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Toshiba Tech's erasable toner lets you photo-uncopy (video)

James Trew — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 12:25:00 EST

Put away the matches, finally there's an eco-friendly way to get rid of those ill-thought photocopy pranks. Toshiba Tech has developed a toner that can be erased, letting you use a sheet of paper up to five times. Unlike similar solutions, you don't need special paper, but you will need one of the compatible copiers. The idea is similar to Pilot's erasable ball-point pen system, but uses heat instead of friction. As you'll see in the video over the break, a trace of the erased image remains slightly visible, so you'll still want the shredder for those sensitive documents. A built-in scanner means you can archive documents and also lets the machine sort paper into what can and can't be reused automatically. At the minute, you can only print in blue, but Toshiba Tech promises more options are on the way, and a full-color version is in the pipes. While the price is still undecided at this time, the creators hope that with the long-term paper savings, it'll only be the toner, not your budget, doing the disappearing.

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Toshiba Tech's erasable toner lets you photo-uncopy (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Mar 2012 12:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xerox Mobile Scanner hands-on

Terrence O'Brien — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:10:00 EST

Xerox and consumer aren't necessarily words that get thrown together a lot, but the company's Mobile Scanner could actually find a home with some -- provided they're willing to part with $250. It's reasonably light-weight (only 22.5 ounces) and it can (almost) instantly beam any document you feed it to an Eye-Fi connected device. It'll survive 300 pages on a single charge and keep your Android phone full of docs. What makes it special is the ability to scan not just JPGs, but PDFs. You can also switch between JPG, black and white PDF or color PDF with just a few taps of a button. It can even create multipage PDFs if you just feed a second document through within five seconds. Around back you'll discover the secret weapon -- an SD card slot populated with an Eye-Fi card that supports PDF creation. Check out the gallery below for a few more impressions.

Mat Smith contributed to this report.

Gallery: Xerox mobile scanner hands-on

Xerox Mobile Scanner hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xerox Mobile Scanner wirelessly sends files to your PC, iOS or Android device

Billy Steele — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

If you're like us, you have to deal with your fair share of expense reports. Xerox is looking to make the task a bit easier with the Mobile Scanner. The device scans and wirelessly sends a PDF or JPEG (under 8.5-inches wide) to your PC, iOS and Android devices, making use of a 4GB Eye-Fi SD memory card. It gets better. The scanner is completely wireless and houses a rechargeable battery for true capture-on-the-go. Looking to splurge for one? You'll have to part with $249.99 when you're ready, as the tech is now available.

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Xerox Mobile Scanner wirelessly sends files to your PC, iOS or Android device originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center founder Jacob Goldman passes away at age 90

Michael Gorman — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:47:00 EST

Jacob Goldman, the man who helped found the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) as Xerox's chief scientist in 1970, has passed away at age 90. PARC holds a special place in gadget lore, as it was responsible for creating Alto, the first modern computer with a GUI and a mouse, the first WYSIWYG text editor, and Ethernet, among many other innovations. Prior to his time at Xerox, Dr. Goldman was the head of R&D at Ford Motor Company, and after retiring, he served on the boards of several companies, including Xerox. The New York Times reported that Goldman created PARC to research "the architecture of information" -- and the fruits of PARC's labor listed above show that he's made an immeasurable and lasting contribution to the computing world, and consequently, life as we know it. Godspeed, Dr. Goldman, and thanks for everything.

[Image credit: PARC]

Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center founder Jacob Goldman passes away at age 90 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xerox's Business of Your Brain liberates your inbox from annoying coworkers

Brian Heater — Fri, 06 May 2011 01:23:00 EST

If you work in office, odds are your inbox is full of Oscar polls, baby pictures, fantasy football tips, and various other obstacles standing in the way of finishing up those TPS reports. Thanks to Xerox's Business of Your Brain, you can finally deal with the issue from the passive aggressive comfort of you own mailbox. The free Microsoft Outlook plugin lets you know who's sprinkling in the most exclamation marks and buzzwords per email, who sends the longest messages, and which senders are wasting your time with emails that just say "thank you." It's a nice start, but we think we'll hold out for the premium version that will detonate every Troll doll within a 50-foot radius. Now get back to work -- as soon as you're done checking out video and PR after the break.

