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Xerox plans the future of today
Maggie Shiels, BBC News, May 1, 2008
Excerpts from the article:
A rare glimpse of the future has been given by Xerox at its famed Palo Alto Research Centre...
On show were a handful of innovations including re-usable paper, environmentally friendly plastic, solar power, water filtering and a cell detection method that could help save lives.
Sophie Vandebroek...told BBC News: "I think it is extremely critical to continuously come up with innovative ideas and work with your partners to turn them into innovations that the customers of the world can benefit from.
"If you stand still you become obsolete."
Xerox along with commercial partners, universities and the government spends $1.5bn (£754m) on research and development at PARC and other research centres around the world.
...PARC is something of a shrine to innovation. Over the years it has given us ethernet, laser printing and pioneered the idea of ubiquitous computing. Today Xerox is hoping some of these innovations will have just as great an impact on our world and its bank balance.
Rare Cell Detection
...In the next two to four years scientists at PARC, along with colleagues at the Scripps Research Institute, believe they could replace amniocentesis with a simple blood test given when a foetus is between 8 to 12 weeks old.
Dr Richard Bruce said the ability to locate rare blood cells was done by combining laser techniques with a bundle of optical fibres that can accurately find circulating tumour cells and examine them with a high resolution digital microscope.
Their Fiber Array Scanning Technology is 1,000 times faster than digital microscopy, the current gold standard...
Erasable Paper
...Researchers Paul Smith and Eric Shrader had green thoughts in mind when they came up with the idea of paper that erases itself completely after 24 hours...
Panel Plans
...also working on another green project in partnership with Californian firm SolFocus to make solar panels smaller in size thanks to optics technology from laser printers...
Spiral Cleaning
...The main beneficiary of this technology could be water treatment facilities that can reduce the amount of land they need because the process does away with several steps in conventional water filtering. Mr Parekh said other benefits included a reduction in chemical costs and usage by 50% as well as lower energy requirements.
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