Slashdot Mirror
Flexible Electronic Paper
shri writes "E Ink has just announced a breakthrough in flexible electronic paper displays. The new display which has a 100DPI resolution and is only 300 microns thick has the potential of truely changing the way we read our information."
Make it pressure sensitive for interfacing (writing with a stylus and touch screen), and you got a deal mister!
meh
(Is it still vaporware?)
I know this isn't the traditional sense of vaporware - i.e. there are actual hardware prototypes of all these different e-ink/e-paper/e-tc. - but I cant help but wonder when an actual product with these things will break through.
I mean, after all, we keep seeing prototypes of Duke Nukem Forever but that doesn't mean there's an actual product coming. Similarly, all these companies are so proud of their prototypes but none (except for Sony's illfated attempt) have actually come out with a real product.
I'm just bitter: I want my digital newspaper that I can roll up and shove in my bag.
"Stumble before you crawl"
Seems like a new company is announcing a new similar technology every month. Why can't I buy one yet?!!
Let's start mass-producing these babies!
I want a rollable display with the ability to display HTML, Text, PDF and many other types of documents formats. Just have it roll into a tube that contains batteries and I will be able to carry it with me and have hundreds if not thousands of books to read. DRRROOOOOOOOLLLLLL!!!!! ;)
The new display which has a 100DPI resolution and is only 300 microns thick has the potential of truely changing the way we read our information."
Didn't they do this 4 years ago? Why hasn't it become mainstream yet?
I keep waiting to actually see something that uses this tech and is not a prototype...
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
" 100dpi = FAX resolution (low-quality)
144dpi = dot matrix
This technology will have to get a little better if it ever goes widespread."
Well, that depends on the intended use of the technology. If it is meant to be used to create presentation-quality displays, then sure. But for any other text-based documents, then 100dpi is no problem.
And by dot-matrix, I assume you mean inkjet/laserjet etc, not dot-matrix impact printers, which have dpis far, far lower.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
"And by dot-matrix, I assume you mean inkjet/laserjet etc, not dot-matrix impact printers, which have dpis far, far lower."
Busted. 144dpi was the quoted best resolution a 9-pin impact printer could generate by interpolating pixels. Actual resolution was 72dpi at best. But hey, this is slashdot, I gotta give something for you to nitpick.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
http://www.eink.com/news/releases/pr86.html wow. Yeah, I expect eventually you could paper your wall with this stuff and have a room that you can change as easily as your desktop background.. or a room that was your own home cinema :D
which is totally what she said
E Ink have been around for a long time - since at least 1998. The underlying technology is older. They've promised this for most of that time. In the last couple of years they've gone from being prototypes to having some real stuff-you-can-touch-and-buy technology built upon their products (which is more than you can say about most of the competition). The Sony E Ink Libre.
So take it with a pinch of salt when there's an announcement at a trade show; there have been regular updates from Philips promising great things. I suspect a lot of it is for the benefit of the competition.
Just to be clear: I'm not dissing them: The flex display is excellent.
But the real story is that they have built a colour display. This is quite hard to do because the technology depends on small electrically charged particles, white and black. To make colours out of this you either need coloured particles and accurate addressing as well as knowing the colours of each capsule which holds the particles. Hard. Or you need multiple layers and coloured filters, and some careful spacing so that the fields from one layer don't interfere with the next. Or a filter with lots of colours and very, very accurate addressing. Or maybe calibratable addressing.
I certainly didn't ever think that they'd be able to pull colour out of the system. This is quite an achievement.
Eink can be found here. The press release about the colour display is here and the release about the paper, upon which the original post is based is here.
Would that not be single sided, then?
Ethernet offers phantom power. For a low power application like a picture frame, this ought to be sufficient.
I for one can't wait for the day when every newspaper and magazine is fully loaded with animated, brightly coloured, flashing advertisements. No doubt they'll soon figure out how to incorporate sound as well.
Still, at least porn mags could be enhanced considerably with this.
Cress, cress, lovely lovely cress
Just imagine when this is a higher resolution and you can hang the sheet on your wall as a tv. so many possibilities.
Higher resolution?
A 15in display at 1280x1024 has a resolution of roughly 75DPI. A 32in 1920x1080 HDTV has a resolution of roughly 50DPI.
Or, turning that around, a 100DPI 1920x1080 TV screen would have a diagonal of only 16 inches. Okay for a kitchen or bedroom, but crap for a real enterntainment center TV.
Some recycling is done poorly. But most is done efficiently, profitably. I spent a lot of time working in a metal recycling company, earning massive profits from recycling electronics mostly for its tiny percentage composition of gold. So let's see some backup of your assertion that recycling is an energy or money losing proposition.
Even if it were, that would rely on ignoring the unaccounted costs of the accumulation of the waste. The costs of cleanup are lower than humanity leaving the planet, but higher than leaving our home liveable.
Recycled materials that actually do have lower quality than the original merely compete with cheaper materials made from scratch, saving their consumption. Most of our products are low quality, so displacing their consumption of new materials makes a lot of sense. It also increases the supply of cheap materials even more, making them even cheaper. Which means more people can use them.
