E-paper is making it's way into museums

Now why the screens were most interesting for me? Because "e-paper" name has in the past been used not just for e-ink-like displays, but also for super-low-power LCDs, which is kind of a different thing. Fortunately, Visionect seems to be using "the real deal", i.e. ink-based displays.

Now the only question for me - where can I get my 24” e-ink display for my computer?

Re: E-paper is making it's way into museums

#4

Post by vincentkriek » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 11:29 AM UTC

Although I can see the advantage of having a digital label in a lot of cases, I don't see the necessity in a museum environment. There is serious human interaction necessary to change the collection to move and change the works of art. It would be easy to change the label at that time.

What use case is there to change the label "on the fly"?

Re: E-paper is making it's way into museums

#5

Post by binarymax » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 11:31 AM UTC

jbb555 wrote: post #2

"All report an average cost of $70-$100 per label, " Why so much to print a traditional label?

Usually museum labels are very high quality, mounted inside of laminate or glass. Definitely not $100 worth, but when you factor in design and installation labor then it might reach that in theory.

Re: E-paper is making it's way into museums

#6

Post by Illniyar » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 11:32 AM UTC

vincentkriek wrote: post #4

Although I can see the advantage of having a digital label in a lot of cases, I don't see the necessity in a museum environment. There is serious human interaction necessary to change the collection to move and change the works of art. It would be easy to change the label at that time. What use case is there to change the label "on the fly"?

One of the reasons from the article is multiple language support.

Re: E-paper is making it's way into museums

#7

Post by ehmuidifici » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 11:33 AM UTC

Its funny how we link 'museum' with 'outdated things'. When I first saw that title I just thought that would be something like e-paper being obsolete.

Re: E-paper is making it's way into museums

#8

Post by ThePadawan » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 11:50 AM UTC

We use similar displays for room occupation displays on our campus (made by https://www.roomz.io/).

For me, the most interesting thing to learn was that "battery-powered" means that the manufacturer expects a battery to last 2-3 years, as the displays maintain no active WiFi connection, and are only woken up sporadically via RF.

Re: E-paper is making it's way into museums

#9

Post by tgb » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 11:53 AM UTC

I saw some touch-screen displays labeling artwork in the Gallerie de'llAcademia in Venice that gave detailed background and history and explained the scene being depicted. Thank god! I know nothing about art and embarrassingly little about history and like to go to museums to learn, but they usually suck at teaching! They just have the year the object was made and a label, usually, plus artist if known. No context. Nothing explaining why this piece is out front and not hiding in storage. You're expected to already know that.

And then when you do get audio tours or descriptions, they're often banal and just describe the object that you can already see ("The girl on the left looks onto the scene with a pained expression" so what?!).

Re: E-paper is making it's way into museums

#10

Post by karyon » Fri, Aug 12, 2016, 11:53 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #3

Here's a link to the hardware: https://www.visionect.com/technology#hardware Details of the controller board: https://docs.visionect.com/VisionectPandaDS.html And the thing that was interesting for me the most, the screens they use: https://docs.visionect.com/ElectronicPaperDisplays.html Now why the screens were most interesting for me? Because "e-paper" name has in the past been used not just for e-ink-like displays…

In case the last question was serious (i honestly don't know): You wouldn't want that except for daily work (except maybe for reading longer texts), at least not with current e-ink technology. Even with proper colors, adding several 100ms of latency to everything you do at the computer slows you down while typing, makes scrolling ugly etc. Not to think of videos or games...