WEBVTT - Xerox: New Market. New Xerox. 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:11.840 Get in text with technology with tech Stuff from dot Com. 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.680 Hey there, everybody, and welcome to Tech Stuff. I am 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:18.160 your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer here at 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:21.439 How Stuff Works, and you guys know I love tech 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:25.480 And if you've listened to the last two episodes, then 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:29.440 you are aware that we've been talking about the company Xerox, 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:31.640 which is more than a hundred years old. It was 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:35.360 founded in nineteen o six, and originally I thought it 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.240 was gonna be a two parter. Uh. I was certain 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:40.360 that's as long as it was going to need to be, 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:42.200 because I thought, even though there's a lot of stuff 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:46.040 that Xerox has contributed to technology, I could probably sum 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:48.440 it up in two parts. But the interesting origin of 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:52.120 Xbox ended up taking Xbox Xerox took up a lot 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:56.640 of time, and the Xerox origin having so little to 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:58.720 do with what Xerox does today. I mean, it was 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:02.760 about photographic paper, uh, and if it would it would 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:06.640 not even evolve into photo copy years until decades after 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.920 its founding. But it was really interesting to hear about 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:13.200 the different values that were instilled as part of the 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:19.600 corporate character of Xerox. Then all that stuff about the 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:24.480 Palo Alto Research Center or Xerox Park was also incredibly fascinating. 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:27.080 I mean, Xerox Park is where a lot of development 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:31.000 happened on things that are now standard in personal computers, 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:34.320 but at the time it was all very much cutting 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:37.800 edge technology. I mean, the park started in nineteen seventy 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:41.680 and they started working on things like graphic user interfaces, 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:47.480 computer mouse, bitmapped icons, lots of stuff that would find 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:51.400 its way into standard computer use more than a decade 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:55.040 later was happening at Xerox at the time. And finally, 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:57.320 as I was looking into more recent years at Xerox, 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:01.680 I realized I couldn't just summarize what had happened. If 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:03.760 I did, it would be short shrift and we'd be 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.680 going bullet points, and that's not how I like to 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:10.360 do this show. So I decided I needed to go 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:12.799 into more detail. So that's where we are now, at 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:17.080 the thrilling conclusion of the Xerox story. So so far, anyway, 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:20.000 I mean, we gotta mention that's not really the conclusion. 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.560 The company does still exist, although it has gone through 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:27.399 some pretty major changes barely recently. So let's jump back 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:31.320 into the main company of Xerox. In our last episode, 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:34.240 we switched to focus on the Palo Alto Research Center 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:36.480 once it was found in nineteen seventy. But what was 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:41.200 going on back at Xerox Prime during that same time. Well, 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.160 in the early nineteen seventies, everything was going pretty well 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:48.240 over at Xerox. They had created the most profitable product 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:52.240 of all time with the nine fourteen copier. Remember it 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:54.639 was called the nine fourteen because those were the dimensions 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:56.840 of paper it could accept. It could accept up to 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:00.840 nine inches by fourteen inches, and us was a photo 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:04.800 copier that could make copies much faster than alternative methods. 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:07.359 It also was less messy than using something like carbon 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:11.959 copies and a mimiograph machine. The company also held patents 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:17.000 on the various technologies that went into photo copiers, so 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:20.760 it gave them an effective monopoly on their specific approach. 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.600 You know, if you patent a technology, no one else 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:27.600 is allowed to create a technology that works that same 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.680 way unless they first pay you a licensing fee. If 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.000 you agree to license it, then sure they can do it, 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:37.800 but otherwise you have exclusive rights to that technology until 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.000 the patent expires, which is a little bit more than 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:44.320 a decade. Well, the profit margin on those big enterprise machines. 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:48.000 Enterprise being that they were selling these two companies right 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:51.680 they were not selling nine fourteen copiers to the average consumer. 