Green IT Toolkit

Why disappearing ink isn't just for spies

Tags:
Readers,
Displays,
Paul,
Canada

Nick Hampshire ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 13 Nov 2007 16:46 GMT

...in the reader's flash memory, they can be accessed and read whenever necessary on this lightweight portable reader.

With a screen resolution of 1,024x768 (in a portrait orientation) on a eight-inch display, standard A4 documents are much reduced in size, and small print can be very hard to visually resolve.

But technology developments mean that this current e-paper display-size limitation will disappear within the next couple of years, as devices emerge with A4-sized flexible displays. When this happens, the paper-replacement application for such devices should take off rapidly, as people start to see these devices as a viable alternative to the printer/copier and the paper document for portable offline document reading.

Is there a future for transient paper?
E-paper-based display devices will undoubtedly have a big impact on the use of printed paper publications and documents.

A number of large newspapers around the world, such as Les Echos in Paris, are examining the use of such readers as way of delivering digital editions to their readers. Meanwhile, book publishers such as Random House and Harper Collins are digitising their entire list so that they are ready to take advantage of the arrival of e-paper based readers.

Analysts are predicting that sales of printers and copiers will have dropped considerably by 2020, with e-paper-based readers being widely used as printer-replacement devices

If e-paper-based readers become widely used to read digital publications, they will undoubtedly also be used to read corporate and private documents that would today be printed on a laser or ink jet. Indeed, many analysts are predicting that sales of printers and copiers will have dropped considerably by 2020, with e-paper-based readers being widely used as printer-replacement devices.

So where does this leave Xerox with their transient paper? The answer is not necessarily as an environmentally friendly printing technology — e-paper readers are probably much better — but as an important contributor to a small but very important niche: information security.

While it is possible to encrypt digital files and lock them away in password-protected systems, they become vulnerable to theft once they are printed out. Someone may forgetfully leave a copy lying on a desk, or fail to shred it, throwing it in the bin instead. In such cases, the document is vulnerable to being viewed by unauthorised individuals both inside and outside the company.

The photocopier has long been seen as a weak point in corporate security. It is all too easy for a disaffected employee to take unauthorised copies of confidential documents. By using only transient paper copiers in a company, the utility of photocopiers is retained, while the security risk is greatly reduced.

The time limit of sensitive data printed on transient paper, whereby the contents disappears 16 hours after it is printed, is long enough for data to be used in meetings yet short enough to prevent it accidentally turning up on a waste dump, or worse still on the desk of a competitor or an inquisitive journalist.

It seems Xerox is still looking for a market for their transient paper technology, and it is emphatic that it has yet to make a decision as to whether it will become a commercial product. Its future may lie not in being the green paper product researchers first envisaged, but in offering companies a degree of security they have long sought.