This is just gorgeous and begs the question: what is wrong with e-ink and their non-marketing of their technology?
You can get LCDs in almost any form and size for very little money, but e-ink displays are still rare and expensive. I love my kindle (ironically even Amazon seems to be very slow in enhancing it), but I would love larger e-ink screens and display devices. Like with good old black and white displays, there is zero penalty for running them 24/7.
The newspaper is a great implemantation of this, but I also would like to have a large e-ink display for displaying b/w photographs.
And of course, a reader, large enough to cover the area of an open book (so almost A3) would be a dream. Displaying a double-page of any print at 100% would make for the ultimate e-reading experience. Would be the ideal accessory to any programmers desk, but also for any scientist.
So the big question is: why does all of this not exist?
You need high volumes to drop the price and you can't get high volumes with high price. The E Ink technology has a lot of downsides compared to OLED and LCD, such as update speed, limited colors,...
We (http://www.visionect.com) have been building E Ink solutions for past decade and we just stoped convincing people that they should use E Ink where they could use LCD or OLED. E Ink is useful only as a niche solution for specific, mostly not consumer (exception being Kindle and Remarkable) products. We've sold a platform for any application and after a while we saw that it only makes sense to focus on specific niches (digital signage, transportation, bus stops) or go for finished product (see our https://getjoan.com).
In the end it is what it is - everybody says they'd use an E Ink display everyday, but almost nobody is prepared to spend the cash when they can use iPads, phones or huge LCD/OLED instead.
E Ink will have it's day in digital signage as they solve the colors as these screens will replace all paper advertising eventually, but untill the you'll see this screens on ebook readers / note takers, on conference rooms and on digital bus stops.
Because the screen costs $1500 and has the benefit of lower power consumption.
Problem is that a 24 inch monitor takes about $15 to run 24/7 for a full year. You can run that for 50 years and still have a set-up that's hundreds of dollars cheaper with better contrast, can show colour, can show moving images etc.
And if you put a motion/use sensor on it and connect it to a smart home setup, the energy use differences (e.g. reading the paper while brushing teeth) become minimal. We're talking about pennies per year.
They're interesting as part of experimental art pieces, but as a large-scale consumer product very much unproven for these usecases.
E-ink's contrast ratio is quite poor, typically around 8:1 and with even marketing claims topping out around 12:1. For comparison, a baseline gallery-quality inkjet with good glossy photo paper can easily exceed 200:1, and professional repro methods do better still.
So, emulating newsprint is a good e-ink use case, since newsprint's contrast sucks too. But black and white photos, which depend critically on effective use of contrast for a lot of their effect, will not look good on an e-ink display, any more than they would on a Game Boy.
One problem is the cost of these devices. The unit shown in this article sells for $1500. Another is the slow refresh rate, which is often-times fine for tasks like reading a large set of text (ebooks, entire newspaper sheets, etc), but might not be well suited for touchscreen use where UI elements need to react to user interactions in a timely manner. The project in the OP skips user controls altogether, meaning you can't actually read anything beyond the front page.
eInk is cool, and the technology continues to be developed, but it's still a niche solution applicable to limited use cases due to the slow refresh and high cost.
You should try a ReMarkable. I love mine for reading and marking PDFs, especially work related and note taking. It's one of the few things I backed as a KickStarter that has come along massively since it first began. The 2nd version looks great also.
Patents. I can't find a source for this on the top of my head now, but "E-ink" is both a trademark and patented, strongly so. (It's not only a technology, it's the name of the company too, so you can't say "e-ink" without treading on their trademark. And they want you to say "E ink" and not "E-ink", apparently.)
Whereas there is a multitude of color display technologies with lots of prior art and overlap that would make patent disputes difficult, e-ink is so "special" in the way it works that it's easier for them to aggressively defend their patent, which means they take a huge skim off the top of anything that's produced. So there's lots of competition and innovation in the space of LCD and LED technology, because both those technologies are out of patent protection, but E-ink is a wasteland right now.
I spent the better part of last night comparing e-readers. I really want something that is large enough to comfortably read a magazine (PDF), but everything seems to be 7" or so.
I'm with you. I can't wait until we have a proper A4 / letter sized e-reader -- or better yet 2x A5 that could close.
I haven't kept tabs on the e-ink scene outside of a little digging twice a year. Outside of refresh rates, it doesn't seem like a lot has changed. The price is still up there and the screens are still roughly half of what they should be.
I fell in love with the general idea of e-ink with the Pebble watches (Sharp's Memory LCD.) Having a device that just works and doesn't require frequent charging is such a pleasure.
What I really don't understand is why e-ink hasn't consumed the mobile market (like the Yotaphone.)
> The newspaper is a great implemantation of this, but I also
> would like to have a large e-ink display for displaying b/w
> photographs.
I'm surprised that newspapers haven't picked up on this already, they could play the "we're going green" card, cut their own overheads and lock people into a platform.
Hell, they could even elbow their way into much larger markets, such as books, note taking, pictures, emails, document signing, etc.
Why the Amazon Kindle doesn't come with a newspaper is beyond me - it seems like it would be an absolutely killer feature for getting people to use their kindles every day. Doesn't Jeff Bezos own some newspaper already anyway?
I've been seeing Eink displays get more and more commercial use over the last few years. A lot of the grocery/department stores have replaced printed out paper prices on the shelves with Eink ones. The modules are pretty cool too, it looks like the display is updated via NFC/RFID and the display itself doesn't have any sort of power source. It gets electricity wirelessly whenever it needs to be updated.