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Xerox's Business of Your Brain liberates your inbox from annoying coworkers originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 May 2011 01:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xerox shows off Smart Document Review table, a Surface that sifts through billions of docs (video)

Tim Stevens — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 10:24:00 EST

You have a lot of documents you've acquired over the years, hundreds or thousands in some semblance of order thanks to folders and whatnot. Now, imagine taking the output from hundreds or thousands of others, all with their own ideas about organization, and finding only those pages relevant to a certain topic. That's what legal aides have to do in cases where a major corporation is being investigated, and we're thinking that's a major target market for Xerox's Smart Document Review. It's a prototype touchscreen table that enables users to collaboratively filter documents, starting by indexing a giant pool and then allowing for the creation of "magnets" that contain keywords or other heuristics and dynamically pull out matches, all happening courtesy of animations that look only slightly less sophisticated than those seen in Hackers. Search results can then be dumped to a thumb drive. The prototype table dates back to earlier this year, but Xerox is now making them available as part of a pilot program exclusively for trendy law offices with unisex bathrooms.

[Thanks, Pradeep]

Continue reading Xerox shows off Smart Document Review table, a Surface that sifts through billions of docs (video)

Xerox shows off Smart Document Review table, a Surface that sifts through billions of docs (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 10:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xerox to sell on-demand Espresso Book Machines to retailers who sell books to people (video)

Tim Stevens — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:32:00 EST

When we got our first glimpse of the Espresso Book Machine from On Demand Books we were of course thoroughly charmed by the Rube Goldberg nature of the thing, but were left feeling unconvinced of the practicality of it -- would people really pay money for custom-printed physical copies of classic books they can download for free? Is it really a viable choice for self-publishing? We may be skeptics, but Xerox is a believer, putting its reseller weight behind the machine (which uses not one but two of the company's printers internally), selling, leasing, and servicing the things through its retail connections. This means Espressos could start showing up more frequently at bookstores and perhaps even coffee shops early next year. Until then, watch the magic happen after the break.

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Xerox to sell on-demand Espresso Book Machines to retailers who sell books to people (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Computing pioneer Chuck Thacker wins Turing Award

Donald Melanson — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:51:00 EST

Chuck Thacker may not be quite the same household name as some other computing pioneers, but it's pretty hard to overstate the influence he's had on the industry, a feat for which he's now be honored with the A.M. Turing Award -- widely considered to be the "Nobel prize of computing." While Thacker is now a "Technical Fellow" at Microsoft, he first made a name for himself at Xerox PARC, where he not only helped design and realize the very first modern computer, the Alto, but co-invented Ethernet, and contributed to a range of other projects that have had a lasting impact on computing to this day. Later, while at Microsoft Reseach, Thacker oversaw the design of the very first Tablet PC prototypes, and he continues to lead up a computer-architecture group at the company and be involved with various research efforts. Of course, that's only scratching the surface -- hit up the links below for a more complete background of the man's work, and head on past the break for a short video put together for the occasion by Microsoft.

Continue reading Computing pioneer Chuck Thacker wins Turing Award

Computing pioneer Chuck Thacker wins Turing Award originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xerox announces silver ink, keeps printable electronics dream alive

Vlad Savov — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:35:00 EST

Here comes Xerox, huffing and puffing its way back from obscurity with what it believes is a revolutionary new advancement. Its brand new silver ink and related printing technologies promise to make it possible for the lazy or breadboard handicapped among us to print their own circuit boards atop plastics, film, and even textiles. The wizardry of it lies in the company's development of a metallic ink with a melting point lower than that of plastics, which allows the former to be laid (in liquid form) atop the latter. It's all very neat, and the potential for flexible, lightweight, disposable electronics is well and good, but haven't we heard this all before?

Filed under: Wearables

Xerox announces silver ink, keeps printable electronics dream alive originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xerox shows off "erasable paper," hopes to make it available next year

Donald Melanson — Mon, 05 May 2008 11:46:00 EST

The folks at Xerox has been working on their "erasable paper" idea for some time now, but it looks like they've been making some real progress as of late, with them now even going so far as to say that they hope to have an actual product available sometime next year. The paper itself, however, appears to still use the same basic technology they've been working on all along -- namely, a coating of photosensitive chemicals that turn white when hit by ultraviolet light or react to product text when scanned specific wavelength of light. The text can then be erased on command by feeding it through a special printer, or left to disappear on its own over a period of 24 hours. On the downside, the paper is apparently useless if it's been folded or wrinkled, or written on with a pen. No word on an expected price for the paper or printer just yet, unfortunately, but Xerox seems to be betting that the savings in paper (and consequential environmental benefits) will be enough to offset whatever premium they'll likely cost.

