Building an e-ink picture frame that displays an iCloud photo album • Hacker News Board

Re: Building an e-ink picture frame that displays an iCloud photo album

#141

Post by urbandw311er » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 10:42 AM UTC

boringg wrote: post #66

Can someone explain to me what the obsession with e-ink is on hackernews? I understand that it has a lot of great qualities to it but it so far out of price range that it negates the upside. Or am I completely misreading the benefits?

It's hard to explain, but I also have a bit of a love of e-ink. I'd describe it as more of a fascination than an obsession. I think it's because it so closely resembles its analogue equivalent (paper & paint) and draws no power. For me, the holy grail will be when I can build, for less than 50 USD, a colour e-ink photo frame, of at least 12 inches diagonal, that I can wall-mount and have it display my photo memories each day, forever changing. Seriously excited about that day.

PS: I un-down-voted you. I think it's a fair question.

Re: Building an e-ink picture frame that displays an iCloud photo album

#142

Post by mrehler » Sat, Jan 13, 2024, 7:04 PM UTC

GauntletWizard wrote: post #80

robluxus wrote: post #39

> iCloud photo albums have no API. However, if you share an iCloud photo album to a public link [...] How do folks feel about the security vs. convenience aspect of this? I almost talked myself into doing this for our shared family albums, but I know I really shouldn't do it. Some of our older family members run Windows and iCloud sharing is just horrible there. Basically, the photos keep disappearing from their comp…

I feel really okay with this, but I'm not okay with is that there isn't language to talk transparently about it. Facebook does the same thing (or did, because I haven't used Facebook in a long time), if you copy link to image, you can just forward that, even if the post is private. This is pretty inherent in image sharing, though. You can just download the image, or if the website limits that you can take a screensho…

I think the phrase used here quite often is "security through obscurity" when it comes to links. The question is whether people feel comfortable with family photos falling under that principle. They're obviously not meant for public consumption, but the feeling of privacy invasion if a random person stumbled on them is going to vary from person to person. If one was totally comfortable with them being public and has zero reservations about random folks peeking on them, then I'd be surprised if there weren't an even sturdier way to do this publicly (through Flickr or just an open FTP link – but that loses some of the convenience of just an iCloud album for some people).

Re: Building an e-ink picture frame that displays an iCloud photo album

#143

Post by GauntletWizard » Tue, Jan 16, 2024, 8:50 PM UTC

mrehler wrote: post #142

GauntletWizard wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel really okay with this, but I'm not okay with is that there isn't language to talk transparently about it. Facebook does the same thing (or did, because I haven't used Facebook in a long time), if you copy link to image, you can just forward that, even if the post is private. This is pretty inherent in image sharing, though. You can just download the image, or if the website limits that you can take a screensho…

I think the phrase used here quite often is "security through obscurity" when it comes to links. The question is whether people feel comfortable with family photos falling under that principle. They're obviously not meant for public consumption, but the feeling of privacy invasion if a random person stumbled on them is going to vary from person to person. If one was totally comfortable with them being public and has…

Securely-generated unique links aren't security by obscurity at all - They are literally the same as any password or private key being unique and high entropy. The security problem is inherent with any data that is shared widely.

Re: Building an e-ink picture frame that displays an iCloud photo album

#144

Post by SimpleMinds » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 10:35 AM UTC

sho_hn wrote: post #59

jgrahamc wrote: post #18

I've built a few things with eink displays and I strongly recommend NOT using simple picture frames (unless they fit perfectly). One way to get a really good looking result is a custom frame. There are tons of custom framing company that will cheaply make you a frame that fits the display with the appropriate cut out. https://blog.jgc.org/2023/05/a-better-case-for-my-inkplate-1...

I did that for my Rust/LLM-based e-ink AI newspaper: https://imgur.com/a/NoTr8XX Custom frame by Halbe Rahmen, who I think make the most magnificent frames in the world, with the most loving team behind them. Not a shill; whenever I interact with the Halbe staff for anything I feel it.

I saw in the summary that you planned to open source it, do you still think you'll do it? I was thinking to build one for self (e-ink + battery powered so can move it around), and trying to avoid reinventing the wheel