to temporarily display it."

The word you are looking for is rationale. You are welcome.

paper jams

[fowlerserpent (690409)]

Seems like there would have to be a whole paper etiquette developed for this to work. Like paper clips only, no staple. No folding. No crumpling. Careful with the corners. If you don't, the paper will jam the printer.

It could work, though. For example, your department or team has a meeting. Different folks pass out relevant information. Immediately before or after the meeting they may also send .pdfs of the documents to everyone who attended the meeting. At the end of the meeting everyone can return the paper documents so the paper doesn't get bent out of shape.

Then again, if you're going to go to the trouble of sending everyone electronic versions of the documents, why not give everyone tablet pc's and forget about the paper altogether?

paper phishing

[l3v1 (787564)]

I just hope they make some kind of sign or something on those papers to be easily recognizable, since I think nobody would want to sign some contract papers the text of which later will fade away leaving your signature on a blank paper.
 

Passive screen

[dargaud (518470)]

I've always disliked having a light shone in my face all day, which is exactly what a monitor amounts to. It creates the light used for display; on the other hand a sheet of paper just reflects ambient light and is thus much nicer on the eyes (same overall brightness than ambient, same color temperature, etc). I've been following all this epaper stuff for a long time, the sony ebook reader now sold and other advances in the field. What is still missing from most of those is color.

I certainly would use this

[Big Nothing (229456)]

I would certainly use this. 90% of the print-outs I make go straight into the recycle bin, so this paper would be perfect for my use. The real question is: with the additional coating, does this paper decrease the environmental stress, or add to it? The equation would be using this paper (up to) ten times versus using ten regular sheets of paper - witch has the higher cost-benefit?

Re:Why?

[QuantumG (50515)]

I print stuff, read it, shred it. Why? Cause I like reading paper. The world does not revolve around you and your personal likes and, unfortunately, it doesn't revolve around mine either.

I print so I can *write* on it

[JavaRob (28971)]

I read on the screen unless I want to scribble all over it.
Then I print it out and make notes, draw arrows, underline, scratch things out, etc. etc. -- it's just faster than doing the same with a mouse.

OR I print things out if I'm taking a flight in an economy seat and don't want to struggle with the laptop in limited space. ...either way, not much use for this paper.

On the other hand, when I was still working in a corporate environment, we'd have lots of meetings where there'd be a printout to refer to dur

Re:Why?

[creimer (824291)]

You make photocopies of money, spend photocopied money at Wal-Mart to buy a Playstation 3, sell Playstion 3 on Ebay (profit!), and Wal-Mart sues the Federal Government for disappearing money.

Re:Why?

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

There was a white-collar gang that was caught some years ago that did something similar. They cashed lots of bad checks that were chemically treated to break down some time later, leaving no obvious evidence that said check ever existed. The way they got caught was because the treated checks began to dissolve other people's checks that were next to them. They still managed to get away with a lot of money before they got nailed. I've since wondered if anyone has repeated that particular gig more successfully ... not that we'd ever hear about it.

That's just it

[grahamsz (150076)]

I work on the data in a number of reports and frequently print the works in copy while i tweak the calculations or formatting.

99% of the time they are in the recycle bin within the hour, but sometimes i'll have a particular issue that means i need the printout for a week or more.

The other big plus to paper is that i can annotate things that might be hard on screen. I imagine if i make pencil scribblings on it it'll be useless for recycling.

In the corporate world many things are printed and never read. I had a tech lead years ago that swore he put a photocopied page from a russian engineering textbook in every large report he ever submitted to management - never got asked about it.

There are *some* e-ink products around...

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

FWIW, I believe Sony has an "e-ink" based product on the market, it's some sort of uber-expensive ebook reader. I'm fairly certain it's going to be a flop, but it's not a bad demonstration of the technology. I think it's called the Libre in Japan and the Sony Reader in the U.S. (As usual, it's supposed to use some ridiculously draconian DRM if you use it according to Sony's plan.)

Here's a WP article with photo:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Reader [wikipedia.org]

It uses some form of e-ink passive display that involves "

Nope. We need more permanent paper because...

[freedom_india (780002)]

Nope. After Enron, the SOX-B puts special responsibility on CTO and CEO for retention. They are criminally liable if they are found to have destroyed the paper/e-paper copies, even if the paper itself is innocent.

At my bank, we store ALL papers in HUGE IronMan boxes and cart them off to offsite storage.
Every cubicle and every office now has notices (in addition to OSHA, money laundering, etc) that warn of dire consequences if we scrub/scrap documents without making sure we don't need them.

I have stopped shredding even 2 years old design papers which contain paper scribblings of long-scrapped or long-finished systems.
They are either in my desk drawers (wonder why the desk is creaking...) or submitted for arhival.
Same goes for email.

We have only soft deletes nowadays on emails and nothing is ever deleted. It is just archived.

This disappearing ink will cause more headaches for people and whet the appetites of lawyers.
I can see a scenario in court:
Defendant: "Honestly your honor, i did NOT know it was that disappearing ink paper. I had written out my idea of reconstructing by buying out xyz bank's share in Acme before we ended up with a different deal."
Lawyer: "Not only did the defendant know this was special paper, she was the one who authorized the purchase of the same 4 years ago, knowing well it looked similar to normal paper, with the delibrate intention of using technology to wipe out criminal actions."

I don't think it will ever succeed beyond a fancy circle...

Xerox thought people would use less paper once emails came into vogue. Our usage of paper has shot up by more than 5 times ever since email and PC's came into being. Now we print out emails, powerpoint slides, reports that are never read, etc.