Slashdot Mirror
Digital Clock as Thin as Paper
Elitist_Phoenix writes "Citizen Watch has created a clock that is Paper thin! This unique design is enabled by E Ink Imaging Film. In addition to the fact that no backlighting is required, the display also has an inherently stable memory effect which requires no power to maintain an image - both of which drastically increase the battery life. The result is 1/100 the power consumption of traditional display options. Citizen Watch Co. and T.I.C.-Citizen Co. have not yet announced a launch date for this product, but it is expected to be commercialized in Japan in 2005."
Allow me to be the first to say...
That freaking kicks ass.
Now I can lose my watch that much easier!
I wonder if they will wind up putting little clocks into notebooks... that'd be really cool, I wouldn't have to have a watch anymore!
(I hate them, they rub on my wrist when I try to type)
I 3 technology *swoon*
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
I can't wait to see when these same guys make a single sheet of paper as thick as a digital clock! It would be sweet. I don't think I see many uses for it though...
A guy walks into a bar... well, I forgot the joke, but the punchline is that he's an alcoholic.
So where's my reasonably priced, non-DRM'd, long lasting battery, etc., digital book?
"requires no power to maintain an image"
I call bullshit.
When this happens? In some prison?
My suggestion: make it ticks every 10 seconds, you save some more energy.
Paper-thin redefined as cardboard-thick!
Slashdot has created a Slashvertisement whose cover story is Paper thin! This unique design is enabled by lagging ad revenues. In addition to the fact that Alexa ranking has plummeted, the editors also have an inherently short memory effect which require no effort to maintain duplicate story postings - both of which drastically reduce time spent editing. The result is 1/100th the meaningful content of traditional tech news sites. CmdrTaco and Zonk have not yet announced a launch date for this product, but it is expected to be out of beta "real soon now".
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
This was covered on engadget a few days ago.
But you, sir, are always free to submit stories you think are more "newsworthy". There's a link to the left...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
This could make the best t shirt ever. Of course you could probably never wash it, but who cares if you smell. You'd be too pimpin for people to complain.
Anyone have any estimates as to the price of this clock?
Another example of a paper thin watch is one showcased by Seiko around two months ago.
- watches/seikos-epaper-watch-prototype-039344.php
linky: http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/clocks-and
Does anyone know when this technology will be viable for use in PDAs and cellphones screens?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Let me know when I can pick up my paper thin ultra-high contrast 1280x1024 flat-(literally)-panel monitor. Until then: cool, but useless. Well . . . maybe I'd accept electronic notebook paper, failing the monitor. Inkball . . . with real ink!
I guess we can accurately now say:
Even a stopped Citizen ePaper clock is right twice a day.
This assumes that it's on 12 hour mode, of course.
i want low power pda with an eink screen.
gimmie a gumstix a membrane keyboard and 20 hrs battery life. even if it's just a console alphanumeric display for the lowest power and best refresh rate (eink is sloww.)
Oh no, wait, the other one.
-1 flamebait.
Eh.
Actual "article" here:0 401/103334/?ST=english
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/2005
... wallpaper full of these things?
I wonder if it even rips like paper....
Clock cut!
Although both the story and this post are blatant plugs for a proprietary technology, the stuff they use for this clock (E Ink) really is quite cool, and can be used in many other gadgets.
For example they are building bendable 200dpi grayscale screens and some Xbox game boxes are using it to create an animated picture on the side of the box.
I wonder how long it will be before these take over the world, and the sci-fi idea of every billboard and poster being animated becomes real? Maybe when the Pentium VI 10GHz Powerbook comes out, it'll have a screen that can be rolled up and put into your pocket?
Living in Perth, Australia? Come to our Slashdot Meetup
Damn... there should be some sort of limit to google ads on a page too. Since AdSense uses the content on a page to determine what type of ads it will show, I'm surprised the adsense ads aren't for adsense!
Expect Flava Flav to start his own line of clock suits with this technology. YYYEEEAAAHHH BBBOOOYYY!!!!!!
I call BS. Most geeks wouldn't use alexa so it wouldn't likely rank very high. Personally I find it very sad that slashdot gets the traffic that it does on alexa. Must be a lot of slashdotters out there with this crap installed.
While the quality of slashdot is at best arguable, clearly they are still making money and going strong otherwise they still wouldn't be around.
