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E Ink Creates Full-Color Electronic Paper Display (mashable.com)
SkinnyGuy writes: The reflective display company finally figured out how to make those ultra tiny balls produce 32,000 colors in one super-low-powered display. It's a breakthrough for E Ink, display advertising and, maybe someday, e-readers and digital photo frames. The new prototype display, which can be manufactured in an array of sizes, features a 20-inch, 2500 x 1600 resolution and is equally as power-efficient as the monochromatic display. E Ink Holding's Head of Global marketing Giovanni Mancini said it can be powered with solar cells used in bus stop signage, for example. Some of the limitations center around the resolution and refresh rate. As of right now, the resolution is only 150 pixels per inch (ppi), which is about half the resolution of a typical 6-inch, monochromatic E ink display. It also takes about two seconds to fully resolve images, which is pretty slow when compared to today's e-readers. The company is currently only focused on using the new color display for commercial signage.
I may be a little addled in my ability to remember, but I have this deeply nagging feeling at the back of my mind that they had a full color e-ink prototype waaaaaaaaaaaay back in the late 90s that used a super hydrophobic cell layer with electrically conductive partition walls.
IIRC, the paper was made from 4 transparent layers over a white back layer. Each layer held a CMYK pigment component in the form of an aqueus solution, held into a tight microdot form by superhydrophobic coatings inside each cell. When the cell is energized, hydroelectrodynamic forces cause the droplet to spread out and cover the cell, with the applied voltage to the cell determining how fully the droplet flattens and covers the cell.
That was waaaaaaaaaaay back though. I will dig to see if I can find the old press releases.
I'm dying to get ahold of an e-ink display that is roughly iPad-sized that I can program with an Arduino. Why? Oh I dunno but I feel like I could come up with tons of ideas really fast.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
e-ink found its way into a $30 cell phone in 2006 (motofone f3), and the screen on the first pebble watch is estimated at $1.69.
The tech is cheap. It is just that no one bothered making one for Arduinos at a reasonable price.
20" high resolution color zero-power-while-not-refreshing photo frame? Shut up and take my money!
This is precisely what a digital photo frame should be. Program it to change the photo once a week from the internal SD card and a single battery charge could last half a year, if the designers are smart enough to implement it with a microcontroller instead of an Android-running behemoth. And it should have the longevity, too. I still use my eInk bookreader I bought in 2007 daily, and it works great, after far more frequent page turns than a photo frame is likely to need.
I would advocate for non-removable internal storage accessed via USB in order to avoid paying the Microsoft tax on FAT32, but it would be a shame not to make the storage upgradeable given that Samsung seems to be determined to make it possible to lose a terabyte in the couch cushions.
But anyway, details. Shut up and take my money!
e-ink displays are not for skimming - they're for reading. They're a specialized market. I'd rather read on my iPad than my Kindle, generally, but the Kindle has amazing battery life and can be read in full sun. There really is no substitute for it, other than having servants who will bring you printed books on command. It's always been marketed to people who read lots of books, for that reason. E.g., my wife, who reads 2-3 books a week.
Pebble watch uses a Sharp Memory LCD, which is a regular trans reflective LCD with storage so it only updates the pixels that change between frames. This gets rid of the constant full-screen refresh you get from a standard LCD, which means that if you're not watching video, it uses a whole helluva lot less power. But it has the same fast response as LCD, which makes it more capable as an interactive device than eink.
It's still miles more power consumption than e-ink when nothing is happening (it requires standby power AND switching power, whereas e-ink just requires switching power), but it manages to find a happy midddle in battery power between normal backlit LCD (1-2 days battery life) and e-ink.
But that's why it costs nothing. It's LCD with memory.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.