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Samsung's New Carbon Nanotube Color E-Paper
Iddo Genuth writes to tell us that Samsung and Unidym have shown the world's first carbon nanotube-based color e-paper. Interestingly, the new film is electrically conductive while remaining almost completely translucent and only 50 nanometers thick. "The company also mentions that the EPD [electrophoretic displays] has important advantages over conventional flat panel displays. EPDs have very low power consumption and bright light readability, which means that even under bright lights or sunlight, the user would be able to view the display clearly. Furthermore, since the device uses the thin CNT films, applications can include e-paper and displays with thin, flexible substrates. Power consumption is lowered due to the EPD's ability to reflect light and therefore able to preserve text or images on the display without frequently refreshing."
It conspicuously says nothing about whether you can apply a backlight to it.
But front-light readability is great for us Slashdotters who go outside and work :)
Those of us who think they know everything annoy those of us who do.
Awesome, I can now have a convenient way of looking at 100s of galleries of porn when I'm in the bathroom!
. . . does this get us any closer to a space elevator?
-CR
"So is the BSD licence even more 'free' (than GPLv2)? Yes. Unquestionably." --Linus Torvalds (TinyURL.com/2vugzl)
That might also be nice to use for head up displays in cars.. or even to put over my living room window to change the view :)
I just can't be bothered.
Sure color is nice, but I can't afford monochrome right now, and I don't want to know what all those extra colors will cost.
...lit e-reader, and eventually an ambiently lit 'e-painting' that looks just like the real thing but I can change it as often as I want.
What the hell is up with this "http://slashdot.org/index2.pl", It is hanging my whole system for 3 seconds just for some lame heavily scripted web2.0-ness?! I want the old slashdot back! Help me tag it (which now suck though) 'slashdotsucks'!
With Ted Stevens'conviction in the news, the joke deserves a bit of a revival. :)
If something was completely translucent, wouldn't it be either transparent or opaque?
"A waterproof MP3 player built for bright beach days is the first device with a color "e-paper" display, meaning it has no backlighting and thus can be read in direct sunlight. The display, from Qualcomm, consists of two layers of a reflective material. Some wavelengths of light bounce off the first layer; some pass through and bounce off the second. Interference between the two beams creates the color, and electrostatic forces control the distance between the layers."
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/21561/?a=f
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
better e-p0rn magazines...
Some years ago I believed that the pocket computer would be fairly similar to today's smartphone, although I admit the gesture-based, touch-sensitive I/O eluded my imagination. So I think it's time to revisit the computer of the future and determine what exactly should constitute the next generation of the smartphone/pocket computer. To that end I present my ultimate wish-list computer. This, of course, is in addition to the built-in features of current smartphones.
Let's reiterate what we already have built into these devices. There is the phone itself plus various software subsystems. Many have GPS and mapping built in, often with turn-by-turn software for travel routing. And many can work as adding machines, word processors, PowerPoint presenters, and databases. Some can scan bar codes. Most are MP3 players as well as photo albums.
The small form factor that we have today is pretty much what I'd expect will remain. So what are some other possibilities?
Smart screens and keyboards. When I first thought of the pocket computer as an all-purpose machine, I imagined it would fit into a cradle/docking station so that users could hook up a real keyboard and monitor. But there's no reason this cannot be done wirelessly. Imagine walking into your office and plopping down your little computer/phone. It automatically connects to a "smart monitor" and "smart keyboard" and drives both.
Voice command and speech recognition. This, of course, is the holy grail of pocket computing. You won't find yourself complaining about virtual keyboards if speech I/O ever works well.
Clear voice technology. While on the subject of voice, it would be even better if the device could talk back to you in a clear, understandable, and pleasant voice.
Situational awareness. The smartphone should know when to turn itself off by knowing where it is. The idea is that when your phone is in an airplane, for instance, it turns itself off. It goes to vibrate mode automatically in other situations, such as in the theater. There are a lot of different methodologies for making this work.
Ownership awareness. The device simply will not work for anyone other than the owner.
Induction charging. The battery should charge using various induction tricks. An entire desk could be an induction mechanism for example, so when the phone is lying on the desk it is charging.
Broadcast TV reception. I have never been sure why there are so many weird TV technologies for portable devices when the broadcasting grid could be used just as easily. Let the device act as a portable TV receiver.
Built-in projector. There's no reason the perfect phone cannot have a built-in micro-projector.
Point-to-point walkie-talkie. This could come in handy in an emergency if nearby cell towers are down.
Extensible. There is no reason why various mechanisms cannot be put into the device to turn it into any number of laboratory instruments and useful gizmos. It could serve as a pH meter, a blood sugar checker, a blood pressure tester, and a postage meter scale. It could also be the basis for a car tune-up aid and all sorts of other things.
