Plastic Logic Shows Off a Color ePaper Screen

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Plastic Logic Shows Off a Color ePaper Screen

Posted by Soulskill on Monday May 14, 2012 @09:51AM from the technology-that-should-totally-be-here-by-now dept.

Nate the greatest writes "I'm sure you've heard about the color E-ink screen which was rumored to be used on the next Kindle. As of today, E-ink no longer has that market niche to themselves. Plastic Logic held a press conference in Russia this morning where they unveiled a new color screen that uses their plastic-based screen tech. The resolution is low (75ppi), but if the video is any sign, then this might be a better screen than the 9.7" Triton color E-ink screen used on the Jetbook Color. And that's not all Plastic Logic showed off this morning; they also developed a frontlight for their screen, and they can play video at 12 frames per second. But best of all, they cut one of their screens in half just to show that it could still work."

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Parenting by Dan+East · 2012-05-14 09:58 · Score: 5, Funny

Ahhh, this will make parenting a little easier.
Kid 1: "It's my turn!!"
Kid 2: "I need to check my FB!"
Kid 1: "You used the tablet all day yesterday!"
Kid 2: "DID NOT!"
Me: "Here, give me that blasted thing."
Whips out tin snips.
"Half for you, and half for you."

--
Better known as 318230.
Another vaporware "article" - lovely. by EvilStein · 2012-05-14 10:16 · Score: 5, Informative

A pretty weak "article" that has 3 links to some blog and one to laptop mag, and the still vaporware product is from a company the blogger pretty much wrote off 2 years ago.
*This* is what makes it to the front page now? Wow..
1. Re:Another vaporware "article" - lovely. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-14 11:42 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  If you want only articles about existing products - go visit a catalogue or review site.
  If you want to learn about interesting technology and things people are experimenting with, then stay here, but don't whine about everything not yet at production stage being "vaporware"
2. Re:Another vaporware "article" - lovely. by EvilStein · 2012-05-14 14:49 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  Excuse me, but who was whining? I certainly wasn't.
  If I want to learn about interesting technology, I'll go to reddit or hacker news. It certainly isn't here anymore, sorry. The glory days of Slashdot are long gone and this place is looking like Digg more and more every day.
  But thanks for your completely irrelevant comment anyway.
3. Re:Another vaporware "article" - lovely. by Intrepid+imaginaut · 2012-05-14 20:49 · Score: 2
  
  Never has a sig been so apt.
Re:plasticLogic == vaporware by CannonballHead · 2012-05-14 10:16 · Score: 3, Informative

I don't see any mention of bankruptcy?
They shut down their plans for Que but other than that...
75ppi or 175? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-14 10:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

The Russian PR guy says 175ppi in at least one of the videos.
75 ppi... by Moryath · 2012-05-14 10:22 · Score: 1

If you can produce something at 75 ppi that's intended to be held at standard reading distance, then you're just fine - you're relatively close to computer monitor spacing anyways and you're really not that far off from the standard printing dimensions of a paperback book.
If you're expecting someone to hold it up to their eyeballs for cheap laser surgery (or hell, a pattern of eyeball abuse that'll cause them to need laser surgery eventually), then maybe you want more pixels. Not that it'll really help you, you'd do better with a pair of reading glasses anyways.
1. Re:75 ppi... by mark-t · 2012-05-14 10:55 · Score: 1
  
  1/75 of an inch held at 12 inches from the face takes up 3.1 arc minutes of viewing area. The human eye's resolution is about 16 arcseconds - over an order of magnitude better. Most people with good vision would almost certainly notice a level of blockiness and poor quality.
  Apple's retina display is the first one I've seen that I don't notice individual pixels on unless I'm paying attention for them.
  