Page ranking is a better indicator IMHO. Slashdot has a PR9 while Kuro5hin is PR7 IIRC.
Personally I found this interesting and can think of at least 1 million uses for a flexible lcd, grayscale or not. Clearly you are too simpleminded to think of how revolutionary such an invention can and probably will be.
This isn't a slashvertisment (though there likely have been a few, who the hell cares?) There isn't even a fucking working product yet. Get a fucking hold of yourself and take a break from slashdot and if you hate it that much, well then, don't come back and don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Ye gods, am I feeding the troll?
zosxavius photography
This is the first major step to a digital newspapper. Walking around with a piece of paper that always has the lattest news (and or slashdot storys) would be convinient. Though it would acomplish the same task as a laptop a cheaper , low power consumption standalone , tangible papper would be an amazing consumer product. When the product makes it down to a reasonibly priced level(sub dollar) they will be used for memos buiness papers , homework. Merging this tecnology with touch screens is going to lead to a point where digital and tactile data merge. Where you can crumple up an email and toss it in the can. Send a copy of the sketch of the boss you scribbled on a sheet of digital paper and send it to everyone in the office. Magazines can have movies (XXX market get on that). Money could have a number that changes over time and can be checked against the bank for security, your identification can say your age not your birthdate, you would only have to buy one calender for the rest of your life. and board games could be replaced. This is a much bigger step to the vision of the future , a paperless society, then viewing it as a clock is making it out to be.
On Citizen's website , they tout their horn about having the slimmest LCD watch in production. They have a picture of it in one of their galleries, pretty cool. Interesting thing about Citizen, and almost all watch makers in general - their prices on their sites are massively inflated. A watch that is listed as $500 on their site you can find online for $200. I've always loved Citizen watches. While they're not Swiss, they're pretty damn cool. I own a Skyhawk Blue Eagles, and the thing has lasted me for years. Watch out for their titanium watches, and just titanium watches in general. True, they are much lighter and stronger when blunt force is applied. But they scratch much more easily, and in most cases, you scratch your watch, a 200lb. sledgehammer doesn't hit it ;-)
Why not just staple it to yourself? Then it wouldn't get lost. And you wouldn't need a band. The benefits are many!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
How much to have one of these implanted right underneath my skin on my inner left wrist running off of electricity generated from my blood sugar?
I'd never need another watch.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
I hope it doesn't tear. Hate to pay a ton of money for the newest, best of anything, and have it ripped asunder by being flimsy. =) Also, can it give you papercuts?
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
Maitre D: And finally, monsieur, a wafer-thin mint.
Mr Creosote: No.
Maitre D: Oh sir! It's only a tiny little thin one.
Mr Creosote: No. Fuck off - I'm full... [Belches]
Maitre D: Oh sir... it's only wafer thin.
Mr Creosote: Look - I couldn't eat another thing. I'm absolutely stuffed. Bugger off.
Maitre D: Oh sir, just... just one...
Mr Creosote: Oh all right. Just one.
Maitre D: Just the one, sir... voila... bon appetit...
A beowulf book of these. :)
I have seen other demos from E-Ink, a "page" takes ten cents to manufacture. I have seen a prototype ebook by them whose resolution is incredable. One of the best parts about their products is that they only need a little bit of power to switch, no power is required for the display to stay put.
that the entire clock is paper thin, but that just the display is paper thin. There is no mention of the crystal oscillator and other electronics being included in the package.
And as far as a crystal goes, the size is, generally speaking, directly proportional to its stability. So if the crystal is included in the "paper-thin" clock, you can count on it losing or gaining a minute or more a day.
what practical use does this have? can you wear it? probably not because youll lose or break it easily. honestly, not to be mean or flamebait or whatever but this seems fairly useless unless the tech can be applied for other devices?
Honestly id be worried about breaking the thing being so thin... not to mention its probably WAY more expensive than a regular clock -- and it talks about battery life, but who cares honestly. My clocks get YEARS on single AA batteries, is the battery life all that important? am i missing the point?
Mike
I heart the RIAA & MPAA, im sure its mutual...
Dude, how many academic papers have you read that are linked to Slashdot?
How many business white-papers?
Neither really represents the crowd of Slashdot. Perhaps the white-papers, but I can quite firmly state that there are very few articles on Slashdot linked to Nature, Science, conference proceedings, etc.
If you're interested in such things though, I've considered creating a site centered around them. Perhaps we could partner up.
