New Details on Xerox Inkless Printer 198
Iddo Genuth writes "Xerox is developing a new printing technology which does not require ink of any kind. The new technology includes reusable paper which can be printed and erased dozens of times and has the potential to revolutionize printing. New details on this upcoming technology, which was first reported in September 2006, are now revealed."
Please contact this site's webmaster (Score:2, Funny)
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Fantastic (Score:5, Insightful)
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if the paper i
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I do have to admit though, I really enjoy harassing my business partner about the solid ink. I refer to the blocks as "crayons" just because it drives him nuts. One time after he complained about ordering ink, I bought him a box of Crayolas. He was not pleased. I, of course, was.
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Namely, after one printing, how will you regather the paper in a nice stack, not crumpled, creased, or otherwise used looking besides the printing in an economical manner? I wouldn't count on people being nice and turning the paper back in pristine condition.
This stuff seems to be only for inner office use, and for very organized ones a
Re:Fantastic (Score:5, Informative)
2. Unless you use software like OneNote (and have a laptop) it can be much more convenient to print out an email and "doodle" notes onto it.
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Re:Fantastic (Score:5, Interesting)
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I have a mental image of almost every retarded manager in my organisation going "Excellent, some piece of technology that can magically make my problem go away without me expending any effort to try and actually solve it."
Re:Fantastic (Score:5, Funny)
That's how we ended up with all these fucking computers in the first place.
KFG
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This is seems more like a technical problems than just email.
Wouldn't file save as into a common share folder and then a phone call be quicker?
Also cheaper in the long run for large organizations who spend a great deal of money on paper?
It seems that you don't have much control over your technical part of your business, but I would have to sa
Senator Stevens's Office? (Score:2)
Do you work with Senator Stevens? You'd better have the IT guys clear out the series of tubes so you can get your internets faster! It should be an easy enough job to clean out the internal tubes, but I don't know about the external ones... better take this one up with Congress.
(I'm kidding, and I mean no disrespect to the parent poster.)
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Hey, he could have an Amish manager, you insensitive English clod!
as seen on... (Score:3, Informative)
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During a part of this, I spent about a month describing and cataloging incoming photographs. About one half of that was devoted to the one tenth of the photographs that were Polaroids. Why? Because they have such a minute lifespan that on an archives' terms, this was the last chance anyone would get to look at them possibly. So, I had to describe, in minute detail, each one.
The question is: is this paper going to be like a Polaroid? Sure it's convenient,
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Then get an Epson photo printer [epson.com]. The prints are scratch/moisture resistant, and fade resistant for 200 years, or so they say. (I guess we'll find out in 200 years)
Good news, bad news (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good news, bad news (Score:4, Informative)
"No more clogged ink jets would be a huge improvement on it's own. I've blown through $30 in ink trying to clear the a clogged ink cartridge."
Why would you do that when laser printers are well under $100.00 and color lasers are under $200.00?
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Because the toner is $120+ and while I don't know the usage patters of the parent, I wouldn't need to spend $220 on a printer when I print maybe 50 sheets of paper at home a year.
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Plus when it comes toime to refill in case you ever do start printing more, you can try something like "t
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I hate to break it to you, but "not needing drum replacements" is most likely a euphemism for "having an integrated drum/toner cartridge, so replacing the toner means replacing the drum at the same time." Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, mind you -- my Brother HL-2070N is like that. But it's important to at least be aware of such things, you know?
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To add: I REALLY REALLY don't miss having to refill ink cartridges. I can't believe I didn't buy an inexpensive laser printer sooner. It prints so much faster....
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Refilling an Ink Cart requires (at least when I do it) that some ink leakage occurs and something gets ink on it; you have to handle the carts carefully and try not to over-fill. You also need to leave the air holes' passageways open, otherwise the cart won't work correctly.... probably took me on the order of 1/2 an hour to do a full color fill (probably about 13 minutes for black only) due to prep time and clean up afterwards.
The Laser printers (even ones with smal
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No, a toner/drum assembly is $120. Toner is significantly less than that if you buy from a company that separates the two.
Spending $220 today can get you a networked, duplexing laser printer that will last your 50-sheet-a-year habit an amazing length of time. (20 years if nothing corrodes.)
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The replacement toner kit for this one *is* around $150, but it includes a fresh imaging unit. Even so, the cost of operation is a fraction of that for an inkjet.