  --
  File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
2. Re:75 ppi... by Moryath · 2012-05-14 10:57 · Score: 2
  
  Ever held a paperback book that close to your face to read it? Notice the type looking a little bit "blocky"? Notice how you can see the flaws in the printing process?
  No different. 75 ppi is just fine for an e-reader. And no respectable optometrist EVER recommends holding the book at that distance. Hold it at standard reading distance instead (say, 24 inches or higher) and run that calculation.
3. Re:75 ppi... by Moryath · 2012-05-14 11:31 · Score: 1
  
  If you're trying to render an entire "page" of text all in one go, sure.
  If you're willing to scroll paragraph by paragraph and see a quantity of readable text at a time, not so much.
  I swear, you kids are spoiled.
4. Re:75 ppi... by MBCook · 2012-05-14 11:57 · Score: 2
  
  According to Wikipedia, the current eInk Kindles are all about 68 ppi. So this screen would be as good (if not better) than the current Kindles in that department.
  Unfortunately, this screen looks like it lacks color saturation, which seems to be a common trait among all color eInk displays. It's a big improvement over previous displays, but I still wouldn't put it in a product yet. People would immediately put it next to LCD displays, and compared to the display on a $60 "might as well sell it at the drugstore" tablet, it would look bad.
  
  --
  Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
5. Re:75 ppi... by mark-t · 2012-05-14 12:24 · Score: 1
  
  When you read pages "all in one go", as it were, being able to see the entire page at once is extremely important. For people who read more quickly, the additional effort of panning and scrolling is going to create a significant interruption in the reading process, and absorbing the text, as a person must redirect their attention to manipulating a UI, instead of just reading, which requires nothing more than normal eye cadences, and occasional page flips.
  FWIW, pagination interrupts the flow of reading too, but since the human field of vision is finite anyways, there's ultimately only so much data you can fit into a person's field of view at one time anyways. At least entire pages generally consist of multiple paragraphs, each several sentences long, and one would not have to be constantly scrolling after almost every sentence read.
  
  --
  File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
6. Re:75 ppi... by mark-t · 2012-05-14 13:03 · Score: 1
  
  It's not the first time I've accidentally hit submit when I meant to hit preview. My apologies for the bad netiquette, but slashdot does not see fit to provide us with an "edit" button, if the submitter only realizes that he has mistyped something after its been posted.
  
  --
  File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
7. Re:75 ppi... by dgatwood · 2012-05-14 13:28 · Score: 1
  
  And no respectable optometrist EVER recommends holding the book at that distance. Hold it at standard reading distance instead (say, 24 inches or higher) and run that calculation.
  I measured 24 inches from my eyes, and in order to do so, I had to old the measuring tape up with my fingertips, with my arms fully extended. No optometrist in his right mind would recommend such a large reading distance. Maybe for TV viewing, but not reading.
  Typical reading distance is 14-16 inches. So although 12 inches might be slightly close, your suggested reading distance is so far beyond normal that only an orangutan can achieve it.
  
  --
  Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
8. Re:75 ppi... by dgatwood · 2012-05-14 13:30 · Score: 1
  
  Err... had to hold the measuring tape....
  And this, folks, is why over-reliance on automatic spell checking is harmful. *sigh*
  
  --
  Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
9. Re:75 ppi... by alphamax · 2012-05-14 15:37 · Score: 2
  
  According to Wikipedia, the current eInk Kindles are all about 68 ppi. So this screen would be as good (if not better) than the current Kindles in that department.
  Unfortunately, this screen looks like it lacks color saturation, which seems to be a common trait among all color eInk displays. It's a big improvement over previous displays, but I still wouldn't put it in a product yet. People would immediately put it next to LCD displays, and compared to the display on a $60 "might as well sell it at the drugstore" tablet, it would look bad.
  If you follow your own link, you will see that according to Wikipedia, current eInk Kindles are about 67 ppcm, which is around 169 ppi. So this screen isn't half as good as the current Kindles in that department.
10. Re:75 ppi... by Intrepid+imaginaut · 2012-05-14 20:52 · Score: 1
  
  If they can get the contrast closer to actual paper on b&w I'll be happy.
11. Re:75 ppi... by Auroch · 2012-05-15 00:08 · Score: 1
  
  Err... had to hold the measuring tape....
  And this, folks, is why over-reliance on automatic spell checking is harmful. *sigh*
  Hey, stop picking on the OP for a spelling mistake - he made a perfectly cromulent point. Besides, if you keep going all grammar/spelling nazi on him, you'll him some sort disassociative disorder and he'll never be a productive member of society.
  