It's not your right to destroy the planet that others must share, regardless of how you feel. But your attitude is extremely popular, either consciously, or just implicitly as our industry enables people to trash the planet without the costs being paid, except by those receiving the trash against our wills, or without our knowledge. Which is why I specified the economics as I did. Precisely to account for selfish, wasteful people like you. You have a financial incentive that represents the costs you generate. If you discard these products wastefully, their recycling value is high enough that others will recycle them for you. The product itself makes all that much more convenient and economical. So the cost you're paying is not so high it that will interfere with the consumer appeal, but still enough to justify its collection by others purely for profit. If you're going to exercise your privilege of trashing the planet, we shouldn't have to subsidize that by picking up your tab for the cleanup later. You should pay us to clean up after you. Be glad that my system makes it more likely that if you do get off this rock, you'll be allowed back, and it will be worth returning to.
--
make install -not war
Potentially 4 times the size folded up neatly and in my pocket so my old 'boomer' eyes can see the type. Think a foldable e-book that I can load with a couple of novels, carry in my pocket, and read on the train.
Add a tiny bit more cpu, an audio out jack, and an MP3 player. Now you have an e-book with MP3 player for the commuter.
Or take a PocketPc/Palm/PDA and add a mono video out jack for one of these and you have a decent e-book screen for a PDA.
Or use the PDA size device, add this screen, add Linux, add a wired and wireless ethernet device, add snort/tcpdump/... and you have a large screen (unfolded) network diag device with PDA keyboard (add USB jack for USB keyboard possibly available at destination).
Bottom line, I prefer a backlit color LCD too. I also prefer long battery life (days not hours), and larger type for my older eyes. Life is full of trade offs. I'll give up the color screen for more battery life and larger print in a commuter device or network diag device.
It is not a laptop and will not replace a laptop in today's world until at least 8-16 bit color is available. Stop thinking laptop and start thinking large screen low weight appliance with longer battery life.
(Note: think a mono laptop (OK 2 bit greyscale) that had old mono PDA battery life (days/weeks), weighed less than 8 ounces, was PDA size with 'fold out' keyboard and wireless would probably have some market share as an e-book/light net surfing (text)/commuter appliance.)
Eye strain only happens with active light sources, not pigments. e-Ink is a pigment-based tech, just like reading a book. When color e-paper arrives, advertisement agencies will flock to it so that they don't need to convert between cmykrgb when printing. E-ink has no 'frequency' except for the update speed. after the information is registered, it stays there even if the power is cut. no 60Hz induced headache in this tech. which is good.
The libre ebook reader uses this and is shipping in Japan.
E Ink's PR on it
Review of unit
7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
OK, dude, just because you watched some episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit doesn't make you an expert on this stuff. There are people, like me, who have a legitimate problem with recycling SOME materials becuase it's more wasteful to do it. Your little "I want to destroy the world" argument is really childish and just damages the reputation of those trying to make a legitimate point against misinformation.
Economically speaking, it is viable to recycle metals and things containing harvestable metal. Aluminum cans, computer equipment, old wiring, and scrap metal can all be resused for products that are equal in quality and at a lower cost. I recycle all my cans and old computer equipment because of this.
Paper is a friggin waste to recycle. It's biodegradable for one. The tree's used to make it in America all come from tree farms. These trees are grown specifically for this purpose, so no one is running into virgin forests cutting down all the trees for paper. There does exist opposing research for both sides on the topic of set asides and the increased cost to consumers for packaging. I think the cost difference is negligible and definitely worth the process of forest conservation. On the topic of pollution, no one really talks about it. It's kinda like a dirty secret. To recycle paper you need to put it through basically the same process as making it - which is horrible for the environment. So, instead of making an inferior product that causes the same amount of environmental damage to produce and doesn't save the forests - I have to say no. Tree farms save the US forests in conjunction with set asides.
Plastic. This ones a toughie. Not the most biodegradable stuff on the planet and it uses up oil to make it. There is also the issue of what can and cannot be recycled. Number 1 and 2 can. Numbers 3 through 7 cannot because of the PVC content. So what to do? Alot of centers ship it to China. That doesn't really sound like recycling, that's more like putting the problem somewhere else. Economically, the cost of recycled plastic is on par with that of plastic made with virgin petroleum, so there is no real incentive to use recycled. Notice on your plastic bottle labels that they say "contains recycled plastic" not made from recycled plastic. If they throw one small batch of recycled plastic into the mix, that statement is true. The corporations ARE NOT recycling shit, thats all marketing baby. And almost everyone buys it. The best thing to do here, don't buy stuff in plastic, or at least cut down on what it is you buy. Look for things contained in glass. Buy your soda in cans. Quit buying water in bottles, which is another scam altogether, and purchase a water purifier. Wash plastic to-go boxes and use them like tupperware.
Glass. Not economically the best, but it is easier on the consuption of resources. The process to sort glass into a usable, high quality material is expensive - so it's not necessarily saving anyone any money to do so. The technology used is getting better though, and I firmly believe that it will one day result in a profitable manner in which to make recycled glass the prefered resource. On a consuption of resources perspective, it requires much less energy to process recycled glass than it does to create it from raw materials. I haven't been able to find any numbers that allow me to detirmine if the costs to sort are offset by the costs to reshape, so the jury is still out on that one. On this matter I err on the side of caution. I recycle my glass.
SO yeah kid, recycling in all cases may not be the best - but please make up your own mind and do some research, not adopt a stance fed to you by two guys with a good argument that you were too lazy to research and adopted as your own.