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

E Ink Waveforms are a closely guarded secret

goodereader.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 138 posts

Re: E Ink Waveforms are a closely guarded secret

#61

Post by akvadrako »

mikekchar wrote: post #51
tigershark wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you use an e-ink display for videos? The main advantage is the low power consumption because it needs power only to refresh, using it for a video it will negate that advantage and draw much more power than a traditional display with an awful image quality...

Not the OP, but the main reason I want an e-ink display (for programming, which may include animations) is so that I can do it in full sunlight. I work remotely and often work in public places. Working on a park bench, for example, is normally impossible, unless it happens to be cloudy and I'm in a shady place. I'm just hoping e-ink becomes a mainstream thing before I retire.

The new MacBook Pro screen work in full sunlight - it's just about being bright enough.

Another option is to place the back of a plastic screen towards the sun, using it as a backlight.

Re: E Ink Waveforms are a closely guarded secret

#62

Post by abraham_lincoln »

akvadrako wrote: post #61
mikekchar wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, but the main reason I want an e-ink display (for programming, which may include animations) is so that I can do it in full sunlight. I work remotely and often work in public places. Working on a park bench, for example, is normally impossible, unless it happens to be cloudy and I'm in a shady place. I'm just hoping e-ink becomes a mainstream thing before I retire.

The new MacBook Pro screen work in full sunlight - it's just about being bright enough. Another option is to place the back of a plastic screen towards the sun, using it as a backlight.

Have you seen an e-ink display?

It is about contrast, not brightness.

Re: E Ink Waveforms are a closely guarded secret

#63

Post by coldtea »

Is E Ink anything more than a marketed technology with no real purpose?

One can calibrate the brightness, white balance (e.g. Apple's True Tone), resolution, etc of a regular LCD or OLED display so that the same amount of photons hit your eye (and are more tightly controlled when you move the display around) as with an E Ink display, and get better resolution color, and saturation to boot.

Besides the idea that it was easier on the eyes was never backed by any substantial scientific studies, it was just "but it's like paper, so it should be" plus some manufacturer sponsored crap.

Well, there's the extended battery life I guess...

Re: E Ink Waveforms are a closely guarded secret

#64

Post by sophistication »

chaoxu wrote: post #17

Recently, I brought a Dasung paperlike HD to use as a monitor. (crazy expensive, prob should've spend money elsewhere...) I thought some things were impossible with eink, but it proved me wrong. (video in a reasonable fps) It has a few different ways of display. For example: Floyd–Steinberg dithering: essentially only black and white with dithering, and the speed pretty good. A16: uses 16 shades of grey, but the spee…

Why do you regret buying it?

Re: E Ink Waveforms are a closely guarded secret

#65

Post by orbital-decay »

ben_w wrote: post #49
mrob wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly about emitted light is a problem? Light doesn't carry a memory of how it was generated, so it must be some difference in some measurable property, e.g. brightness/contrast/color spectrum/flicker/polarization, or the way these change at different viewing angles. If you know which attributes are important then you might be able to match them with an emissive display.

Emissive displays don’t generally match the brightness of their surroundings; even with automatic adjustment, most are physically incapable of being as bright as a newspaper in daylight, and many cannot be as dim as a newspaper lit only by one of those small book-reading lights without being switched off entirely. There’s also the spikey spectrum, which looks the same consciously but I’ve seen claims [1] that is mess…

>Emissive displays don’t generally match the brightness of their surroundings

How so? You can set any brightness you want to match the environment. Usage under direct sunlight is one edge case e-paper is clearly better at, and any usage with poor environmental lighting is detrimental to your eyes itself, regardless of technology.

I'm really sceptical about the entire "E Ink is better for your eyes" thing until I see some serious studies. People managed to ruin their eyesight centuries before computer screens. There's just too many factors at play here, from genetics to typography.

Re: E Ink Waveforms are a closely guarded secret

#66

Post by [deleted] »

ben_w wrote: post #46
Lewton wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main advantage is the low power consumption No? The main advantage is that it's easier on the eyes

People keep saying eInk is better than reflective black and white LCD, such as that found on calculators. I’m unconvinced, but (obviously) to test this I would have to actually get a monitor sized black and white reflective display, and I can’t find any of those — largest I have found so far is 320x240 for about £200

[deleted]

Re: E Ink Waveforms are a closely guarded secret

#67

Post by billfruit »

extrapickles wrote: post #38
dev_dull wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly how would you even know if the e-ink displays infringe on IP? I can’t imagine them doing anything.

A patent gives you a monopoly which makes things easy. You occasionally search the market for products that contain your tech (in this case eink), then look in your records to see if they bought/licensed from you.

But is it that infringement can be proven only by a court? So can US customs do any thing in such cases, even if we assume they have the competency to judge if a particular import violates IP.

Re: E Ink Waveforms are a closely guarded secret

#68

Post by bonzini »

mrob wrote: post #60
bonzini wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Staring directly at a light source strains the eyes more than watching reflected light.

By what mechanism of action? It can't possibly be true in general: e.g. staring at the reflection of the sun in a mirror strains the eyes more than staring at a candle.

A reflection of the sun on a mirror is a reflection of a very strong light source through a perfectly reflective medium.. A book or an e-ink screen is still ultimately sunlight, but it has scattered (which is reflection too) while passing through the atmosphere many times before reaching what you are looking at.

Re: E Ink Waveforms are a closely guarded secret

#69

Post by [deleted] »

amelius wrote: post #54
sofon wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The waveforms will all likely be disclosed in their patents too: https://patents.google.com/?assignee=E+Ink+Corp Certainly a number of drive waveforms and the basic concepts are presented. There are likely implementation subtleties or specific configurations that are not explicitly disclosed. You can probably figure out a lot about both the implementation, and motivation by digging through the patents.

Yes, it would be quite stupid to guard the secret and not patent it. So the title of the article doesn't make much sense.

[deleted]

Re: E Ink Waveforms are a closely guarded secret

#70

Post by abledon »

Tharkun wrote: post #43
chaoxu wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Currently, I use it for writing code and reading papers. However, I still want the monitor to be a good enough drop-in monitor for things I need to occasionally do. For example, I need to switch to a browser window to check what was that error I'm getting. 2. Visual snow syndrome: Many had their first experience of visual snow after staring into the screen for too long. People who believe in that is the cause of v…

I was under the impression that Visual Snow was a symptop of anxiety?

anxiety is a symptom of an underlying nervous system dis-order. so staring at a screen for long periods of time is hard on an organisms nervous system (to remain in place for so long without movement). So visual snow and anxiety both stem from the underlying structure being at dis-ease.
Post reply on HN