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:56.760 They were selling them to big offices. The profit margin 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:02.800 was super high, like in the seventy percent range of 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:06.080 the money was pure profit. That means that they were 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:08.800 able to sell the machines for more than what it 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.920 costs for them to build them. And that's an incredible 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.400 profit margin for any kind of technology. And that just 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:18.360 means that they were really expensive machines and people were 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:20.599 willing to pay for them because of the level of 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:24.640 convenience they offered. But as Joe Wilson, who was one 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:28.200 of the early leaders of Xerox, might have said, sitting 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:31.039 back and relying on past innovations can only be effective 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:35.440 for so long. The patents on xerox Is technology were 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:38.679 close to expiring, so pretty soon anyone with the means 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:42.240 could use those same approaches to make similar technologies. And 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.560 that seventy profit margin, while it was great for Xerox 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:48.960 right there at the moment, meant that other companies would 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.200 have a chance to come in and cut prices. Maybe 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:54.960 they're looking for a profit margin that's a lot more modest, 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:57.240 and they could end up selling their copiers for far 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:01.320 less than Xerox was and undercut the competition sition. In 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:06.200 nineteen seventy one, Joe Wilson passed away. Now I mentioned 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:08.520 that in the previous episode, so I'm not going to 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:10.880 dwell on it here, but his passing was marked by 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:14.880 public displays of respect across Rochester, New York, where he 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:17.800 grew up, where he lived most of his life, and 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:22.920 also within Xerox itself. Archie McCardell became the president of Xerox, 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:27.240 while C. Peter McCullough remained the CEO. You remember McCullough 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:32.400 took over for for Wilson. The mid seventies started to 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:34.800 get a little more challenging for Xerox. First of all, 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:38.359 you had other companies like Cannon and various copier companies 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:42.440 in Japan entering the marketplace with competing products. Xerox still 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:44.600 made up the majority of copiers in the marketplace. They 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:49.279 were effectively a monopoly for the for several years, but 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.320 they soon had to contend with these newcomers. Later, still, 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:55.960 IBM would get into the copy of business, which was 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:59.760 also a little bit foreboding to Xerox, and a few 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.080 there's also started to kind of dip their toe into it. Meanwhile, 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.120 companies like HP, we're working on technologies that would bring 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.240 them into competition with Xerox in ways the copier company 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:13.040 couldn't anticipate at the time, like in ink jet printing. 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:15.760 In jet printing, while it's not the same thing as 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:19.520 photo copying, did allow people to make copies of stuff 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.520 by printing extra copies as opposed to printing one copy 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:24.760 and then taking that to the photo copier to make 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:29.760 more copies. HP took some of the need away from 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:32.960 offices from having these giant photo copiers. So it was 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:37.240 a level of competition that Xerox had not anticipated. Xerox 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.080 began to see that incredible domination in the market start 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:42.279 to lose ground. In fact, it began to lose ground 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:44.960 pretty dramatically over the next several years. Now, in the 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.599 last episode, I mentioned that Xerox Park was hard at 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:52.039 work on several innovations, one of the biggest being the Alto. Now, 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:55.200 this could have been the first personal computer on the market. 0:06:55.640 --> 0:07:01.120 The Xerox Alto could have been the ubiquitous or personal computer. 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:04.880 It could have been there instead of the Apple Too, 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.880 But uh, that just didn't work out, and why Well, 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:12.600 the reasons are a little complicated. First of all, Xerox 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.360 Alta was years ahead of other products like the Apple Too, 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:18.440 because it actually did have a graphic user interface. It 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:23.160 was essentially a Windows style machine, though Microsoft Windows did 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:25.760 not exist yet, but it was that same sort of 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.840 user interface that Microsoft Windows would be now. The fact 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.840 that Xerox didn't see the opportunity in consumer personal computers 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:36.920 led a lot of people after the fact to say 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:42.160 that they really were lacking foresight and initiative, and that 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:47.040 they weren't embracing that spirit of innovation the way Xerox 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:50.680 had earlier in its in its existence, that's a lot 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.480 easier to say in hindsight. At the time, it might 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:58.280 have seemed weird to go into a consumer