Polaroid develops a novel printing process. (Imaging).(Brief Article)

Researchers from Polaroid say they have developed a novel single-sheet imaging system that can produce a printed color image from a digital or analog source in a fraction of the time taken by ink-jet printers. The technique, called acid amplification imaging (AAI), also avoids the silver compounds used in conventional wet-process photography, eliminating a potential disposal problem, says Polaroid, which described the technique recently in Science.

The company is targeting the market for printing images taken by digital cameras. "At present, getting prints or slides from a digital camera is not as convenient for most people as getting this output from a conventional …