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How E Ink developed full-color e-paper

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Re: How E Ink developed full-color e-paper

#51

Post by mmastrac »

amelius wrote: post #31
thomassmith65 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The devices I've seen with color e-ink need to intermittently flash the screen. I could live with a slow refresh rate, but having my screen flicker black once or twice a minute is a deal-breaker.

It would be a shame if this e-ink display that is advertised as "natural" induces more epileptic events than "artificial" light-emitting panels.

I don't think there's a worry about epileptic events with the short flash sequences of e-ink. I'm not a neurologist, but I think you need a reasonably long sequence of continued flashing to trigger an event.

Re: How E Ink developed full-color e-paper

#52

Post by jagger27 »

Kuinox wrote: post #35
jagger27 wrote: post #29

For most reading and writing tasks I think I’d rather have a a monochrome display with much higher DPI with extremely crisp high contrast edges. I hope that keeps improving too. Colour is something I’m willing to go without for this type of device. Maybe a single highlight colour would be nice to have as long as the red or yellow pigment occupies the same cell as black, not an adjacent one. A 600 dpi A4 sized tablet…

I want color, to read code, I can't give up on syntax highlighting

That’s a good point. I think one or two colours mixed with font weights and italics could get us pretty far.

Response time is a pretty critical metric for me when it comes to coding. I don’t want to have to wait a couple hundred milliseconds to scroll or switch files, so I’m not convinced coding is a great fit for the existing tech. Code isn’t read top to bottom like a novel.

That said, hell yes I want less eye strain when coding. I’m sure we can all relate to that.

Re: How E Ink developed full-color e-paper

#53

Post by black_puppydog »

mmastrac wrote: post #47

E-ink is the coolest tech with the worst business practices. The availability of affordable e-ink tech is just not there. I understand the research-intensive nature of these displays, but the company itself has been holding back the e-ink market by just operating poorly in so many ways. My biggest worry is that they'll fold at some point, leaving all the e-ink patents in the hand of a troll that will hold tech back f…

Well, some of these patents should already be reaching their half-life at least. :)

But yeah, it was a sad day for me when I learned why e-ink isn't ubiquitous.

Re: How E Ink developed full-color e-paper

#54

Post by jagger27 »

mannschott wrote: post #44
Kuinox wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want color, to read code, I can't give up on syntax highlighting

Back in the day™ Think’s Pascal used bold, italics and underlining to do syntax highlighting because the Mac’s screen was black-and-white. It would be a compromise: you can’t encode as much information into the text’s appearance without access to color, but it could be sufficient depending on your requirements.

I’m thinking of old Visual Studio syntax highlighting where it primarily uses green and blue. Maybe pick one of those like E-ink panels can already do.

Re: How E Ink developed full-color e-paper

#55

Post by ineedasername »

seneca wrote: post #40
ineedasername wrote: post #38

The article misses a significant device: Onyx Nova 3. The major difference between its prior color offering (poke 2) is the integration of a Wacom layer that makes this very good for note taking. The other hardware and software improvements appear to be incremental. Of particular note with all Onyx readers is that they run Android, opening up the ecosystem of the Play store and particularly your note-taking app of ch…

It's worth noting that Onyx violates the Linux kernel license, and has a ton of telemetry that phones home to China. Major down sides for otherwise interesting tech.

Wow yes, that's a downside. I found a forum post [0] where someone monitored web traffic and it was analytics data, but still not great. And the GPL violation is an abuse of the FOSS community they rely on for free development.

[0] https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=335605

Re: How E Ink developed full-color e-paper

#56

Post by ectopod »

emteycz wrote: post #43
Kuinox wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want color, to read code, I can't give up on syntax highlighting

I found out that text styling (bold, underline, italic, and different fonts) are more than enough.

I've seen this in a few software books. It works very well.

Re: How E Ink developed full-color e-paper

#57

Post by TranquilMarmot »

bloopernova wrote: post #6
jszymborski wrote: post #3

So what's the over-under on E-ink replacing our current computer monitors much like we've come to replace cathode ray tubes.

I'd like a dual-layer tablet screen. One layer is e-ink for reading, the other is a standard OLED screen. Since I'm wishing, I'd like it to be 16k and something like 1200dpi :)

While we're at it, make it so that you can designate specific parts of the screen to be e-ink or OLED haha

Re: How E Ink developed full-color e-paper

#58

Post by empalms »

throwthere wrote: post #27
empalms wrote: post #20

Every time an E Ink article is posted the patent defeatism is inevitable. I’m curious if there are other techniques to implement reflective(?) displays being explored that wouldn’t fall within the scope of E Ink’s defensible moat, or, if their parents are simply so broad as to stifle most hopes of accessible solutions and broader consumer/professional adoption. Frankly, I’m quite sick of straining my eyes and circadi…

When does the original parent run out? Will that be the end of this or are there other “process” aka bs patents coming?

Good question.

Skimming the uspto’s documentation, identifying the term does not appear to be a straightforward process [0]. Someone with more experience in the matter might be able to say.

[0] https://www.uspto.gov/patents/laws/patent-term-calculator

Re: How E Ink developed full-color e-paper

#59

Post by zouhair »

black_puppydog wrote: post #53
mmastrac wrote: post #47

E-ink is the coolest tech with the worst business practices. The availability of affordable e-ink tech is just not there. I understand the research-intensive nature of these displays, but the company itself has been holding back the e-ink market by just operating poorly in so many ways. My biggest worry is that they'll fold at some point, leaving all the e-ink patents in the hand of a troll that will hold tech back f…

Well, some of these patents should already be reaching their half-life at least. :) But yeah, it was a sad day for me when I learned why e-ink isn't ubiquitous.

> why e-ink isn't ubiquitous.

Do you have any source?

Re: How E Ink developed full-color e-paper

#60

Post by chrismorgan »

jagger27 wrote: post #29

For most reading and writing tasks I think I’d rather have a a monochrome display with much higher DPI with extremely crisp high contrast edges. I hope that keeps improving too. Colour is something I’m willing to go without for this type of device. Maybe a single highlight colour would be nice to have as long as the red or yellow pigment occupies the same cell as black, not an adjacent one. A 600 dpi A4 sized tablet…

600dpi A4 means roughly 5000×7000 (35,000,000 pixels). Even 300dpi is 2500×3500 (8,750,000 pixels).

The current typical resolution for 10–13″ tablets (A4 is about 14.3″) is 1404×1872, which is 2,628,288 pixels. You’re asking for 13× as many pixels, and 3× as an entry level. However you arrange it, it’s going to use a lot more power and probably need more memory and a more powerful CPU/GPU.

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