The Eco Printer seems to be based on an invention I came up with around 15 years ago, although as I never told anyone or did anything about it (and my invention used completely different technology), I”ll let it slide. The printer prints onto paper using a special disappearing ink that can be erased by zapping it with UV light. The idea is that you can print things for temporary use and then re-use the paper, over and over again.
It’s a nice idea, promising the advantages of paper but without the environmental costs – even recycling uses resources. But it misses the exact same thing when I was dreaming up re-printable paper back in the 1990s: Paper is useful because of what you do to it after the ink has been laid down. You can scribble and annotate, fold it or tear strips off and rearrange them. These are the things paper does that an LCD screen can’t, and these are precisely the things that will render the paper useless for this particular printer/wiper. It won’t remove your pencil marks for example, or repair creases and tears.
If you’re forced to keep the paper in pristine condition, then you may as well use an iPad.
And what about this magical UV-sensitive ink? Going on the already dizzying prices of regular printer ink, the cost is sure to be terrifying.
Reprinting on One Paper Only [Yanko. Thanks, Radhika!]
See Also:
- Printer Ink Now $8000 A Gallon: Boston Man Sues
- Printer Ink Gouging Runs to $6 Billion a Year
- A New Way to Force You to Buy Overpriced Printer Ink
- For Printers, 'All-In-One' Really Means 'Way-Too-Much'
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