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I spent $250 on a laser printer several years ago. I'm still on the original toner cartridge. Funny thing about toner: it doesn't magically disappear when not in use like ink does.
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Sure, toner is pricey, but so is ink. My printer costs 1.5 cents for black, and 4.5 cents for color per page. It would be hard to find an inkject that can beat those prices (and yes, that is for 5% coverage). For photos there is
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You want cheaper printing, just legislate refillable ink containers and open specs on the ink, just watch the cost or printing drop by a factor of ten.
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This will never work. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Your assertion that fridges don't break is actually laughable, as they contain moving parts. Moving parts means frictional wear, which means eventual breakage.
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Next up... (Score:5, Funny)
Can't see this working in the real world (Score:5, Insightful)
How are Xerox planning on coping with dog-earing, tearing, scuffing and otherwise deformed paper?
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My thoughts exactly.
I also expect a few patents on the paper itself, and it'll cost a pretty penny.
Sales pitches will be based on saving a few dollars if you recycle 90% of your paper, but we all know you'd be lucky if 50% of it gets reused.
It'll be the old case of 'looks cheaper on paper' but ultimately costs more than all the ink in India.
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Very punny!
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Or maybe they've been selling us shitty paper paths on purpose, and the only real difference here is that this printer will finally have a GOOD paper path.
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Paper paths are determines by a number of factors, firstly - the more trays a printer has, the more places it has to be able to pick the paper up from. While logically it would be possible to move the paper trays to allow a straight through paper path from any tray - it would require a lot of space and would be a large moving assembly that would jam if it got even a fraction out of alignment.
The less turns, the least number of moving components and the shortest path generally gives you the least misfeeds.
Better idea (Score:2, Interesting)
We could use cheap ink. It would be AMAZING. You could print out photographic posters for cents.
You could redecorate your house with your own designs or photos like wallpaper.
A lucrative idea out there. Just remember you heard it here.
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You mean like hpijs/hplip [sourceforge.net]? (Funded by HP).
The ink is expensive because HP/Canon/Whoever spent lots of money developing inks that work well with the paper you print on (and because it's high quality). You can buy cheap/crappy ink, but it's not going to
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As good as HP ink might be, it's not $2000/gallon good.
No cost for ink!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
I see Proud IT managers showing off this new tech and then screaming in pain as the Director of sales grabs it folds it in half and staples it.
If they get the cost of the paper to only 2x the cost of normal paper they may MAY have a chance. but right now laser printers and cheap copy paper is incredibly cheap.
I can hardly wait! (Score:3, Insightful)
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Yep, we are going to get reamed on that.
Blogvertizement alert (Score:2)
dupe of sorts (Score:3, Funny)
(Yes, I do hate it when people refer to toner and ink interchangeably as "ink"; why do you ask?)
Interesting tech, but sounds impractical (Score:2)
Here's the patent. (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong link. About cantilevers (Score:2)
Cost (Score:2)
Article text (Score:5, Informative)
Written by Iddo Genuth Thursday, 15 February 2007
Xerox is developing a new printing technology which does not require ink of any kind. The new technology includes reusable paper which can be printed and erased dozens of times and has the potential to revolutionize printing. Although the technology is still in the early stages of development, it has the potential to cut printing costs and reduce office paper usage dramatically. New details on this upcoming technology are revealed here for the first time.
The dream of the paperless office
One of the earliest articles discussing the topic of the paperless office was "the Office of the Future" published in the June 1975 issue of Business Week. The idea, bandied about many times since, was the elimination of most or all paper which has been piling around in our offices in the last several decades.
The personal computer revolution of the 1980s brought with it the hope of the paperless office as there was a shift from the old-fashioned typewriters to viewing and editing documents on computer screens. But this dream vanished quickly as people realized that their monochromatic cathode ray tube (CRT) displays were uncomfortable to watch for long periods of time. Aggravating the problem was the introduction of the low-cost office printer, capable of making dozens of copies of each document (an ability which was limited until that time to large and expensive photocopying machines).
Book on an LCD-difficult to read Book on an LCD-difficult to read
As years passed by it seemed that the introduction of the personal computer not only did not reduce the amount of paper produced in our offices, it actually increased it.
