Xerox Reveals Transient Documents 246
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."
Nothing new, Concept-wise (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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Finally, contracts ... (Score:5, Funny)
Finally, contracts that aren't worth the paper they're written on.
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Pay Per View (Score:5, Funny)
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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Soviet Russia: the message destructs you
????: the message destructs itself
DIVX and EZ-DVD were different technologies (Score:3, Informative)
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 E
1 major prob... (Score:2, Insightful)
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Manual duplex and recycling paper (Score:2)
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.
Coming soon... (Score:5, Funny)
Your message, should you choose to accept it (Score:5, Funny)
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16 hours to get to a Kinko's! What ever will I do?
I can't wait (Score:2, Funny)
How long will the paper survive? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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Re:How long will the paper survive? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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> 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.
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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
Transients don't need documents (Score:5, Funny)
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What kind of documents do hobos need...?
Vagabonds?
This sounds like... (Score:5, Insightful)
- Term papers
- Contracts
- I could go on forever
It won't be long before... (Score:2)
I'm worried (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ordinary people get inconvenienced... but not scanner-armed newspaper pirates like me!
This screams "SECURITY ISSUES!!!!" to me .. (Score:2)
This could all to easily be a security disaster waiting to happen
Excellent! (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
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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 ha
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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
An interesting application... (Score:4, Interesting)
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...)
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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 ha
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Now whether or not they check all the mail that's postma
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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
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Rereading the article it looks like a special printer would also be required, so scratch the idea anyhow.
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PS: I think you'd like the halfbakery [halfbakery.com] if you don't already know about it.
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In the words of Egon Spengler... (Score:2, Funny)
He said that in 1984, mind you.
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I see a major problem with this (Score:2)
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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.
Insert appropriate Inspector Gadget reference here (Score:3, Insightful)
Xerox must be using inspector Chief Quimby's (gadget's boss) technology: "This message will self-destruct in 5... 4... "
Re:Insert appropriate Inspector Gadget reference h (Score:2)
Re:Insert appropriate Inspector Gadget reference h (Score:2)
Good idea... bad idea.... (Score:2)
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?
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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.
I could have done this already! (Score:5, Funny)
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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 al
Paper Tiger (Score:4, Funny)
Apparently Xerox is trying to get all the electronic voting business that Diebold is losing because the people are demanding paper trails.
Print email? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
geeks printing pr0n (Score:2)
So.. that explains it! (Score:3, Funny)
Just what I need for college! (Score:2)
Disappering Ink Anyone? (Score:2)
Im sure i just saw that in the joke shop for $2! and your charging me HOW much?
problem in the process of usage. (Score:2)
we can expect more paper jams
Brilliant, Brilliant Idea. (Score:2)
An even bigger consideration is
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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 ath
term papers? (Score:2)
Transient print outs? (Score:2)
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
Ease of use (Score:2)
for the finance people: (Score:2)
A solution without a problem (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
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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! (Score:2)
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Rocky Mountain NP's Alpine Visitor's Center [urinal.net], 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.
Not at all (Score:2)
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
It's a lemon (Score:2)
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. Yo
Diebold Paper Trail (Score:2)
electronic voting.
UN-PATENT! (Score:2)
Hey, Dad... (Score:5, Funny)
".. can I um.. borrow the sheet of paper tonite?"
"Ok, Son, just have it clean by my meeting at 9:30 am."Commercial Flop in 3... 2... 1... (Score:2)
The content you proof-read on train home? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Old Technology (Score:2)
Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE (Score:4, Funny)
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Who speaks for the trees?
I do. They're pleased these printers aren't made of wood.
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As for destroying the environment that's just FUD [tappi.org].
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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?
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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.
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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.
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Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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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.
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Oblig. Dr. Suess Quote (Score:3, Informative)
I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees!
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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 organisat
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Dryads, of course!
Re:PAPERLESS OFFICE (Score:4, Funny)
Now I just have to find out how to use them.
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http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/cyc/g/graham
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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.
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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 tech