New way to save energy: Disappearing ink
Michael Kanellos | May 01, 2008
Think of it as the future of today's paper.
The Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and parent company Xerox are experimenting with a type of paper and a complimentary printer that would produce documents that fade away after 16 to 24 hours. A restaurant, for instance, could print its daily specials on a piece of paper, attach the pieces of paper to menus, and then collect the sheets of then-blank paper in the morning to run through the printer again.
This piece of paper is blank, but about
eight hours ago it said, 'Reusable Paper.
Xerox Parc Inside Innovation at Xerox'
in block purple letters.
(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET Networks)
Users don't have to wait for the paper to fade either. By running it through the special printer made for this paper, the printer will erase the old image before putting the new one on.
The paper and printer could hit the market in a few years.
The same sheets of paper can be run through the printer hundreds of time, according to tests conducted by Xerox, said Eric Shrader, area manager, energy systems, device hardware laboratory at Xerox. Typically, the paper isn't reusable only when it gets damaged or crumpled.
The idea is to cut the amount of energy consumed in making paper and printing. Like refurbished PC makers have noted, reusing an item consumes a lot less power than making a new one, or even recycling one.
It takes about 204,000 joules to make a sheet of paper, Shrader said. That's about the same amount of power required to run a 60-watt light bulb for an hour, he added. Recycling that same sheet of paper takes about 114,000 joules.
Printing a conventional 8x11.5 sheet of paper takes about 2,000 joules, he said.
Reusable paper takes a lot less effort. It only takes 1,000 joules to print an image on one of Xerox's reusable sheets of paper, and that's if you use the printer to erase the image. If you let the image fade naturally, it only takes about 100 joules to print. It takes energy to produce the special paper, but the energy consumed in recycling fades out.
"Being able to reuse paper is a big energy win," Shrader said.
Energy has become a major focus of research at PARC over the last three years. The lab, which Xerox opened in the '70s, helped create the PC, inkjet printing, and Ethernet networking. Xerox, however, didn't commercialize a lot of these inventions successfully; instead, companies like Apple borrowed liberally from the lab to great effect. PARC now functions relatively independently, coming up with inventions to license to others.
Not every document is right for reusable paper. Presentations and legal contracts probably need to be printed on something more permanent. But lunch menus, daily work summaries, and memos from meetings can all potentially take advantage of this. Xerox says that 44.5 percent of documents are printed for one-time use and 25 percent of all documents printed get recycled the same day. (Lyra Research estimates that 15.2 trillion pages get printed worldwide a year, a figure that will grow 30 percent over the next 10 years.)
"Think of the Google map you printed to get here," Shrader said. "Thirty years ago, we said the future was paperless."
The paper and the printer will be a little bit more expensive than their conventional counterparts. The photosensitive molecule embedded in the paper is proprietary.
While the paper shown in the photo is yellow with purple ink that appeared later, Xerox has produced white paper and can come up with a variety of ink colors. The company, however, has used yellow paper as an example so that focus groups know what sheets to reuse and which to recycle.
Via CNET Crave
1 billion Seagate hard drives and counting...
Reuben Lee | Apr 30, 2008
If you cannot visualize 1 billion hard drives, picture this. You can circle the globe 13.7 times with the 1 billion drives placed end-to-end, according to Seagate. Admittedly, the 1 billion drives are not all Seagate-branded. It also includes the ones manufactured by Conner, which merged with Seagate in 1996, as well as those from Maxtor which was acquired in December 2005.
What's noteworthy, however, are some of the other statistics behind the 1 billion drives. For example, the first 5MB drive, the Seagate ST506, weighs a hefty 5lb and cost US$1,500 a pop. A 3.5-inch 1TB drive today, which is 200,000x more in terms of capacity, retails at only a fraction of that cost. More interestingly, it took Seagate 17 years to ship 100 million drives, but it took the company only 12 years to make the other 900 million units.