The widespread adoption of liquid crystal display (LCD) technology in recent years made some people hopeful again for at least some reduction in office paper production, but although LCD might be somewhat more comfortable to watch than the older CRT screens, most people still find it difficult to read long documents on the computer screen; and in most cases anything above one or two pages will get printed at least once.
The old/new hope of electronic paper
In the 1970s, Xeroxs Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) was a powerhouse of innovation. Many aspects of what we now see as the modern computer, namely the mouse, the laser printer, the Ethernet, GUI, computer-generated color graphics, as well as a number of important computer languages, were invented at PARC around that time. The development of the Gyricon, which was nearly lost among all those important breakthroughs, was originally invented in 1974 by PARC employee Nicholas K. Sheridon as a new display technology for the company ALTO personal computer. Eventually, the Gyricon (a Greek term meaning rotating image) turned out to be the basis for modern e-paper technology.
Electronic paper (e-paper) is the name given to several distinctly different technologies (to be covered in depth by a forthcoming TFOT article) which are capable of displaying text, images and in the case of some e-paper technologies, video, on a thin (occasionally flexible) sheet of plastic. In many respects e-paper is more similar to a digital display than to paper. E-paper displays can change the image at a press of a button, store countless articles or books and can even be made interactive allowing a user to add content, search and perform other operations. The important advantage of e-paper over conventional screen technology is its readability. Unlike conventional screen technology, e-paper doesn't emit light on its own; rather, it uses the ambient light to reflect the text just like ordinary paper. E-paper has the potential to eliminate paper usage in future offices but it remains to be seen whether it will be successful where so many previous technologies have failed.
Commercial e-paper technology is finally starting to appear on the market but it will take seve
They would have loved this (Score:2)
and who will employ the squid? (Score:5, Interesting)
So while I'm sure the Earth applauds this invention, I'm not quite sure for whom or understand what circumstances its useful. I also wonder how resusability is there. They claim 50 reprints, but I wonder if the image quality is as good by the 20th time as the first. Also, it apparently fades within a day.
It's not that I think the technology is useless, just limited.
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Agreed. I think the whole point of using paper nowadays is that it's disposable, so you don't have to worry about it. For example, the idea of newspapers downloaded onto an e-paper came up few years ago. Imagine the amount of fingerprints, coffee stains etc. accumulated on the paper over a year or so.
So what? (Score:3, Funny)
Why not... (Score:2)
jamming (Score:5, Insightful)
The new technology includes reusable paper which can be printed and erased dozens of times and has the potential to revolutionize printing
I spent several hellish months working at an advertising company with a boatload of medium-sized digital copiers, some b&w, some color. All were made by Xerox. Guess what they were doing, almost constantly? Jamming. Xerox liked to blame our paper, claiming it wasn't "consistent enough", and the magical solution was to buy Xerox paper. We refused, and simply pestered the shit out of their support people (fixed price support contract), calling them every time a printer started jamming regularly, if they were not on-site already to fix one of the other printers (they broke/crashed regularly.)
How is this relevant, you wonder? Well, the first lesson with laser printers is to never re-use paper in any laser printer. The slightest dirt scratches the imaging drum, a crease or wrinkle causes a misfeed or jam, and so on; you don't want to know how much damage a single paper clip can cause in a 35-40ppm digital copier, either. Inkjets are fine in this regard, but the complex paper feeding mechanisms in laser printers/copiers don't really like anything but pristine paper. The slightest thing like, say, the rubber on pickup/feed rollers getting a little too hard with age or less sticky and....
Oh, and the high-speed (20+PPM) printers have to slow down as the paper gets thicker. Dramatically. This fancy paper is probably thicker.
If they can't build a printer that can handle "fresh out of the box" copier paper, how do they expect to be able to handle paper that's been even *slightly* used once, much less five times? Other problems: staples; people who want to write on pieces of paper; finger oil/coffee spills. Etc. Now you have to stock two kinds of paper, your printer has half the effective paper capacity since it now stores two types, and users have to decide on usage prior to printing ("do I want to save this for more than 16 hours? Do I want to write on it?"), have the proper drivers installed, etc. I had enough trouble getting people to print duplex to save paper- and most of the time, people didn't bother to set up the proper printer driver, or even call us to do so.
