Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Has any progress been made on large format E-ink displays?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 173 posts

Re: Ask HN: Has any progress been made on large format E-ink displays?

#111

Post by Operyl »

luka-birsa wrote: post #110

Large format E-ink displays are currently used primarily in digital signage scenarios (outdoor advertising, passenger information systems,...) - examples are Soofa ( http://www.soofa.co/ ) and Mercury Innovation ( https://www.mercuryinnovation.com.au/digital-bus-stop ). The largest size currently available is 42" and it is used in outdoor and indoor scenarios. Indoor use is for education purposes as a digital whitebo…

What a cool product for meeting rooms! But .. and maybe I'm just not the target audience, there's no way in any universe am I paying 250 bucks for a "do not disturb sign" in my house. That's just way too expensive.

Re: Ask HN: Has any progress been made on large format E-ink displays?

#112

Post by e12e »

baq wrote: post #107
frosted-flakes wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is trivial to convert DRM'd Kindle e-books you own into epub or other formats. Check out Calibre and the Apprentice Alf plugin. https://calibre-ebook.com/ https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/

has something changed? it used to be easy but looks like there's a per-device encryption support in new kindles.

AFAIK drm version 3 still isn't cracked, but there's some epubs without drm, and most with drm is possible to get with older drm for backwards compatability reasons.

I'm not sure what the status of drm circumvention for fair/own use is in the US - I think there was a case that opened up for viewing/backing up dvds, but if not - this is still illegal, which partly defeats the purpose of buying through Amazon.

Re: Ask HN: Has any progress been made on large format E-ink displays?

#113

Post by namibj »

akiselev wrote: post #93
Godel_unicode wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pertinent patents were filed in '96, so it's almost certainly not that?

Last I checked there were over a dozen patents from the 1990s to the 2010s that cover everything from manufacturing to software. IIRC the most important patents actually cover some algorithms on the display controller that won't be public domain until the mid to late 2020s.

Europe doesn't have software patents.

I think non-US space would be enough of a market?

Re: Ask HN: Has any progress been made on large format E-ink displays?

#114

Post by megous »

nitrogen wrote: post #70
lostgame wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But e-ink technology isn’t ready to go out of the gate - the refresh rate is still a significant issue that makes it virtually purposeless for much beyond reading. If it is at this point, it just didn’t happen quickly enough.

I'd like a very large e-ink display for artwork, signage, and metrics. It doesn't have to refresh more than once every several seconds.

Even for signage it has some spectacular failure modes. Where LCD would just not show anything, the e-ink will keep the last (and invalid) information confusing everyone in the process.

Re: Ask HN: Has any progress been made on large format E-ink displays?

#115

Post by yayr »

luka-birsa wrote: post #110

Large format E-ink displays are currently used primarily in digital signage scenarios (outdoor advertising, passenger information systems,...) - examples are Soofa ( http://www.soofa.co/ ) and Mercury Innovation ( https://www.mercuryinnovation.com.au/digital-bus-stop ). The largest size currently available is 42" and it is used in outdoor and indoor scenarios. Indoor use is for education purposes as a digital whitebo…

I‘d love to see such a device based on Android with 5 years update guarantee. Users could easily use it for any of your envisioned use cases and you could focus on your hardware competency

Re: Ask HN: Has any progress been made on large format E-ink displays?

#116

Post by [deleted] »

amenod wrote: post #98
SequoiaHope wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A great example of patents strangling innovation. If anyone has more concrete details on the way this company is holding back this technology I’d love to read details. Thanks!

The irony is that they are probably limiting their profit too. With lower prices the number of applications would skyrocket and they would get much bigger income. The only reason I can think of is that scaling the production would be difficult for some reason?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Has any progress been made on large format E-ink displays?

#117

Post by agys »

yabatopia wrote: post #101
agys wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. That's the bigger one! It's strange that the list of buses is sorted by bus number and not by time… Also: finally a display where advertisement is probably not so attractive.

> It's strange that the list of buses is sorted by bus number and not by time… You don't randomly hop on the first bus that arrives at your bus stop. You need the bus that brings you to your desired destination. The bus number is important to know you're on the right bus. Sorting by bus number makes it easier to scan for arrival time of the bus you actually need.

But there might be different busses which share the same route for a while: so you'd rather find find the first one.

Re: Ask HN: Has any progress been made on large format E-ink displays?

#118

Post by keanzu »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #106
keanzu wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clay Bavor published in Dec 2015 but Apple filed their patent on March 30, 2015 - seems Apple just got in under the wire there. http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...

So Clay Bavor did _not_ invent that

"A year ago over the holiday break, I created a large-scale digital “canvas”" posted December 27, 2015

https://www.claybavor.com/blog/a-canvas-made-of-pixels

He claims to have invented it prior to Apple, but he didn't publish before they got their patent in.

Re: Ask HN: Has any progress been made on large format E-ink displays?

#120

Post by vanderZwan »

namibj wrote: post #113
akiselev wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I checked there were over a dozen patents from the 1990s to the 2010s that cover everything from manufacturing to software. IIRC the most important patents actually cover some algorithms on the display controller that won't be public domain until the mid to late 2020s.

Europe doesn't have software patents. I think non-US space would be enough of a market?

IIRC it gets a bit messy once we start talking about hardware implementations of algorithms. I mean, is an electronics circuit that essentially implements an algorithm still a software patent?
Post reply on HN