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Comment by fuzzythinker | Hacker News Reader

What's the difference between these and Pilot's FriXion pens and highlighters? They have been out for 1-2 years and I've been using them for over a year now. They are truly erasable by friction with the included rubber tip (not like previous "erasable" pens that leave the inks permanently if it's not erased immediately). You can get them at major stationary stores in US like Office* and Staples. But it's a shame since they are not promoted like they do in Japan (not to mention Japan sells the latest ones in different styles and colors and writes a little better than the older ones in US).

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Turns out that the FriXion ink is still there after being erased, but it's on the other side of some kind of (reversible!) phase transition. Any kind of heat makes it go away, and cold makes it reappear, as this video shows:

http://www.jetpens.com/jetpics/?p=172?

Very cool ink.

Hmm, interesting! The way I guessed these FriXion pens work is the ink is actually liquid plastic and by friction, the plastic inks gets rubbed away when "erased". I guess that explains my curiosity of why there isn't any "ink residues" after the ink is erased away.

Still, I'll much prefer these friXion pens over the new Sharpies since under normal usage, writings usually don't get exposed to tremendous heat. So to me and perhaps normal users, these friXion pens are more like erasable pens since they are not subject to the 3 day rule the new Sharpies impose.

The only question remains is if these new Sharpies' "liquid graphite" writes like a real pencil, in which case, it would have a totally difference use and market (art, drafting, etc.). Since it says it's available already, I'll probably grab some and find out for myself. I'm cited!

I discovered the re-appearing part when I left my notebook in a place where it froze. All my corrections came back. It was a little disconcerting to see erased ideas pop up like ghosts behind the new ideas.

I was wondering about this as well. In my (Japanese) office, all of us use erasable pens. They come in a variety of colors, erase cleanly and easily and as far as I can tell do exactly what this new sharpie pencil does.

Or am I missing something amazingly obvious?

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