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Friday, June 13, 2008

Innovation

PARC Shows Off Disappearing Ink

Donna Fuscaldo

FOXBusiness

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Now you see and now you don’t.

Researchers at Xerox Corp. (XRX) have developed new technology that makes printed images disappear after a period of time.

The reusable ink technology, a collaboration between Xerox Research Centre of Canada and PARC (Palo Alto Research Center Inc.), is in the early stages but could usher in a new era in which people use the same piece of paper over and over again to print.

“A third of everything most people print gets thrown in the trash,” said Eric Shrader, Energy Systems area manager at PARC during an interview with Fox Business Network’s Liz Claman. According to Xerox about two out of every five pages printed in an office are for things like e-mail or Web pages that are only used for a single viewing.

The technology, called "erasable paper," uses compounds that change color when they absorb a certain wavelength of light and then gradually disappear. The paper self erases in 16 to 24 hours and can be reused. According to Xerox, researchers at PARC have developed a prototype of a printer that creates the image on the paper using the specific wavelength of light as the writing source.