[Via The Inquirer, image courtesy of Xerox / Greig Reekie]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Xerox shows off "erasable paper," hopes to make it available next year originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 May 2008 11:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xerox retires 40 year old logo

Thomas Ricker — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:28:00 EST

Today Xerox retired its red, capital X logo so prominent in our copy centers (and more recently on printers) for the past 40 years. The new logo represents "the connection to customers, partners, industry and innovation." More than likely, Xerox just dropped tens of thousands of dollars for the new identity which, let's face it, is just like everyone else's. Right, Sony Ericsson?

Xerox retires 40 year old logo originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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FujiXerox shows off color e-ink display with writing capabilities

Nilay Patel — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 01:42:00 EST

We've only seen a couple prototype color e-ink displays here and there, but this latest version from FujiXerox seems like its the furthest along in terms of refresh rate and usability. The A6 sized panel is made of three polymer-dispersed liquid-crystal layers, but it's still flexible, at just .4mm thick. No hard specs, really, but Tech-On says refresh time is less than one second -- just quick enough to make this viable for the next-gen Kindle, eh?

[Via Tech-On!]

Filed under: Displays

FujiXerox shows off color e-ink display with writing capabilities originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Dec 2007 01:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fuji Xerox touts language-translating photocopier

Donald Melanson — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 14:45:00 EST

Fuji Xerox has come up with some unique copying systems before, and it looks like its latest photocopier is no exception, with it promising to take a Japanese document and spit out a English, Chinese, or Korean translation on the fly (or vice versa). That's done by networking the printer to a dedicated translation server which, if similar systems are any indication, could well result in some unintentionally hilarious copies. What's more, the device also promises to preserve the original layout of the documents copied, with it apparently making use of some special algorithms to distinguish between text, lines and images. It's just a prototype at the moment, however, so there's no indication as to when or if we might see a commercial version.

[Via Crave]

Filed under: Peripherals

Fuji Xerox touts language-translating photocopier originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Sep 2007 14:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wearable sensors could build stronger teams

Darren Murph — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 16:40:00 EST

When MIT, Intel and Xerox put their collective heads together, the results have got to be good, right? The trio most definitely hopes so, as they have reportedly developed "subtle sensors that are enriching our understanding of teams and organizations and that are helping call centers improve telephone sales pitches by 20-percent or more." Interestingly, not a whole lot of details are available just yet, but apparently members of the super-team are already envisioning "networks of social sensors" that could seemingly help managers place their subordinates with the most suitable colleagues. As Jemaine Clement would say, "It's business time."

[Image courtesy of 6dtech]

Filed under: Wearables

Wearable sensors could build stronger teams originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Sep 2007 16:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xerox innovation can add anti-counterfeit measures to digital printers

Darren Murph — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 17:07:00 EST

Xerox, the same outfit looking to extract information from your web browsing excursions, has now churned out a swank anti-counterfeiting procedure that purportedly allows a vanilla digital printer to "create personalized fluorescent marks on documents." Of course, these fluorescent signatures are commonly used to authenticate currency, and Xerox is hoping that people warm up to the idea of slapping the same level of security onto documents ranging from licenses, certificates, or even personal checks. The method utilizes the "dry ink" found in xerographic printers to create the secure imprint, and curious users can spot the tell-tale sign when exposing the document to ultraviolet light. Of course, you should still be wary of that dubious looking bizhub crammed over in the corner office, but if you're interested in Xerox's latest counterfeit squashing technology, you can snag it as part of the FreeFlow Variable Information Suite 5.0 software.

