Zink Imaging has come up with a 'zero ink' printing technology that does away with cartridges, ribbons or toner.
Instead, three layers of dye crystals - yellow, magenta and blue - are embedded in the paper.These crystals start off clear, revealing their colour when heated by a thermal print head.The clever part is that different combinations of temperature and 'baking time' are required to activate each layer.
The company's web site will go live after an announcement at the Demo 07 conference on January 31. http://www.zink.com/ The relative simplicity of the mechanism means it could be built into camera phones or as the basis of pocket-sized printers.