PS:Despite the issues with newer (last 2-3 years) Xerox printers, where the profit seems to come from service contracts- if you have lots of little personal-sized printers, do yourself a favor and replace them with a MUCH smaller quantity of small/medium-size workgroup network printers. The supplies are cheaper per page and you'll have to stock fewer *kinds* of supplies as well, the supplies (like drums/toner cartridges) last longer, they're designed to be more serviceable, they're usually faster...and they're not built-to-a-price as badly as the "personal" units (HP 1100, anyone? :-)
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I mean
How should these be tagged? (Score:2)
This fits into a category of "that would be cool, but I can't buy it yet so why should I care?". I just can't think of a way to put that in a one-word tag or even a two-word jumble tag. I was thinking RSN (for Real Soon Now) but that could apply to other things besides products we can't buy yet. Tagging it vaporware is a bit too pejorative; they aren't all vaporware. That would be a separate tag. "Cantbuyityet" is short, but it's much too jumbly, even considering the tendancy for tags to be jumbly anyw
Coming soon... (Score:5, Funny)
Toys! (Score:2, Interesting)
picture (Score:2)
Mine doesn't need ink either. (Score:2)
So now they can gouge us on custom paper? (Score:2)
Even if it is reusable, how often do you plan to print something on a piece of paper that's been handed around, smudged, creased, and sneezed on, over and over again? These days, the only things I see printed are documents that are meant to be a b
CD-RW (Score:2)
How soon before contracts get re-written (Score:2)
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No thank you.
Does it allow use of a pen? (Score:4, Informative)
Hopefully this erasable paper can be photocopied without making it fade. That would solve a lot of the problems caused by fading over time. If you find you want to keep something you wrote on erasable paper, just pop it in the copy machine and it's now on permanent paper.
If Xerox does get it to work in color, it could be a great way to proof document formatting as well. There are things I just can't spot without actually printing a document, such as whether a shading makes text within it illegible. If the document is important enough for me to polish up and proof thoroughly, it's probably going to be in color. It doesn't have to be perfect color, just "business color".
Mal-2
What's wrong with using normal paper? (Score:4, Insightful)
What people should work on is a cheap (energy+resources), nontoxic and safe way of producing paper from renewable trees/plants.
Then when you see people who are accumulating stacks of paper, you can thank them for helping to keep CO2 out of the air.
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I guess it's true it's really hard for you to read on screen!
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Harvest, convert to paper. Use paper. Keep/landfill paper (aka carbon sequestration).
Replant. Repeat.
Whoever pays for all that paper would be sponsoring the extraction of CO2 from air.
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In some countries growing Kenaf might be an alternative to trees for paper.
half tone or continuous tone? (Score:3, Interesting)
reusable paper printer not inkless printer (Score:2)
This concept is fairly similar to the thermal printers which also require special paper. The images on them do wear off after a period of time as well. Have you ever pulled out your best buy four-year extended warranty, with attached receipt, only to notice the receipt is completely blank? I think most warranties will cover the item without the receipt if it has, and they have recorded, a serial num
info and bio security (Score:2)
This is just Stupid (Score:2)
Now look, I know there are some very smart people over at Xerox. But there is a very long list of reasons why this is yet another invention destined to fall by the wayside.
The most important reason is that the wonderful thing about paper is its malleability. You can fold it, you can tear it into strips, you can crumple it up in a ball. People will do all of these things, with the possible exception of the latter. The paper is specifically designed to be very similar to ordinary paper, so in an office wh
anyone remember thremal fax paper? (Score:2)
It could erase too just leave in the sun.. (I had a receipt go blank on me because it was in the sun too long). Of course not reusable.
In general, people just want to be able to use plain paper with their printers.
Re:slashdotted (Score:5, Funny)
Re:won't happen. (Score:5, Funny)
It's going to save corporate america tons of money ...
"The pages do degrade over time and currently can last between 16-24 hours before returning to their original blank form."
One real use would be newspapers - this way, instead of "buying" the news, you're just "renting" it.
Re:won't happen. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm curious if this new paper can be copied or scanned without damage. The next remaining question is if we can get notebooks made of this stuff and a special pen for writing on it... there's already 2 types of tech for reading handwriting either the logitech/penfly "dot" paper and magic pen, or the magic notebook that follows your writing. The failure of both of those models is that you spend all your time writing on ACTUAL paper, put the data into digital, then have to buy more special paper... you gain nothing over a regular notebook... unless you had magic erasing paper... now it's a really cool idea!!!!
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