I think this is great for kids doodle pads. They can draw, make doodles and then the next day draw again on the same paper without having to buy more. This way we can save some trees! I think it would also work in some business applications. I am sure the paper would be far too expensive to actually buy to outweigh the treehugging sense though.

Neat though. Since when is Xerox trying to save trees? I thought they were in the business of making trees go away.

The dude in the picture looks like Steve Jobs!

...great for kids' doodle pads.

It said: "wavelegth of light." What are they writing with - a laser pointer?

It would make sense that the paper would have some sort of permanent watermark to identify it as this type of paper. Hopefully, people would be smart enough to look for, or spot such a mark, on an important document.

I could see this being very useful for internal memos, or for document drafts. Who knows, maybe they'll feature this in the next Mission Impossible movie!!!

Grrr!! I actually invented this! I did you know! Whilst working at HP as an intern I thought of this idea and submitted a patent through HP for it. You may be thinking I should do some law suiting, but alas, although the idea was mine my patent lacked any actually technical specification apart from "Paper that can be coated, manufactured or processed so that it can be used again and again."

Still it makes my CV look good under my Patents sections!

That guy looks like he should be a rapper holding hundreds.

Neat idea. I'd like to see it in action.

If you ask me he looks more like Luke Wilson than unkie Steveie

http://www.empiremovies.com/nextraimages/luke-wilson.jpg

I don't really see a market for this? If I am actually going to the trouble of printing something, I don't want it to disapear on me.

I dunno about the resemblances, but it sure looks like he's offering The Shocker with his right hand.

"What do you mean I signed away all my organs for the black market? That contract that I signed was just to renew my heating oil contract."

Hmm, reprinting after someone signs something Could have some uses after all.

Why would the newspaper industry use this, Louis...? Who wants their newspaper to expire after 24 hours?

I'm sure our contractor would like to write their legal agreements on this....

A privacy measure that's easily defeated by a quick trip to the photocopier -- nice.

This paper will not be all that useful until it comes with some sort of staples that dissolve in 24 hours.
Oh, and coffee stains that disappear in 24 hours, too.

It sounds like this works by applying a certain wavelength of light to the paper to create the fadeable design, so unless they come out with some fancy light-pen, no doodle pads made with it.

I think the real market would be businesses that need to print out daily/weekly/monthly meeting reports, agendas, minutes, etc, that are only needed for one meeting or one day. Or times when you need to print out a lot of drafts of a paper, knowing full well that they will be discarded when you write a final copy. A lot of paper is wasted with stuff like that.

@hughjass -- Usually after I read the newspaper in the morning, I don't read it again. So by the end of the week I have a stack of useless papers. Now if I could use that for something else (after the print erases) -- cool. Makes recycling that much easier for lazy ppl like me.

Definitely a business market here. I used to have to print prodigious amounts of reports every morning to distribute to my supervision every morning. Then I would collect it all the next day , shred it, and crank out updated reports all over again. It would be great to just reload the used reports into the printer and write over them.

One concern though, how secure is the "disappearing"? We had to shred all documents with potential critical information on it. If someone got there grubby cookie grabbers on used sheets, could the use a black-light or something to read old data all CSI-style?

"I don't really see a market for this? If I am actually going to the trouble of printing something, I don't want it to disapear on me."

I think it'd be perfect for high schools. Memos and such are sent out to over 150 teachers at my school almost daily and are worthless within a day or two. It be great if they could just give the paper back and use it for the next one.

" ABC Bank agrees that it will never disclose the customer's details without prior written agreement from the customer"
becomes
" ABC Bank agrees that it will . . . disclose the customer's details without prior written agreement from the customer"

On the other hand, they probably do this already online, so why worry about self-erasable paper?

xerox is the bomb-diggity bomb...first the GUI, now erasable paper, what next? laser-saws? wowzer?

"Definitely a business market here. I used to have to print prodigious amounts of reports every morning to distribute to my supervision every morning. Then I would collect it all the next day , shred it, and crank out updated reports all over again. It would be great to just reload the used reports into the printer and write over them.

One concern though, how secure is the "disappearing"? We had to shred all documents with potential critical information on it. If someone got there grubby cookie grabbers on used sheets, could the use a black-light or something to read old data all CSI-style?
"
I don't know how well this would work for reports given to employees or staff agendas. They need to be careful not to write on them or wrinkle the paper. If they mess the paper then you will jam the printer.

As long as the ink goes back to the same color I don't think that they could do anything to find out what was on it before.

I'll cast my vote with the guy who mentioned the children's doodle pads - the pens for that would be easy to make (although the market might be hard to build). There are certainly non-child applications (like my grocery list for example), but replacing real paper and ink is very unlikely... even for newspaper and short-lived "documents". Newspaper is already printed with the cheapest materials possible - this stuff would have to compete on price (not on the notion that there is a cost savings in recycling - not to the newspaper company unless they are reimbursed by a Gov't agency or something).

As for business uses, it defeats the actual purpose of hardcopy to have it disappear - in fact it would often be illegal because "immutable" information is the backbone of many legal actions. That's why digital information has not already replaced print.

Yah, to add to mares comment, I've seen our printers here (hp lj 4100 and 4250) jam on a piece of paper that has already been sent through it. We had an environmentalist working here for awhile, and the hippy would flip over paper that was already used, and load it up to go through again, and the paper would jam every damn time. So Xerox may want to first devote some time to better feeder tray rollers.

"what do you mean you didn't get the memo?"

wow they've taken fax paper and made it even more useless.. amazing

I would hate to be the guy that has to flatten all the newspapers out and then tape them back together to get them on the spool.

"Who wants their newspaper to expire after 24 hours?"

the Ministry of Truth?

"World hunger a growing problem. In others news Xerox spends millions on paper that erases itself before people have time to read it."

This whole idea is so friggin' STOOPID! I used to be in the business of raising trees for pulpwood [to make paper]. Those trees are a crop, just like soybeans, except they grow for 15-20 years instead of a few months. In that time they filter air, they filter water, they provide a living space for hundreds of different types of animals, from bumble bees to deer. Then they get cut, and a year or 2 later the land is replanted with them. Yes, making paper is a nasty business, and produces some really bad waste--but it can [and is] handled so it doesn't damage the environment. And making paper from trees is not nearly as damaging as remaking paper from scrap. The worst problem with paper is on the other end--getting rid of it. And this is because waste-disposal organizations can't understand that you can burn it--and use the heat for anything.

Then some company comes along with a process that SAVES THE TREES. These are nothing but a way for that company to make money--saving anything is not a part of their plan. "[I]t appears you'll need a special printer to get images on to it", and right there is the whole secret--you can bet the printer is expensive, and the ink or whatever makes the image will be even more. And after a business starts using this, then it will have to educate its people in handling the paper so it stays in condition to be re-used.

This is one of the poorest excuses of an 'environmentally friendly' industrial process.