Imagine openining a newspaper and just like a webpage, there's some inane ad flashing on and off!

Perhaps this could be done with a chemical which reacts to light in such a way that it repeatedly renders itself opaque and then transparent, or even two or more different colors.

Using multiple layers of such ink might even produce short animations.
-- mgrant, Apr 11 2001

for what it's worth http://www.gyriconmedia.com
the original e-paper company, by xerox [mihali, Apr 11 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

hmmm... where's that e-Ink link...
-- PotatoStew, Apr 11 2001


This is not baked as far as I know. I'm not talking about an electronic device, I'm talking about something chemical that you would put on real paper.

eink is cool technology, but it's another lcd type of display, I recall it uses tiny balls which are electrostatically flipped.
-- mgrant, Apr 12 2001


i read somewhere (i think in popular mechanics or pop. sci.) that they had developed circuitry and LED's that can be literally printed onto paper using a special printer. supposedly, it's cheap, too. this will allow us poor folk to get our hands on big screen TV's that are quite literally wallpaper. a good, but very annoying idea.
-- tkeyser, Apr 17 2001


There are oscillating chemical reactions. I don't know if they can go on forever, though..
-- cowtamer, Nov 01 2006


I think it's a unique idea, considering the fact that your approach requires no external power source (other than ambient light).

An alternative would be solar-powered organic electronics which can be screen printed ... I'm sure someone is working on that, but the difference between this and your idea is that your idea would likely be much cheaper to manufacture. No driving ciruitry would be involved and you would literally just print the stuff on the paper. It might be useful for some niche applications, but in the long run I feel that organic electronics (once perfected ...) will be more useful.

Still, interesting idea ...
-- octal40, Mar 02 2007


We baked this in college. I think the ink read "Best and Brightest" Also "L VE". The flashing part differed somewhat from the idea here.
-- bungston, Mar 02 2007



random, halfbakery