For all you hippies and tree huggers out there, Xerox has developed a “transient document” paper that deletes content after a period of time and will then be ready for use again. “Inspired by the fact that many print outs have a life-span of a few hours (think of the emails you may print out just to read, or the content you proof read on the train journey back home), the specifically prepared paper will preserve its content for up to 16 hours. Further research is being undertaken to give the option of subsequently preserving the content if the user desires, which might literally involve warminig up old data through the heating of the paper.”

The paper has a “photochromic compoud that changes from a clear state to a coloured state under ultra-violet light.” The print face will then fade with time. I really wish we could develop a paper that we could specify how long it takes to clear, but I suppose Xerox is still working on that one. Xerox told PC Pro Magazine that “further research is being undertaken to give the option of subsequently preserving the content if the user desires, which might literally involve warming up old data through the heating of paper.” PC Pro Magazine