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Looking For E-Ink Applications Beyond Ebook Readers
An anonymous reader writes "When MIT's Media Lab originally came up with E-Ink back in 1997, we doubt they expected the technology to be this widely popular. Today, we see E-Ink's applications take a step further than just E-book readers. From streaming videos onto your wardrobe to camouflaging tanks, various companies have been experimenting with the technology to discover its next big adoption."
E-Ink was actually invented in the 1970's by Nick Sheridon at Xerox PARC. MIT Media Labs simply tried to recreate it (and later altered how it was originally done).
You can already buy color e-ink books, the prolem is that they aren't very good. They're color, but they're color sort of the same way that the Gameboy Color was, as in you do get colors, but they're somewhat faint and quite limited in the colors that can be displayed.
In the future though, I could totally see the technology being used for boardgames and billboards, almost certainly for bus schedules. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point we ended up with something similar to the Hitchhikers guide.
Considering how massively hyped it was at the time. I am pretty sure that they would be surprised that it is not being used in even more ways than it is currently. I remember the inventors talking about how it was going to change the way everything was displayed. They suggested that magazines would be published in it and the ads would change depending on where you bought/read the magazine (they never quite explained how the information about the contents for the new ad would get into the magazine). This is not the same as changes on an e-reader. They imagined this for disposable magazines they you would throw away when you were done with them.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
What I really want is a large e-ink display with a foot switch, so I can stop dicking around with sheet music and frantic page turns.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
I've seen exactly one use of e-ink in the wild: ebooks.
We were hearing about color versions, video-speed versions, and wrappable versions five years ago. What can I buy? A monochrome Kindle with refresh so slow it make a man want to buy you another refresh.
To be fair, the last two generations of Kindle have decent refresh speeds - and very nice displays overall... for book reading. But your overall point is spot-on.
We need Avery Brooks to make a new commercial - "Where are my color e-ink displays? I was promised color e-ink displays!"
#DeleteChrome
I've seen exactly one use of e-ink in the wild: ebooks.
Actually, a pretty cool use I've seen is a little capacity meter on USB thumb drives:
http://www.lexar.com/products/lexar-echo-mx-backup-drive?category=207
My wife (of all people) has one of these things, I thought it was pretty neat.
There have been a few quasi-smart phones with keypad buttons that had eInk in them - the icon in the key (letter, symbol, whatnot) could change depending on the context... It seemed kind of cool, actually.
If it can't be used to enhance my porn experience then it's totally useless.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Hey, I like the Kindle. It's dirt cheap. The display doesn't give me a headache. And it's small, light, and simple.
Yeah, I'm disappointed that we haven't seen more of the promises delivered on too. But there is no need to run down the Kindle. It delivers on exactly what it promises and does it cheaply and well.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
True. Still waiting for one of those picture-frames to show up in a shop, that has:
Above seems 'simple' enough, but haven't heard of / seen any examples yet...
Most people buy real books over ebooks because real books (paperbacks) are still cheaper (less expensive) at Costco (or other place) than the same ebooks are at B&N or Amazon. Hell, even some books are cheaper at B&N brick store than an ebook from B&N online.
Then you can resell (or trade) those real books in for credit at local used books stores, making the value even greater.
My mom has a Nook, and never has used it for this reason alone.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
A good e-ink calendar would be the killer app for me. It would be wesome if I could programmatically enter events and on the fly switch between Month/Week/Agenda type views. I could do this with an iPad I guess, but I would prefer a dedicated large picture frame type device that I can hang above my desk with low power consumption.
My UID is prime... is yours?
Game boards is actually a very good idea. You could have a complete board made out of e-Ink that changes the game display based on which game you want to display. Couple that with a touch interface and you instantly have an electronic customizable board for playing Risk, Monopoly, Scabble, etc. You could either play games electronically or just use it display the board and have physical playing pieces. Not only that, but when a new game came out you would just have to buy the pieces and download the board layout.
Of course, peer-to-peer tablet games will be the next big gaming environment. Imagine having 4 or 5 friends with tablets connected together in a large game of Risk or Battleship.... OMG, U SNK MY BShip.... (grin)
I also wouldn't use a sandwich to play a video game. Doesn't mean sandwiches don't have a place in my life.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
You are faced with the Dastardly Delay of the Doom. In your pocket, you have a bookmark, a marker, and Everyday Man’s Flame Thrower .
If you decide to bookmark the page and come back later, turn to page 3.
If you decide to cross out all the words with the marker, turn to page 4.
If you decide to use Everyday Man’s Flame Thrower, turn to page 2353.
If you decide to do nothing and carry on, turn to page 1 and try the route left.
By the way, I also recall playing 'The Manhole' on a mac... and with little or no animation, I can imagine playing such games on touch based devices.
Plus paper books last (nearly) forever, you can give them them to kids or, if everything else fails, the nazis/communists/whatev0r can burn them.
Plus paper books take space, have fixed-size small fonts, accumulate dust, won't give me an immediate dictionary look-up, and are a royal-pain-in-the-back when you carry box loads of them when moving to a new house. Oh, 10 paper books also take too much space in my luggage when I take them during my vacations.
[...]
While one's mileage may vary, I haven't yet met a single person that reads a lot that didn't marvel at the possibilities that the e-readers offer.
The tags show low prices when on the shelf, but when brought near the register they increase. You use the same technology on the shelf price labels so if someone comes running back with an increased item to check, they show the high price.