There you have it. And I bid you good luck if you own Apple.
Cloud is pants, and idle is definitely pants, but Epaper? That's not pants. Well, there is the possibility of actual pants being made from it, so it could be pants, literally .. uh, did I just "whoosh" myself? Sigh.
Anyway, highly amusing to see this extremely British slang creeping into the everyday slashdot vernacular.
Let my new 7-digit UID be a lesson to all - write down your passwords.
Cold-hearted orb, that rules the night,
removes the colors from our sight.
Red is gray, and yellow white.
But we decide which is right.
And which is an illusion?
The Moody Blues, Nights in White Satin
Everyone might want to stay away from the paper shredder with these - It will either destroy the blades or make some pretty nasty, toxic dust.
:)
Might do both.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
I'd be more impressed if they made them out of Copper Nanotubes (CuNT).
Every time I read the words "Carbon Nanotubes", I see the words "Infeasible Project". When will nanotubes be affordable and in mass production? We seem to have a dozen new applications for them every year, but no way to put them into production.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
(Ref: Bad Santa, 2003)
So, I must be at least 36 years old or so, to remember this at all.
I'll make some sandwiches.
Finally a display suitable for the ultimate comic book reader. Not that it will replace real comics, just augment them like my kindle does with books.
I tire of seeing these bullshit ****ispants tags. Pants are something you wear, not whatever weird kind of meaning you're trying to attach to the term. Seriously, there are only like 15 million Brits, can we just kill them all and be done with it?
carbon nanotube-based color e-paper.
(With apologies to Bob Novella) we should put billions of dollars into this!
(Go to www.theskepticsguide.org for a super-awesome science podcast, with a bit of geek culture leaking through the floorboards every now and again; Bob is one of the hosts).
I see a future for this in the porn industry ...
How much extra do I have to pay for the additional unnecessary buzzword? I don't recall carbon nanotubes being particularly cheap.
B&W LCDs are so terribly under-appreciated... I still keep my decades old PDAs working specifically because B&W LCD screens are superior, but rather difficult to find (in reasonably large sizes) now.
Hell, I'd love to get a 15" B&W LCD screen for my PC... Infinitely easier to read text on without eye strain, and vastly lower power than any other technology out there. You can always do the dual-desktop thing, and only turn on your second (color) LCD screen when you need to look at something in color like pictures, maps, etc.
One for my laptop wouldn't be a bad idea either... Get rid of the backlight and you'll likely more than double your existing battery run time.
Refreshing an LCD screen has nothing to do with the backlight... Only with CRT & Plasma displays are the two issues linked.
And this conveniently ignores the fact that e-ink screens have TERRIBLE power consumption when the screen contents ARE changed frequently.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Open ink pot has released the first "free" Linux firmware to run on e-readers:
http://openinkpot.org/
ARE there anything they CANT do?
A workable e-reader would have a market here which is initially niche but would then provide the revenue to get to the fully commercialised A4 e-reader - which makes electronic delivery of newspapers and magazines fully practical. The decline in value of internet content is driven by the advertiser-funded model. Paid-for services offering real value would love a locked down e-reader. (and I personally don't mind paying for worthwhile services. By buying a subscription to e.g. Scientific American, I help guarantee its editorial independence and ability to fund articles that would lose certain advertisers.)
Proof of concept of a workable full page e-reader, during a recession when people are looking for disruptive technologies that may offer a good return? This could easily be the most important thing on Slashdot this week.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Maybe you won't do that with your stuff, but your kid or spouse may, for whatever reason, toxifying your house.
Never would think of the unintended consequences of asbestos brake shoe linings, or mercury, either. Mercury was a household toy. I am sure they were not intentionally ground and snorted for it to be a real hazard either.
The guy down the street who recycles salvage or burns plastic off the metal for a living and unintentionally concentrates it may actually do it for/to you and your family; you would be the last to know.
These are apparently a separate class of toxin, one that does not appear in nature, and unlike humping, you mostly have no defenses at all and need to respect it until it is cleared of the hazards.
What the hell does "almost completely translucent" mean? Does "completely translucent" = transparent?
Isn't 'translucent' merely a descriptor for a state somewhere between transparent and opaque?
-Styopa
Think of the paper cuts you might get!
Just don't drink lemonade while reading the paper, and you should be ok.
series of tubes , he just forgot to explain they were "nano" tubes, thats all.
It's only 50 nanometers thick? How does that compare to regular paper? I'm trying to figure out how much more or less likely papercuts would be with this stuff, and 50 nanometers sounds pretty thin.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Where is the "-1, Informative" moderation option?