Month: September 2015

Clean your ‘Outbox’

Chatting on a phone while sitting on a toilet has long been considered taboo. The same goes for sending texts and emails while ‘Talking to John’.

SanitGreen’s pilot app, LuFu, can automatically sanitize emails and texts before they get sent out, letting the receiver feel confident that their messages are hygienic. The app uses the phone’s GPS sensors to determine whether the sender is ‘occupied’ while they construct their message, and then activates a cleaning routine on the message as it leaves the device.

“Version two of the application has seen a marked improvement in the custom-built LDS (Lavatory Detection System). We use not only device location awareness, like GPS and triangulation, but an incredibly advanced sonic detection routine that looks for the common sounds of urinals, flushes, echoes, etc. We’re confident that our client’s will be more than happy knowing that the emails they’re sending out are socially acceptable,” says spokesperson for SanitGreen, “We’re confident that we’ll clean up on the market. The current Beta release of Version 2 is geared toward a Western lavatory, but we’re working on making this compatible around the world.”

In a recent survey about attitudes towards those who ‘Wipe and Swipe’, 70% of respondents considered the practice ‘unsanitary’ and, of these, 20% said that they would refuse to open a message if they knew they sender had ‘unwashed hands’.

“It’s a significant market, and a strongly biased market. We’re just giving the consumers what they want, and that is cleaner messages traveling through the communications network. If they leave the phone or tablet clean, they arrive clean. No skids on the wires.”ChesterLogoSmall

Super Staples to the Rescue

The properties of recycled paper is forcing staple manufacturers to rethink the archaic staple design.

The rise in the percentage of recycled material in paper is blamed for the recent move to redesign the common staple to create ‘Super-Staples’. More recycled material amounts in a paper that it tougher than pure pulp, says Roger Tasco, leading Technical Expert at Sawmill Papers in Hampshire, England.

“Recycled paper has come a long way: the microscopic inclusions are smaller and fewer than they used to be. You can’t really feel the difference with your hand, but to a staple it’s like passing through smooth peanut butter versus crunchy. It used to be that you could safely staple ten pages with a number 56, now that number has dropped to nine or even eight. This means more jams, more wasted staples and paper.”

Average Penetration of #56 Staple versus the Reported Content of Recycled Material
Average Penetration of #56 Staple versus the Reported Content of Recycled Material

Rather than forcing stationery users to upgrade their staplers to hold larger, stronger staples, Roger is behind a nationwide move compelling staple manufacturers to change the design of staples.

“We’ve found that small alterations in the manufacturing process, say by using a few microns more steel per unit and honing the tips to a razor-sharp point brings the staples back into line with their expected capabilities. And, of course, non-recycled paper doesn’t stand a chance!”

But Roger is not content to stop there. He proposes that the archaic design of staples can be vastly improved, with ideas including angled barbs, fluted and channeled shafts, a beveled top edges.

Regarding his thoughts on these new Super-Staples’ he says, “They (Super-Staples) would be good for the stationery industry as a whole, only these puppies will have to come with a safety warning. They’ll be downright deadly.”

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