The e-ink technology has also been used in colour displays: http://www.eink.com/news/images/eink_color_tft_dem o.jpg
To do the colour displays, they use several micro capsules with three orthogonal colours like cyan, magenta and yellow. On one half of the wall of the capsule are tiny white particles that are charged negative.
Since the capsules themselves are only about 100 microns wide, you can create different colours by adjusting the orientation of each capsule to face a given direction. This is done by applying an electric field.
You have to use cyan, magenta and yellow because the display generally reflects light and doens't produce light on its own.
Dammit, I just wasted my last mod on a +1 Funny that was only a little funny. Could have been better spent modding this trash down.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
"But sir, it is only wafer thin..."
I'm not going to be even slightly impressed until I see full color, high refresh rate, networked and light emitting piece of paper that can store many terabytes and display in 3D as well.
by the way, has anyone ever noticed what an ugly word 'piece' is?
Digital paper has been featured on Slashdot before but I can't find the reference. Fujitsu's prototype from this 2004 article looks a lot more impressive than a thin digital clock.
So, twenty-six years after the publication of the Hitchhiker's Guide, and we still think digital clocks are a pretty neat idea.
Humanity is doomed.
One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say. - Will Duran
We already have watches that require no power, just the normal arm movement. Some even are solar powered. In fact, I have gotten to within 10 minutes of guessing the correct time just by the position of the sun, no small feat in Alaska, where the daylight changes 5-7 minutes per day in some months.
More importantly, I quit worrying about the time years ago. It was too stressful, and really, arbitrary. I learned this from my Grandfather, a wise old Seminole Indian: He never wore a watch, and said that there are only two times, now, and not now. Then again, he never went diving, and never had to calculate decomp times. When I am diving, I have a good watch. When I have a Court or other important appearance, I have a good timepiece. Otherwise, it doesn't matter. I 'did' have one of those Casio watches that had a calculator (it melted in Panama due to the bug dope), and once had a watch with an altimeter, barometer, and lots of other useless stuff on it, and discovered that mission-specific is the way to go. If I need a compass, I'll carry one, and not on my wrist.
KoA
Research on fossils may offer clues on when tsunami will hit
This is awesome! I'm can't wait to use a bunch of these to build my paper clock.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
The same technology is set to be available as a display from Philips electronics
There was an unknown error in the submission.
while my high hopes for a US model of the Sony Librie are pretty much dashed, you can pick up a Japanese Librie for $419 from www.japan-direct.com
While it does not officially support English, there are workaround now for English.
Of course, $400 buys a lot of paperbacks.
...I want to know when all-purpose E ink displays will be available? The market is screaming out for these! It blows my mind that we have access to this incredible all-electronic distribution system (internet, duh), but people still insist on printing documents out onto paper to read them! Sure LCD screens are better to read from than CRT displays, but have you every tried reading a whole book on one? An inexpensive, high-contrast, low-power electronic book could do away with thousands of tonnes of printed paper every day. I don't even care if the display is bendable or not, I just needs to meet the above criteria. I say to the engineers involved: hurry up already!
..but it is stuck on stopwatch.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power. -- Mussolini
"[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] is a galactic bestseller everywhere except on that backward planet Earth, where they still think digital watches are 'A pretty neat idea'.""
E pluribus unum
Hmm, this (or similar functionality) could be used by cards (credit/debit/payment/etc.) that stored a set of secret codes on the card and used them to derive authorization information that was displayed in time-sychronised fashion (like the RSA SecurID hardware token)
For even lower power consumption, the clock could be dispensed with, and the card could just display authorization derived using the last unused key. Such a card could probably use solar cells for power as some calculators do today.
It could also display the transaction information required (key, cardholder details, etc) as a barcode that could be scanned for payment.
I want a license plate made out of that stuff.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
yep. I read gutenburg texts on my 7610 GayFone.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
In fact, forget the wallpaper.
Finally, a book that actually changes when you finish reading it. The tactile sensation of a book and the no-waste function of an e-book...
