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After more than ten experimental years, the FCC last week approved commercial transmission of facsimile (TIME, Jan. 12). On July 15 any FM station that is ready for the job may start printing "fax" newspapers by radio. If it can be done satisfactorily in color (several experimenters think they have workable techniques), that will be all right with FCC too.

In all the U.S., only eleven experimental stations will be affected immediately. In Manhattan, faxtation WGHF announced that it was getting ready to broadcast four tabloid pages of text and pictures four times daily. In Passaic, N.J., Finch Telecommunications, Inc. announced that it is already manufacturing 100 transmitters for FM stations, 5,000 colorfax* recorders, which may be plugged into any FM radio. The transmitters will be on the market this week, the recorders (priced between $100 and $150) in two or three months.

* Its inventor, WGHF's W. G. H. Finch, claims the attachment will reproduce newspapers in either black & white, or full color, on untreated paper.

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