Dark Bilious Vapors

...From the “What Will They Think of Next” Department is this:

”…Motorola Inc.’s Chief Executive Officer Ed Zander stood before 400 analysts in late July to show off a poster on which the ink glowed and blinked in the dark.

Soon you’ll be able to hold a mobile phone up to such a poster and see its display screen automatically directed to the Web site of a product featured on that poster.
…
For the last five years, the Schaumburg-based communications company has been working with partners to develop Printed Electronics Technology, or smart ink, and the manufacturing process to use the ink to create circuits.

The chemically-enhanced ink prints on paper or plastic to create circuits, such as transistors. It’s intended to be a lower-cost, flexible replacement to chips in radio-frequency identification, or RFID, tags that help manufacturers track inventory.

Motorola, Lucent Technologies and other companies researching similar technology also intend to create consumer uses for smart ink.

In the future, such ink could help create smart kitchens, where food products with printed electronics in the packaging could help you keep track of your pantry. Also when an empty box is thrown away, the technology could send a message to your handset, helping you update a shopping list.

Or a mobile phone could be waved over an ad printed with smart ink in a newspaper or magazine and it would send an e-mail to order the item advertised….”

Karen on 08.15.05 @ 07:43 AM CST