technology, which 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:01.840 by definition tends to have much lower profit margins than 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:04.360 doing these business to business deals which had made the 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:10.000 company bookous of money's. Xerox ended up creating their first 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:14.840 color copier, the Xerox hundred, around this time, so there 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.280 was some still some innovation going on in their main business, 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:21.800 and in nineteen seventy four, Xerox opened a new facility 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:26.720 in Mississaugua, Ontario, Canada. And I know, I know Canadians, 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:30.720 I know I mispronounced it. I I realized that I 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:34.960 feel shame, a deep sense of shame and despair. But 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:38.840 I'm just a simple man reading notes off my computer screen, 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:42.400 so so give me some slack. This was the Xerox 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:45.240 Research Center of Canada, also known as the x r 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:49.400 c C. Initially the purpose of this research facility was 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.360 to engineer new chemical processes and products for use in 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:56.400 xerox is businesses. Today, the x r c C bills 0:08:56.440 --> 0:09:00.680 itself as quote Canada's leading materials research enter and home 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:04.200 to a world class team of scientists and engineers with 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:09.439 broad expertise and materials chemistry, formulation, design, prototyping, testing, and 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.880 chemical process engineering end quote. They work both with Xerox 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:18.800 and external customers, which typically would be other big companies. 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:23.520 Now Xerox agreed to license copier patents to other companies, 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:25.600 which seems really big of them, right like they were 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:30.000 they had all these these different patents that kept them 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:35.600 in this effective monopoly. Seems really generous to agree to 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:40.360 extend licenses to various companies, you know, in exchange for 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:43.800 a fee seems really nice. Well, it wasn't out of 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:47.440 the kindness of xerox executive's hearts. Xerox had actually become 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:51.840 the target for an antitrust lawsuit and the government was 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:55.960 essentially demanding that the company offer up licensing agreements for 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:58.480 their patents. So this was kind of the company's way 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:01.560 of soothing things over. Within a short amount of time, 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:04.440 the move did exactly what the people at Xerox were 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:08.960 afraid would happen. It allowed competitors to leverage Xerox's technologies 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:12.760 and so copiers for much lower prices. Xerox is near 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:17.080 one market share would drop below twenty percent in just 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:20.400 a couple of years. That's dramatic when you go from 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.600 a percent market domination to less than twenty percent of 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:27.120 the market in some cases, I've seen estimates between thirteen 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:33.960 and fourteen percent. That's crazy. It is, however, something that 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:38.120 we've seen in other technologies like smartphone operating systems. iOS 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:42.839 dominated shortly for a while, and then Android caught up, 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:48.280 and then now Android dominates just by sheer numbers. Was 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.040 also the year that Xerox stopped trying to make mainframe 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:53.559 style computers. They got out of that business. They had 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:56.160 bought into it a few years earlier, and it turned 0:10:56.160 --> 0:11:00.240 out they just could not make that business work. Five 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:04.240 was also the year Xerox launched an incredibly popular advertising campaign. 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:08.280 This was called the brother Dominic campaign. It featured a 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:12.160 monk creating an illustrated manuscript by hands, so he's writing 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:15.040 out in calligraphy this manuscript, only to be told by 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:19.000 his superiors that they need hundreds more copies. So the 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:21.920 monk takes his illustrated page to the copy center in 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:26.440 the monastery, since we all know that monasteries have these, 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:30.000 right and he then goes and makes five hundred copies 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.360 using a big Xerox machine. And when he returns to 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.240 his superiors shortly after he was asked to make the 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:37.760 copies in the first place, they look at the amount 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:41.920 of work he has accomplished so quickly and reply, it's 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:45.880 a miracle. Now. This campaign would include several more variations 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:48.280 on this theme and would make a return just a 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:51.040 couple of years ago with an updated technology found in 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:54.960 Xerox document centers. So it's a very popular, award winning 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:59.200 ad campaign. And again not just a couple of years ago, 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:01.439 they did an update that was kind of cute about 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:06.000 how you could use Xerox technologies to do things like 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:11.440 translate documents. It could have automatic detection of language and 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:15.480 then translated into other languages and print it in those 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:18.640 other languages, which is pretty cool thing. Actually, it seems 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:21.480 kind of magical to me. I guess it is a miracle. 