[Via Gizmag]

Filed under: Peripherals

Xerox innovation can add anti-counterfeit measures to digital printers originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Jun 2007 17:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xerox developing "natural language color editing"

Donald Melanson — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 17:41:00 EST

Xerox's Geoffrey Woolfe seems to think he's found a way to make picking just the right color a bit easier, laying out his plans for so-called "natural language color editing" at the annual meeting of the Inter-Society Color Council (ISCC). While it's apparently still in the early stages, the system will supposedly let you adjust colors simply by describing them in natural langauge, using voice or typed commands like "make the sky a deeper blue" or "make the background carnation pink" -- the software then does all the rest of the work. Of course, Xerox isn't exactly giving any indication when that may happen, so you'll have to make do with the cumbersome point-and-click method of color-choosing we've somehow managed to get along with all these years for a little while longer.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Xerox developing "natural language color editing" originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Apr 2007 17:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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IP Innovation sues Apple over violating obscure GUI patent

Darren Murph — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 09:51:00 EST

Apparently, just about every graphical user interface that Apple churns out was patented and put on lock down ~~years~~ decades ago, as now a patent holding firm (IP Innovation) has filed a much-delayed lawsuit against the Cupertino-based outfit over its use of an OS interface. The patent in question dates back to 1984 via references in a 1991 filing by Xerox, which actually linked to GUI concepts drafted in the 1970s on the company's Alto workstations. Amazingly, the folks involved have just got around to slapping a lawsuit on Apple for selling OS X with "workspaces provided by an object-based user interface that appear to share windows and other display objects." The incredibly vague wording could realistically be used to target nearly every major OS that we've seen, and considering that Apple and Xerox already went a round in the legal ring back in 1989 over similar issues, this one certainly seems to lack substance. As expected, the $20 million claim was filed in the patent troll haven that is Marshall, Texas, and while we haven't heard word from an Apple spokesperson regarding the matter, we'd say there's a more pressing matter on the table for Jobs & Co. right now anyway.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

IP Innovation sues Apple over violating obscure GUI patent originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Apr 2007 09:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xerox wants to extract demographic information from web surfers

Darren Murph — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 09:51:00 EST

The age of Big Brother everywhere is certainly upon us, and while we've seen (or at least heard of) tracking devices being implanted in the most unusual of places, it looks like Xerox is hoping to join the devilish fray. In an attempt to craft a demographic extractor to garner marketing dollars galore, a recently filed patent application spells out a system that utilizes software (and potentially hardware) to map users to "centroid vectors" which would determine a person's age, sex, and other "private" information simply based on their website visits. Interestingly, test cases are reportedly showing a respectable "75-percent accuracy rate" so long as a "sufficient number of pages were visited." Still, we can't imagine any tracing technology would be lawfully allowed behind the backs of law-abiding citizens (right?), but considering that even your TiVo has the potential to sell your soul to lucrative ad agencies, we wouldn't put it past 'em.

[Via ArsTechnica]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Xerox wants to extract demographic information from web surfers originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Apr 2007 09:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Your office photocopier could help steal your identity

Darren Murph — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 12:56:00 EST

While we've seen just how to have a Sharp miracle in your office, it now seems that Sharp copiers (along with Xerox and a smorgasbord of others) could become a miraculous find for identify thieves. Given that many all-in-one "bizhubs" of today feature some sort of internal storage device to capture copies, scans, and faxes in case you need to resend the file a week or two later, it's not too surprising to think how such a convenience could be exploited by ill-willed individuals to extract personal information about you and your office mates. Pointing at tax time in particular, it has been suggested that many Americans photocopy sensitive documents that contain all the information needed to jack your ID without even realizing how vulnerable they've made themselves. Both Sharp and Xerox, however, have both released security kits that encrypt the internal data stored on its machines, but if you're using some off-the-wall copier and have noticed something peculiar about that fellow across the hall, stay sharp.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Storage

Your office photocopier could help steal your identity originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Mar 2007 12:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Palm and Xerox finally settle Graffiti dispute

Evan Blass — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 16:45:00 EST

So we weren't even aware that this was an issue anymore, but apparently Xerox and Palm have still been battling over that "Unistrokes" handwriting recognition patent which caused us to waste several minutes of our lives learning a handful of new Graffiti 2 characters oh so long ago. Battling up until today, that is, because after nine years the two companies have finally come to a mutually-acceptable agreement, wherein Palm caves and pays Xerox $22.5 million. The deal does net Palm paid-up licenses on a total of three Xerox patents -- licenses that also apply to Access PalmSource and 3Com -- as well as a so-called seven-year "patent peace," in which the two sides agree to stop fussing and fighting about infringements pertaining to certain technologies. Does this agreement mean that we can expect to see the triumphant return of Graffiti 1 on future Palm PDAs? We're not sure, but frankly, now that we've moved on to packing QWERTY-equipped Treos, we don't really care.

Filed under: Handhelds

Palm and Xerox finally settle Graffiti dispute originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Jun 2006 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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