How about a clock based on LED's that GLOWS in the DARK so you can see it at night? I seem to remember this technology in America, but apparently it has not made it across the pond. I have been looking since I moved here three months ago and have found nothing but battery-operated LCD and simple mechanical-arm clocks. Japan has this unnatural fixation with saving electricity, but this one particular issue drives me the battiest. Yes, an LCD clock uses less eletricity than an LED clock, though it is not obvious whether the use of batteries, which are very environmentally unfriendly, offsets the energy savings. Either way, in my case, they lose. I have set up a electric night-light to shine directly on my battery-powered mechanical clock so I can see what time it is when I wake up at three AM. I am sure this wastes a hundred times the electricity they have tried to force me to save. And don't get me started on the elevators in my building, which in their quixotic quest to save electricity, waste workers' time that I have calculated is roughly one hundred times as valuable, at minimum.
...utilised in tatoos. Think about it. A tattoo that tells time, a tattoo that changes expression according to your mood, hell, even a tattoo that can become a computer interface.
Heh... that's not a troll, silly moderators. It's sarcasm.
Smoking cigarettes.
Draining vodka glass juxtaposed with dress coming off attractive female.
Mating dogs.
Pigs turning into BBQ.
Hell, even PETA will be able to afford a stop action billboard of chickens being scalded alive.
I can't wait.
I was either thinking of e-paper only, and/or still living in 2001.
r _Datasheet_May04.pdf); and a 12-bit color display (July 2002: http://www.eink.com/news/releases/pr62.html). However, the press release states the 12-bit displays were "...targeted for commercialization in 2004." Anyone know what became of it?
We see a 2-bit grayscale display (May 2004: http://eink.com/pdf/Philips_E_Ink_Electronic_Pape
If it ain't broke, it needs more features!
Following the link in the story leads me to a page that tries to install an ActiveX control on my computer, apparently required for "Website Access".
The page won't even display for me in IE unless I agree to install the spyware / adware on my PC.
Gee, thanks, Slashdot, do your best to support these fucking inbreds. *Fires up FireFox to read the site anyway.*
PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
Does the clock now consist only of the display?
It says it uses low energy not no energy... so is the bigger news paper thin batteries?
And does it actually keep time?
If the material has such good inherent "memory" then after a day of running is the time just 88:88:88 88?
Is this why the haven't commited to a production date?
-- by the way, how am i supposed to read words with lines scribbled through them... don't we use software to decipher that kinda stuff?
If you hook up this display technology with a decent amount of flash storage you could have a PDA with essentially no moving parts and no active display. That should give you super-extended battery life. How long would one AAA battery last ? Is this the future of laptops ?
Large areas of black will presumably use up more battery power. In that case, emulating an analog clock would probably be the most efficient use of energy. It would have a more elegant look, too.
This is a company already recognized for making watches that have indefinite battery life- their "eco-drive" watches uses any kind of light for power.
When you're down to 1/100 of normal display power, you can (almost) dispense with the battery.
At a time when everyone else is trying to make better batteries, this looks like a much more promising way ahead. I'm looking forward to laptops like this!
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Watch Salesman: Would monsieur care for a new Watch?
Mr Creosote: Fuck off
Watch Salesman: But it's paper thin...
Was also my first thought - How about a wall with a living pattern? One that gradually changed and twisted randomly? Sweet.
"A newly discovered fragment of the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament indicates that, as far as the Antichrist goes, theologians, scholars, heavy metal groups, and television evangelists have got the wrong number. Instead of 666, it's actually the far less ominous 616."
Choking hazard. Keep away from geeks that have been fraging all night long. These "people" may mistake it for food.
Technabyte - Read my tech news blog.
Here's the pattern to make a clock from a printed sheet of paper that displays the time for free.
Sundial
You could also make an origami sundial, but I can't find a pattern online.
A watch is so incredibly limiting. Think of all that could be done with paper-thin displays!
* You can put health monitors under your skin. Diabetics, people with heart trouble, and so forth.
* You can put displays on credit cards. All you need is inductive power from a reader, and to stick the display and a couple of simple contact buttons on a credit card, and you have a smartcard that's immune to attacks with fake readers, since you have a trusted display and keypad. Huge security advance for consumers (and can be used online, too, without worries about the latest worm compromising consumer computers and swiping card numbers).
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Plastic Logic has been working on this technology with eInk. Here are some technical papers.
What if there were no hypothetical questions?
commercialized in Japan in 2005
Or, to those that know 2005 well, 'this year'.
clicky
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
They describe a clock, not a "watch". The device is thin, light, flexible, but not wearable. We might see a watch when the product is actually announced, but they have only "preannounced" a clock.
