The SuperInks (IST-2000-38770) project is a small exploratory assessment project that draws on the expertise of two larger projects funded within the European Commission’s Disappearing Computer Programme: ACCORD (IST-2000-26364) and Paper++(IST-2000-26130).
Within the ACCORD project, participants have been investigating the potential of using paper electronic artifacts within the future home environment. Examples of this could be integrated displays, sensors and ID surfaces.
This can be achieved through the use of electrical conducting inks and chromically active inks such as thermochromic and electrochromic inks.
Within the Paper++ project, the partners have been exploring technologies that tie paper and digital resources together, principally by the detection of non-obtrusive codes printed on the paper. One of the approaches explored in the project was the possibility of printing non-obtrusive codes using conductive inks. This could provide the possibility of using an electronically simple detector to identify location through the codes and the potential for developing a straightforward way of linking paper and digital materials. Experiments with novel commercially available inks provided some of the capabilities required, but without expertise in the production and use of these materials significant problems emerged in trying to print non-obtrusive conductive inks on paper.
In collaborative meetings between the projects it emerged that other technologies being developed by partners within the ACCORD project by Acreo AB in Sweden may form the foundation to a novel Paper++ solution. The SuperInks project was funded to assess the possibility of pursuing this solution.