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:26.079 In nineteen seventy six, Kodak, remember that was Xerox is 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:28.640 old competitor from the old old days when it was 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:31.520 the Halloyd Corporation. Kodak was the big boy in town 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:35.240 and Halloyd was the teeny tiny little competitor. Well, now 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:40.480 Kodak switches the the scales and becomes the smaller competitor 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:44.320 in the copier game. That add more pressure onto Xerox. 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:46.960 This was also the last year that Xerox sold a 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:51.360 nine fourteen copier six. They phased it out of sales 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:54.600 from that point forward, although they did still provide field 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:57.520 service for nine fourteen copiers that had already been sold 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:01.600 to customers. Zero made a move in nineteen seventy nine 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.200 to purchase Western Union International that ended up being a 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:09.240 failed experiment. The company was trying to create a telecommunications network. 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:13.360 They were really looking to diversify beyond photocopying, so they 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.000 were they were definitely looking at ways that they could 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:19.840 branch out so they weren't dependent upon a business that 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:24.320 was getting siphoned away from them. But this telecommunications network 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:27.840 experiment was a failure, and in nine Xerox would sell 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:30.720 off Western Union International to m c I, and they 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:33.520 took a loss on that sale, so it was an 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:38.240 expensive lesson to learn. In nineteen eighties, Xerox formed an 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:41.719 official environment, Health, and Safety organization and became one of 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.600 the first big American companies to do so. The purpose 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:47.360 of this group is to design and implement environmental and 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:53.520 sustainability programs at Xerox. By Xerox had started to introduce 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:57.160 the Star computer workstation, which was technically the first consumer 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.560 computer to feature a mouse, and whizzy Wig software wasizz 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:03.720 the Wagan case, you don't remember, stands for what you 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.920 see is what you get, So you can actually edit 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:09.840 within the framework of whatever document you're using, and it 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:13.000 looks exactly the way it should when you print it 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:16.720 or produce it. This is standard today, but back back 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:19.680 then it was not standard. The thing that you were 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:24.080 looking at on a screen often had very little relationship 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:26.440 with whatever it would print out on a piece of paper. 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:32.520 But this Star computer workstation was not compatible with other 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:35.440 systems and was a bit underpowered all things considered, and 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:39.240 ultimately it languished in the market. Apple computers would pass 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:41.480 it by easily, even though they didn't have all the 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:45.400 bells and whistles that the Star computer workstation did back 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:49.440 in one. Apple would catch up by eight four when 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:52.040 they started to incorporate the Mac operating system and had 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:56.480 their Windows based user interface incorporated in that. But at 0:14:56.480 --> 0:15:00.920 the time Xerox's computer was was pretty advanced from a 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:06.440 software perspective, hardware it was kind of lacking in McCullough 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:10.440 stepped down as the CEO and David Kaarns became CEO 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:13.360 of Xerox, and one thing Kairns did was to guide 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:18.320 Xerox into some acquisitions to expand the company into financial services, 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:22.360 including insurance. Eventually, this would become a huge burden to 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:25.440 the company as it found itself financially obligated to resolve 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:30.760 billions of dollars in insurance liabilities. So it became kind 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:35.360 of an albatross around the metaphorical neck of Xerox. At 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:37.880 this point, the revenues of the company were eight point 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:42.960 five billion dollars. Xerox would continue to experiment with new products, 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:46.720 including new copiers that had micro computers incorporated directly into 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.320 the product that of course has continued up to present day. 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.440 And it also had a low bandwidth ethernet as a 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:58.160 communications interface built into these new copiers, which is kind 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:01.280 of cool. Xerox also produced a fax machine in nine 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.200 that could be linked by network to other office equipment, 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:06.800 So again they were producing some stuff that was ahead 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:10.000 of the curve. But around this time Xerox also pioneer 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:13.080 to practice that you might not be aware of. It's 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:17.640 kind of creepy. So laser printing was becoming more commonplace 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.880 in the early nineteen eighties, and that included the capability 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.600 to print in full color with certain types of printers. 