Gizmodo: Xerox

Writeable, Color e-paper ReKindles Our Interest

Mark Wilson — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 09:05:49 EST

Fuji Xerox has just demonstrated what may be the Holy Grail of e-paper—probably not the "E-Ink" technology found inside the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader, but something similar—a prototype display that a user and write on. Three layers of polymer-dispersed liquid crystals are used (red, green and blue), meaning the display has a gel-like base.

Still flexible, the display can recognize "optical" writing, though probably not quickly. An eyes-on report mentions that the refresh rate is under a second, which while probably fast enough for quick marks, is not what you want to be handwriting a letter on. But we just had our boobie doodles in mind anyway. [techon]

Xerox Gets X-Ray Vision on the Web

www.gizmodo.com — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 10:45:00 EDT

As if there weren't enough reasons for Web-related paranoia, Xerox just patented a technique to get a demographic lock on you—age, sex, and possibly income—by just looking at the sites you have visited.

The patent explicitly describes the invention as a workaround for all of those pesky users who input incomplete, inaccurate or, God forbid, false demographic information. Of course, the thing will only work if the system can get ahold of a set of Web pages accessed by the user. That's probably right about the point where the EFF steps in.–Wilson Rothman

All-knowing browser [New Scientist]

Xerox Reinvents Paper, Trees Rejoice

Louis Ramirez — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 10:38:25 EST

Not to be confused with the spy paper we showed you a few months back, the brainiacs at Xerox have invented a new self-erasable paper that fades to white after 24 hours. The invention "came from developing compounds that change color when they absorb a certain wavelength of light but then will gradually disappear." The paper is reusable though it appears you'll need a special printer to get images on to it. I can see this working in the newspaper industry and such, but I can also see a ton of scam artists making people sign contracts that "change" over night. – Louis Ramirez

Press Release [via Daily Tech]

Palm, Xerox Settle Graffiti Dispute, Nobody Remembers What Graffiti is

Travis Hudson — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 12:56:54 EDT

Well, it only took nine years and a now dwindling technology to settle this dispute over the patent of the PDA keystroke technology that Palm called Graffiti and Xerox called Unistrokes. Palm began incorporating this Graffiti keystroke technology in their PDAs way back in the day while Xerox believed they owned the patent on this technology with their Unistrokes.

Nine years later this keystroke technology is nearly obsolete thanks to the integrated mini-keyboards in a lot of devices, but Xerox still won the battle and Palm will have to pay $22.5 million to settle the patent dispute. Sucks to be Palm, but at least you still have the Treo. What does Xerox have? Copiers? Ha! – Travis Hudson

Palm and Xerox settle "Graffiti" dispute [Reuters]