The Best Inventions Of The Year

From the phone that has changed phones forever, to futuristic cars, to a building made of water, to a remote-controlled dragonfly—a dazzling display of ingenuity

By Maryanne Murray Buechner, Kristina Dell, Andrea Dorfman, Lev Grossman, Anita Hamilton, Rebecca Winters Keegan, Jeffrey Kluger, Michael D. Lemonick, Coco Masters, Lisa McLaughlin, Alice Park, Julie Rawe and Deirdre van Dyk

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Corey Mihailiuk for TIME
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Did you hear the joke about the paperless office? Now that we've laid that myth to rest, scientist Paul Smith at Xerox Research Centre of Canada has made a real breakthrough with Erasable Paper. The paper is embedded with a material that changes color when exposed to light and is projected onto it by an inkless printer. The text disappears in 24 hours, so you can reuse the sheet.
Available Prototype
xerox.com/innovation/exp_paper.shtml

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