Now, interactive computer display on paper
A team at the University of Tokyo have found a potential solution for paper-based computing.
"The idea is to do computing on paper," Discovery News quoted Tomoko Hashida, a postdoc researcher in the lab, as telling DigInfo TV.
"In the future we'd like to enable several people to create one document, like with Google Docs, actually using real-world paper while far apart," she said.
Hashida and her colleagues at the Naemura Laboratory originally looked at existing paper-oriented technology but found it lacking in some aspects.
A projection on paper requires darkness to see the results and digital pens don't allow users to access drawings from the computer directly onto the paper.
Instead, the group came up with a method to allow drawings on paper to be altered in real-time by more than one collaborator.
Users can draw, erase and copy content.
The system uses a photochromic smart material coated paper that changes color with change in light.
A high-resolution digital micromirror device-driven UV projector then prints images onto the paper.
Then a thermo-sensitive ink containing ball-point pen is used for drawing on the paper.
A laser is used to erase the writings.
According to DigInfo TV's Don Kennedy and Ryo Osuga, the thermo-sensitive can be erased to a high level of accuracy equalling 0.0009 inches.