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.640 One concern that arose from this development of technology was 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.760 the possibility of using that kind of printer to produce 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:35.840 counterfeit documents and currency. If you could make it look 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:38.400 convincing enough, you might be able to have a pretty 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:41.680 convincing counterfeit and pass it off as the real thing. Now, 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:45.400 Xerox determined that one way to protect against this, or 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:48.680 at least track instances so that you could find their 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:51.560 points of origin. Would be to include some sort of 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:56.400 encoding strategy so that the printers being used would print 0:16:57.160 --> 0:17:01.040 a tracking information directly on to the paper and do 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:03.600 it in such a way that it's not obvious. And 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:07.119 thus tiny yellow dots began to find their way into 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:10.080 print jobs. Now, those yellow dots, which are easiest to 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:12.639 see if you shine a blue led light on the paper, 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:18.240 encode specific information onto the paper itself. The information includes 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:23.080 the serial number of the the printer, the date of printing, 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:27.639 and more or the copier as well. So the dots 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:31.080 are yellow and paper is typically white, and that means 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.399 you have a very low contrast between the toner and 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:37.040 the paper that makes it really tricky to spot. And 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:39.159 the dots are actually pretty tiny, so it's likely you 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:41.840 would not notice them without a magnifying glass and a 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:44.800 blue light. But if you wanted, you could shine a 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:46.920 blue light on a piece of paper that had gone 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:50.359 through a Xerox printer or copier, you could use the 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.120 magnifying glass, you could find these dots, and you could 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:56.320 track any document back to the printer that produced it. 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:59.720 You'd even know when the print job took place. The 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:02.760 day would be included in that information, and that sort 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:05.359 of information could be come in particularly handy during a 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:08.399 case involving counterfeits. But it might creep you out to 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:11.800 know that your print outs have been including information about you, 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:14.320 or at least your printer all the way up to 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.520 this point. This's, by the way, a standard practice. You 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:21.520 can find lots of printers that will include stuff at 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:25.760 a very tiny, unnoticeable level, at least unnoticeable to the 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:29.159 naked eye, but they leave traces that make it much 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:32.959 easier to figure where did that piece of paper come from, 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:36.560 who printed it? Including it as a serial number, and 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:39.680 the serial numbers registered to somebody, it makes it much 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:43.119 easier to track down the origin of that piece of paper, 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:47.359 at least the print out, not the paper itself. So 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:51.440 it's kind of creepy in a way. It's also potentially useful. Now. 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:54.080 Law enforcement, for their parts, say that they don't really 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.600 use this unless they're looking into counterfeits. They're not necessarily 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:00.040 taking every sheet of paper that has been printed it 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:02.600 and then looking for these dots and then tracking it 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:06.280 back to the original printer for further investigation. But still 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:08.960 kind of interesting. Something I was not aware of before 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:12.680 I started doing the research for this podcast, and we've 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.480 got a lot more to say about Xerox to wrap 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:17.920 up this story. But before I get into that, let's 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:28.720 take a quick break to thank our sponsor. In six 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:32.479 years before the Worldwide Web with debut, Xerox made a 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:36.639 very forward thinking move. The company registered a top level 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:42.440 domain www. Dot xerox dot com. This was the seventh 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:46.080 top level domain to be registered with the United States 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:50.439 Department of Defense. Ever, so when you look at the 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:54.239 top level domains, Xerox was the seventh one. And if 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.120 you're wondering about that last statement about the Department of Defense, 0:19:57.160 --> 0:19:59.479 you need to listen up on the old ARPA net 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:03.240 podcast past episodes I did. The Department of Defenses Advanced 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:08.600 Research Projects Agency or ARPA, which would eventually evolve into DARPA, 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:12.560 was responsible for designing the foundation for what would become 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:17.080 the Internet, So all the protocols, uh, they really got 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:20.320 their start both in arpanet and over at xerox Park 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:23.320 Xerox Park, they did a lot of work that would 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:26.760 end up being incorporated into the fundamental design of the Internet. 