Don’t expect this new ink to be hitting a printer near you any time soon, but I found it reassuring that the companies in charge aren’t just sitting back and letting the cash roll in. They are, in fact, hard at work on new ways to make money. The latest advance is this gel ink, which, not being water-based, will keep its place and shape on nearly any surface.
There’s already printing on nearly every surface you can see, but you’ll find they’re often coated in something, or actually covered in a vinyl, or wrapped in a thin layer of special plastic. This new ink will cut out the middle man and allow them to print directly onto foil, untreated cardboard, and so on — the way they like it. It’s still “in the research phase” but it looks real enough. Looks kind of sinister, actually.