Magnetochromatic Material Changes Color on Command

I can see how a billboard of this stuff would be practical, but perhaps not just regular squeeze it out of a bottle paint. It'd probably be expensive and you'd have people tagging things more than they do now... not that I wouldn't appreciate a color changing grafitied train.

ooh, I dig the prospects!
My only concern is, can the material turn only *select portions* of itself to a different color, or is one piece of the material restricted to the same color?

If portions can be controlled independently from the rest of the material, THEN it could be used for signs/cheap screens/etc.

they can probably use this in traffic lights. lol

perhaps even a compass can be made out of this.

like if your heading north its blue, u turn around, the magnetisim changes and its green when u head south.

this should be fun.

not good for poster business. imagine people buying one re-writable poster and use it over and over. just re-magnitize to a different color. less buys, less revenue.

There's no reason why an electronic paint couldn't be created with this. Simply applying the paint to a wall and using a graphics application, like Photoshop, you could potentially change the entire design of your house to fit your mood, a birthday party, a special event, etc.

Downsides would be thieves applying the paint to their cars, robbing a store, and then changing the color of their car from blue to something new. Applying it to their plates as well they could easily change their plate numbers which wouldn't noticeably changed unless you were right up close.

The other downside of course is that it would put the entire paint industry pretty much out of business along with the sign industry, car detailing industry, and host of other services. This is probably the reason why this technology will never come to the retail market b/c of it's financial and economic implications. It'll most likely be used strictly for government/military use.