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:30.359 Before the Department of Defense essentially backed away from being 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:34.040 the caretaker of the Internet. All registration ultimately went to 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:37.159 the Department of Defense. So think about that, if you 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:39.399 wanted to register at top level domain, you had to 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:42.000 send that information to the Department of Defense. That's not 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:45.520 intimidating at all. But Xerox got in early, well before 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:48.560 any domain squatters could come along and mess things up. 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:54.080 Xerox produced it's two millionth copier in nineteen The company 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:56.320 was really starting to face fierce competition in the space. 0:20:56.359 --> 0:21:01.880 At this point, Xerox's main concentration remained the enterprise business. Uh, 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:05.040 they kept on focusing on those big corporate clients as 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:08.240 opposed to trying to really break into the consumer marketplace. 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:13.200 In nineteen Xerox introduced docu Tech. That's a product that 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:17.120 allowed for scanning, editing, filing, and printing jobs all from 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:21.119 one product. So kind of like a a photo copier 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:25.400 on steroids, right. It's the machine that just can do anything, 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:28.919 the Swiss Army photo copier. That's also the year that 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.159 Paul A Laire would become these Xerox CEO. Now A 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:35.520 Laire had been with the company since nineteen sixty six, 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:39.320 and it would be when he becomes CEO of the 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:43.480 company his first moves as CEO were to divest Xerox 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:46.320 of several of the financial services departments the company had 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:50.119 formed in an effort to diversify like those insurance companies 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:53.800 I was talking about. The revenue of the company at 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:59.280 that point was thirteen point six billion dollars. Xerox Park. Meanwhile, 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:02.560 Create did something kind of cool. It was called lamb 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:06.480 Da Move, which you might think that means that Xerox 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:10.639 was genetically producing Greek yogurt or something, But that's not 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:13.919 what was going on, at least not that I know of. Anyway, 0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:15.720 Maybe they were doing that too, but that's not what 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:19.119 Lambda move was. Lambda move was an early multi user 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:24.159 object oriented online environment. MOVE stands for multi user object 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:29.160 oriented or sometimes MUD object oriented. MUD, by the way, 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:31.119 stands for a multi user dungeon. So it all it 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:34.320 gets very recursive. Think of it as a text based 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:37.080 environment that allows people to log into it remotely and 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:39.800 interact with one another. It's a fancy type of chat 0:22:39.880 --> 0:22:43.280 room that has some added capabilities, like little spaces that 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:46.080 you could define as channels or rooms of their own, 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:49.920 as well as programmed objects within it that can sometimes 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:52.680 produce effects based upon commands you would type in, but 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:56.760 it's all text based. Was also when Xerox introduced the 0:22:56.800 --> 0:23:00.920 DocuTech Production Publisher, the first in its DocuTech series of products. 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:04.720 It could make copies, manipulate documents, capture images, and more. 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:08.000 Xerox was adding new features and development from the Park 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:11.159 team in order to differentiate as products from all the 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:14.280 copiers that were coming out from competing companies. So while 0:23:14.320 --> 0:23:18.000 other companies were selling copiers at lower cost, Xerox started 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:20.720 producing some that had added features that you could not 0:23:20.880 --> 0:23:27.639 find in the competitors products. In three's Severe Tire Damage 0:23:27.640 --> 0:23:30.800 performs a live streaming show at Xerox Park, using the 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:34.520 multicast backbone to send the performance over the Internet. I 0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:36.600 actually covered this in an episode of Tech Stuff not 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:38.960 too long ago. I cannot, for the life of me, 0:23:39.040 --> 0:23:41.800 remember what the topic was, but I remember talking about 0:23:41.800 --> 0:23:45.359 severe tire Damage doing their live cast, and I just 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:47.600 wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the fact that 0:23:47.600 --> 0:23:50.280 I've gotten to talk about severe tire damage twice in 0:23:50.320 --> 0:23:53.560 the same few months. It always seems like it was 0:23:53.600 --> 0:23:54.960 like a couple of weeks ago, but I know it 0:23:55.000 --> 0:24:00.280 was longer than that. Xerox underwent a little rebrand ding. 0:24:00.720 --> 0:24:03.040 The company would do this several times over the next 0:24:03.040 --> 0:24:06.520 couple of decades. They changed their corporate symbol from blue 0:24:06.520 --> 0:24:09.240 to red. It had been a blue Xerox, Now it 0:24:09.280 --> 0:24:11.600