What's scary is Seagate expects to hit its 2 billionth hard drive milestone within the next five years, based on current increases in production capacity and demand. Honestly, this looks like a very possible scenario, considering the GBs of data we are guzzling daily with no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
At the press event today, Seagate also did a little crystal ball gazing, predicting that higher broadband penetration and rapid growth in digital content will see market demand for hard drive storage increase by almost 80 percent by 2012. The company has, however, played down the impact of Solid State Drives (SSDs) on traditional disk-based hard drives in the coming years, believing instead that hybrid drives will be the high-value proposition for most users. The company will still be involved in the SSD business though, with its first product expected later this year.
New HTC Touch Diamond on May 6
John Chan | Apr 30, 2008
Thanks to an article on Taipei Times, we now know that the device to be launched during the European event on May 6 is a new Touch phone codenamed Diamond. Revealed during an investors' conference, the company's financial executive Cheng Hui-min touted it as "the most important product for HTC this year". That's saying a lot, considering the company has had a string of successful products and currently dominates the Windows Mobile market.
Rumors have been rife regarding this launch, and an updated, improved TouchFLO interface is expected. The Diamond may not even be the only model to be announced, as a codename Raphael has been popping up as well. The frequency of rumors should continue to increase as we get closer to the date. We'll bring you more information as it becomes available.
Via Brighthand
Epson's 400W big-eyed dolly
Philip Wong | Apr 30, 2008
We swear we've seen it all here in CNET, but nothing could prepare us for the latest 3LCD Epson EMP-400W and its hilarious gigantic eye. Aside from tickling your funny bone, this one-of-a-kind megazoom lens also delivers an amazing ultra-short throw performance. For the record, that's a mighty 60-inch projection at a mere 0.65m, perfect for small meeting rooms and classrooms.
To deliver pixel-to-pixel perfect visuals with the new crop of laptops, this Epson has matching wide-aspect 1,280 x 800-resolution for sharper text and smooth graphics. When coupled with its competent 1,800 ANSI lumens brightness, this ensures hassle-free presentations even amid mild ambient lighting. Onboard network connectivity and a powerful 10W speaker further add to its appeal and to justify its equally eye-popping S$5,688 (US$3,742.11) sticker price.
Photo credit: Epson
Lenovo's 11-inch IdeaPad now available 
Erica Ogg | Apr 30, 2008
Lenovo first introduced its new consumer notebook line, IdeaPad, back at CES in January. Now, the smallest--and arguably best-looking--of the bunch is set to ship to consumers very soon.
The U110, Lenovo's foray into consumer-oriented ultraportable notebooks, is now available on Lenovo.com, with other retailers soon to follow.
The U110 comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.6GHz processor, 120GB hard drive, 2GB of RAM, and comes loaded with Vista Home Premium.
The screen is 11-inches wide with no bezel and weighs in at a mere 2.4lbs. The battery life with the original battery is 2 hours, which leaves a lot to be desired. (But the extra battery increases your mobile computing time to 8 hours, Lenovo's vice president of consumer products, Mike Kuptz, assures.)
The U110 also comes with Dolby-branded sound with four speakers plus a subwoofer, as well as an integrated camera with face-recognition software so a person's face can be used in place of a password.
But the look is what will lure most potential buyers in. Lenovo's clearly spent a lot of time trying to make their ultraportable standout from its all-gloss white/black/pink competitors. The U110 comes in red or black, but has a great vine-patterned texture on the outside lid. The price, however, is not nearly as appealing. The basic version is S$2,999 (US$1,973.03). That's more than a MacBook Air, which is aimed at essentially the same market: The person who's always on-the-go.
The U110 will be available in ASEAN markets as well as Australia, New Zealand and India from early May 2008. According to Lenovo, the U110 will also be available in black for ASEAN countries, except Singapore and Malaysia.
Via CNET News Blogs (with updates from CNET Asia Crave)
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