  --
  Quartz Extreme and Core Image. Are there any other real reasons to spend all that money on generic hardware?
12. Re:75 ppi... by jones_supa · 2012-05-15 00:51 · Score: 1
  
  75 ppi is just fine for an e-reader.
  No it isn't. :) It's in the same ballpark than a 15" 1024x768, pixel size being around 0.3 mm. You would have to double the pixel density for it to be good for an e-reader.
13. Re:75 ppi... by squiggleslash · 2012-05-15 01:21 · Score: 1
  
  75dpi was the resolution of most 1980s dot matrix printers.
  It was awful. The only way you could get relatively decent quality print out of them was to use an over-printing capability that appeared mid way through that decade that effectively trebled the resolution vertically, and a "condensed" mode that increased it by about 80% horizontally. That would give you something that meant that Times Roman at 15pt or better was just about decent, and at 12pt was just about readable. Anything smaller, and it wasn't.
  And, FWIW, most computer monitors are 96dpi or better, AND have extremely fine grained intensity on each pixel - even a "bad" screen has at least 64 levels of light, making credible anti-aliasing possible.
  I'm sorry, but 75ppi/dpi/whatever is NOT good enough for an eReader. It's not high enough quality for a decent font at a decent size. Reading a book requires a good, well designed, serif font.
  
  --
  You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
14. Re:75 ppi... by mark-t · 2012-05-15 16:19 · Score: 1
  
  order of magnitude = power of ten.
  3.1 arc-minutes = 186 arc-seconds.
  186 arc-seconds/16 arc-seconds = 11.625, which is more than ten.
  Hence more than an order of magnitude better.
  
  --
  File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Re:These are issues, folks... by camperdave · 2012-05-14 10:58 · Score: 2

The question is moot. With WIFI access, one is never done reading.

--
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Re:plasticLogic == vaporware by xtracto · 2012-05-14 12:31 · Score: 1

You are partially wrong, it was iRex the ones who filed for bankrupcy . Nevertheless, I agree on the Plastic Logic vaporware thing. I even remember they took pre-orders. At that time i was deciding which eReader to get.

--
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Re:plasticLogic == vaporware by masmullin · 2012-05-14 14:31 · Score: 2

The Que looked fucking awesome. I was rather distraught when they canceled it (and bought a kindle dx graphite).
Re:Fragility by wjsteele · 2012-05-14 15:09 · Score: 1

Perhaps you missed the linked videos... but they actually show how flexible the display is as well as how tolerable it is to cutting it in half!

Bill

--
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
How big will they get? by hack++slash · 2012-05-14 18:36 · Score: 3, Interesting

I'd love some colour e-ink displays that are 3ft by 4ft, perfect for posters on your walls that only use power when you want to change the picture - and they'd literally be just the display, the device that 'uploads' the new picture would contain most of (all?) the necessary driver circuitry.

--
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
1. Re:How big will they get? by jones_supa · 2012-05-15 00:54 · Score: 1
  
  Cool idea!
Cut it out! by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · 2012-05-14 23:05 · Score: 1

Stop fucking with my brain!!!

--
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Re:Too expensive for its size by Auroch · 2012-05-15 00:02 · Score: 1

$800 for a 640 x 480 12 bit display the same size as an A4 sheet of paper ?
How much did you pay for your smartphone? Here. I'll trade you this brick for it. Not only is the brick heavier (and more like you), but it's more dense (much like you).

--
Quartz Extreme and Core Image. Are there any other real reasons to spend all that money on generic hardware?
Re:Fragility by Auroch · 2012-05-15 00:10 · Score: 1

Perhaps you missed the linked videos... but they actually show how flexible the display is as well as how tolerable it is to cutting it in half! Bill
Yeah, but flexibility is different than resistance to cracks, impact and shearing. Two different types of force.

I never thought I'd say this, but I think we need more engineers on slashdot.

--
Quartz Extreme and Core Image. Are there any other real reasons to spend all that money on generic hardware?
Arcade cabinets by Yvan256 · 2012-05-15 02:56 · Score: 1

If they can make them larger, with more color saturation and cut-it-and-it-still-works-fine properties, they'll be the perfect thing to make dynamic marquees for arcade cabinets.
Re:plasticLogic == vaporware by Lawrence_Bird · 2012-05-15 03:33 · Score: 1

not sure about the ch11 stuff but you are definitely right, they are vaporware with no products really ever reaching consumer hands.