paperless

According to The Economist, the average American consumes almost eight 40-foot trees per year in paper. Even if you're not environmentally minded, reducing the amount of paper you consume has many benefits, including saving money and reducing clutter.

To help you get on the path to living a paperless lifestyle, here are six tips to consider:

Switch to paperless billing If you're still getting paper bills in the mail, consider switching to paperless billing. Many companies, banks, and utilities offer paperless billing options. The bills will typically be in PDF format, which you access online. When the new … Read more

Stories of Apple's success in integrating the iPad into business have been easy to come by in the last year as many companies and organizations are finding that not only does the tablet save them time, but also money.

According to a report from AppleInsider, The City Council of Vancouver, Wash., found just that when it switched to iPads at the beginning of 2012. After these last two months, the council has seen a reduction in paper usage to the tune of 40 percent, which amounts to about 50,000 pages of paper over the course of the year.… Read more

The new EchoSystem 4 from Echo360 is looking to add another important tool to universities that want to build and utilize a virtual, paperless classroom environment. It should be a welcome tool for students everywhere (until they realize it'll make cutting class obsolete).

The new software platform records and relays the classroom experience in HD to iPads, Android tablets, laptops, and desktops. The system requires compatible hardware and simulates attending and participating in the classroom by allowing real-time collaboration through question submission, polling, and commenting while watching the recorded lecture. By taking the classroom mobile, EchoSystem 4 could enable students of any age to take classes from their dorm rooms, roofs, treehouses, or across the country. … Read more

Feel like just about every utility, bank, and service company you use is asking you to sign up for their paperless option?

It's not your imagination. And you're about to be inundated with even more requests to opt-in to paperless communications, according to an IDC survey released Thursday.

Ninety-two percent of the 300 U.S. companies in IDC's "Green IT & Sustainability Survey 2009" said getting customers to move from print to online services is a goal they hope to initiate within 12 months.

The survey also shows an increased interest from companies in implementing … Read more

Just because Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell are way out there on the nerd spectrum, don't ignore what they have to say in their new book, "Total Recall."

The Microsoft researchers obsessively record e-mails, photos, videos, phone calls, health records, financial transactions, Web site visits, and everything else they can in an attempt to electronically compensate for the fallibility of their own biological memories. Before you recoil at the prospect of letting your own life become this digitally augmented, though, consider that it will be whether you want it or not.

"Total Recall," which goes … Read more

We get CNET News editor Stephen Shankland in the studio to talk about the mammoth task of making your personal paper trail a digital affair. We also break down the latest headlines from the long holiday weekend. Listen in to find out what you missed.

Today's stories:

Orange, T-Mobile to unite in U.K. merger

Google makes concessions to European publishers

Dish ordered to pay TiVo $200 million

Intel's new Core i7, Core i5 desktop chips bring faster CPUs to the maintream

Windows 7, Vista zero-day flaw reported

To make better biofuels, researchers add hydrogen

Microsoft offers some Silverlight 4 details… Read more

I expected problems from my attempt to rid myself of the paper in my life. What I didn't expect was this complication from my wailing 4-year-old son, Levi:

"Daddy, why did you recycle all my pictures?"

Even though he raised that question in a half-asleep moment in the middle of the night last week, Levi's anxiety illustrated one big complication about the idea of going paperless.

In short, some physical objects have value that doesn't easily transfer to the bits of their electronic representation. There's a great divide between the physical and the virtual. … Read more

Earth Class Mail, which enables people to manage snail mail online, has closed $13.3 million in Series A funding.

The round was led by Ignition Partners of Bellevue, Wash., with more than half of the money raised by the Keiretsu Forum angel investment group.

The company aims to open a chain of retail stores, starting with one in Manhattan early this year, according to the Portland Business Journal. The storefronts will focus on easing the process of signing up, which requires completing some notarized forms. The Seattle-based service is used currently in 130 countries.

Earth Class Mail is billed … Read more