As thousands flocked to the Tokyo Business Show at the Harumi Fairgrounds in late May, few visitors paid much attention to possibly the most significant new technology there. Even its developer, Ricoh, didn't view it as a commercial tool, but rather a way of spotlighting its concern for the environment. Ricoh had no brochures, no plans to produce or market the unit, and no idea of pricing. The company even refrained from sending out a press release, and when queried, wasn't quite sure if it wanted any publicity.
The unit, shown for the first time at the show, didn't even have a name. It was a small, thermofax-size "box" through which you could feed a printed sheet of A-4, B-4, or A-3 size paper. Twenty seconds later, out would come a completely white sheet - erasable paper. Actually, it was not really erasable paper but normal A-4 office paper that had gone through a normal copier. The copy machine used a blue-ink toner cartridge with special chemicals that permitted the thermofax-size "box" to remove the ink - quick as chalk off a blackboard slate.
Development of this unit started at the top: Ricoh president Hiroshi Hamada has continually promoted research into products that might benefit the environment. Ricoh even has a special environmental administrative committee charged with recycling.
The eraser prototype (how about naming it "The Forester"?) uses a special 700-watt bulb to "clean up" paper at a rate of five sheets per minute. Normal daylight won't fade the ink, which so far comes only in blue. Paper can be erased five or six times before it begins to deteriorate.
Ricoh says it would have to produce the units in mass quantities to bring the price down to an affordable Y200,000 (about US$2,000). It's a chicken and egg thing - if you don't demand yours, you may never see it on the market. Ricoh: +81 3 5411 4705, fax +81 3 3403 1578.
ELECTRIC WORD
Ubiquitous Computing in Action
Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas
The Next Big Thing: Live Picture
Erasable Copy Paper
