During my routine daily read of
The Brisbane Times' website (yeah, I do that now), I came across
an interesting article. Reportedly, a bunch of scientists from the sumptuous Cambridge University devised what has been tentatively named "the un-printer". As you may deduce by that name, it's a machine that actually removes all ink toner from a piece of paper. Now, that's pretty clever, because in due time, all those good old homework excuses about refusing to work because "it's wasting trees" become completely worthless. I am personally against this of course, because using global issues such as deforestation as homework excuses never gets old. The idea of being able to chuck a piece of paper you've scribbled all over into a funky printer-like machine and make it look completely blank once again is simply amazing. Naturally, this technology is far from being commercially available, but it's certainly something to look forward to; that is, if you're not from the
Reflex paper company.
Works just like a printer, but, you know, backwards.
This is not necessarily a new field of research. In the past, researchers have thrown everything they can at printed paper to get rid of the ink; chemicals, electric current, you name it. The ultimate answer, however, was a laser. More accurately speaking, a very, very specific wavelength and frequency of a laser blast is required to hit the paper to remove the ink without actually damaging the paper itself in any way. Most people do not yet have highly specialised laser technology in their home or office at this stage, believe it or not, which suggests it'll be several years before you can plug in your own unprinter right beside your actual printer.
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