--
make install -not war
You probably wouldn't want this under your skin, because it doesn't glow like an LED. It just reflects light, like a piece of paper with writing. Yeah, there's a thin transparent layer of skin, but you're still going to lose light coming in and going out so it won't look very good. I think that a flexible OLED would make a better choice for implants.
It would make a nifty watch, though.
Watches? You folk wear watches? Those wrist-time-pieces?
If I was a 19th century businessman, I would see the point.
For those of you who want to live in linear time there are a thousand ways to know when you should be doing something for somebody else - your computer, cell phone, PDA, wall clock, car, oven, radio...
How much was a good clock worth in 1700? £10,000.
How much is a similar clock worth now? Approximately zero.
they surely can't be far behind with a 1-meter wide high resolution flat screen monitor
...
No more lugging around bulky "compact" LCD projectors to do presentations, just unroll a several-meter-wide screen and hang it on a wall.
I've always understood these e-Ink technologies to be just black and white, and I don't know how fast they're supposed to be able to switch each "pixel". I think what you're looking for is the flexible OLED (http://www.universaldisplay.com/tech.htm), which I agree, will be pretty awesome... those actually have been produced as prototypes in large, high-resolution screens.
It was funny too.
I think, therefore I doh.
I'd love to have a dual-probe temperature monitor that uses one of these displays; it'd be perfect for my hacked Mac Cube that I'm equipping with a 1.5Ghz G4 and Radeon 9800!
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Several years ago I started trying to convince friends that it'd be really cool to have something (vaguely) like Post-It notes, except with clock/timers on them and some degree of programmability. Lending a book to somebody? Slap a note in there with a two-week timer. Sure your friend can just pull it out, but if they're really a friend it serves as a nice reminder. Got a lot of plants? Put sticky notes on them indicating when the next watering is due. That JiffyLube sticker on your car window would then be able to make a little "beep" "beep" (or "blink blink") when it's time for your next oil change. Your credit card can turn red when it's soon to expire. Parking meters can print you a receipt that indicates when you're fare expires.
The link you gave shows the e-ink being used for POP (point of purchase) advertising displays, not for the game box itself.
This space available.
In addition to the fact that no backlighting is required, the display also has an inherently stable memory effect which requires no power to maintain an image - both of which drastically increase the battery life. The result is 1/100 the power consumption of traditional display options.
Huh? My watch has all these features, and the technology is very very old. The hour and minute of the day are stored in stable memory using these things called an "hour hand" and a "minute hand", requiring no power to maintain an image. The image itself is razor thin, and there is this substance called "phosphors" contained on the "hands" which allows me to see the display even in the dark. I think the "phosphors" are kept charged using "radium", so even in the dark there is no need for backlighting, the display is nuclear powered.
How do I show this off? The point of a paper-thin clock is that people can *see* that it's paper thin. With the coloring and layering they chose, if I paste this on a wall, it'll just look like I sunk an LCD clock into the wall. Not very impressive.
Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
This is 2005 ?????
I've heard about this E-Ink more than 10 years ago, I think. There was a story in Popular Science magazine, about a company that has managed to make a prototype of a book that is basically like a regular book, and needs no electric maintanance, while reading, but only for changing books, it needs to have power applied, and a diskette for reading a book from it(It was before CDs and burners were widespread), and I'm waiting for it since then. Maybe if those watches become successful, we will be able to get the books too. I'm even ready to pay for buying the texts of the books.
just swap the pot for something stronger, and you don't even need the wallpaper.
Can't wait till this tech finds its way down to wristwatch size.
I've been looking for a very thin, rugged wristwatch that I could wear playing volleyball. It'd have to be impact resistant (obviously) but thin to stay out of the way. Maybe this is the start.
Wearing a watch on my ankle or dangling from my shorts just isn't cutting it.
Get off my lawn.
How about Technocrat?
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
What about something like this that could be implanted under the skin to create 'fake tatoo' that could be used to read blood sugar?
Something along the lines of the 'tatoo' Darrien had in the Sci-Fi series 'The Invisible Man.' A snake eating its own tail, the segments of which gradually turned from green to red as more toxins built up in his system from turning invisible.
I think it'd be kickass to have a snack on my wrist that changed colours the lower/higher my bloodsugar went.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Since Tattoos on chick have lately been referred to as
"Barcodes for sluts" why not implant this thing on her back also giving the price and how many drinks I have to buy her
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
I can't wait for Christmas
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Someone around here knows no physics.