Edit: actually most of the eink price tags use a button cell battery, oops
I hope that once color eInk displays starts to show up, advertisers will switch to it instead of printing large posters and drive the mass manufacturing costs down.
I can't wait to see a color eReader and see magazines and comic books in all their glory.
Same question here -- I bought a kindle DX when it first came out and was surprised that the line petered out and never continued to the higher contrast light-up models. What a shame.
Yeah E-ink is really dropping the ball. You could write for days a moralistic mannifesto touching:
- blue LCD light (facebook's blue!), mass sleep deprivation
- eyeball markets, surveillance capitalism, end of independent thought
- power consumption, global warming
Conclusion, e-ink is the difference between UBI utopia and cyberpunk distopia!
C'mon, chronically anxious Brooklyn ad industry employees, this shit is easy.
That display is $1.5k ea, and comes with an NDA mostly forbidding you to even think about it, much less think about the possibility of letting the thought of permitting your mouth talk about it cross your mind.
This sort of thing is pretty consistent with all these devices. I guess the manufacturers only want to sell to outfits like Amazon or Google and want to make damn sure that everyone else is left out.
I'm convinced that this is a significant factor in the relative narrowness of success, or out right lack, of the technology.
I wonder, why is there an NDA on the software using their code? Why would they want to hide their API, considering anyone nefarious would just buy the thing anyway ($1,5k isn’t a huge barrier to entry) and completely disregard the NDA anyway?
Something like this would probably be a step back towards sanity (vs my current habit of consuming news and social media from my iPad, which generally makes me unhappy, but darn it's addictive). Just the headlines and leads. If I want more, I can check the full website later.
If it was $300 instead of $1500+, I'd be all in. Heck, a larger format Kindle might work too. The current book reader is just too small for newspaper consumption.
I really don't get, why Amazon doesn't put more resources in the Kindle universe. They should have a large volume and quite a market position. Also, they don't lack the finances to push products. A larger Kindle would be an instant buy for me. I have been contemplating the Oasis just because it adds an inch of display and with the next refresh I will probably bite. But why not 8 or 10 inch devices? Or full A4 size.
Also, it would be great, if they made it easy to connect your Kindle to e.g. a Raspberry Pi and use it as a touchscreen display. I might pick up a couple of paperwhites, if that were possible.
The world would have looked differently if the Mirasol technology ever took of. It was a large e-ink that could do color and had a refresh rate good enough for video. Most impressively, it could have been produced at existing display plants with some modifications. Unfortunately, the MEMS technology was close but no quite there as the displays degraded. Beautiful displays however, extremely energy proficient, and absolutely splendid in daylight. A bit dull, but very comfortable indoors.
Pretty much all newspapers are archived in libraries around the world (big national libraries in western countries are usually obligated to archive them). If your specific newspaper or front page wasn’t available on the internet, I suspect a nearby library has a high resolution microfilm copy of it that could be digitised.
During the pandemic, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is making the electronic version of their paper available (downloadable as a PDF) free of charge.
(I) THE PRODUCTS ARE NOT CONSUMER PRODUCTS INTENDED FOR PERSONAL, FAMILY OR HOUSEHOLD PURPOSES; AND
(II) PURCHASER IS PURCHASING THE PRODUCTS FOR COMMERCIAL USE AND/OR IN A BUSINESS CAPACITY. ORDERS PLACED BY CONSUMERS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.
I am still waiting for someone to introduce a Kindle-style device specifically designed for comic books. I am shocked that Comixology or Amazon have not done this yet. Using iPads and other tablets is not a good solution. These devices are too heavy, the consume too much energy, they are distracting with all the apps, notifications, etc.
> (I) THE PRODUCTS ARE NOT CONSUMER PRODUCTS INTENDED FOR PERSONAL, FAMILY OR HOUSEHOLD PURPOSES; AND
(II) PURCHASER IS PURCHASING THE PRODUCTS FOR COMMERCIAL USE AND/OR IN A BUSINESS CAPACITY. ORDERS PLACED BY CONSUMERS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.
> 500$ driver board with the same terms
> E Ink’s NDA prevents me from sharing the source code
It amazes me every single time I think about it: Why is this company working so hard to keep their products away from the public?
Additionally, how did they convince them they're not a consumer?
My mode of acquiring e-ink displays is looking for e-reader replacement parts and data sheets online. Never interacting with the e-ink company isn't only easier (please stop screaming at me that I suck if I'm a consumer, thanks), but a lot cheaper. Haven't found a knock-off for the 31" screen yet, unfortunately, that would be quite cool.
Reading all the negativity here reminds me of the iPod reception back in 2001! This is prescient y’all. This is the technology future I want, not that dystopian blade runner world!
"That looks awesome!" * Looks at website * "$1,500!"
I'm really looking forward to this price point coming down.
EEVblog was talking about an interesting effect where LCDs can potentially become a cheaper alternative to "e-paper" [1]. An LCD panel of similar size is significantly cheaper due to products such as laptops, monitors, TVs, etc.
This looks like a very interesting piece and project. I'd love to read it. But, it's on medium and without an paid account i cannot access it. And at this point, shelling 50 bucks for medium doesn't seem the smart thing to do... This applies to any article on medium posted on HN.
Give me the same but in a form of a thin laptop. I would use it to code/browse HN/Gopherspace and to read media/play music. Some gaming with Nethack/frotz would be acceptable, too.
[+] [-] _ph_|5 years ago|reply
You can get LCDs in almost any form and size for very little money, but e-ink displays are still rare and expensive. I love my kindle (ironically even Amazon seems to be very slow in enhancing it), but I would love larger e-ink screens and display devices. Like with good old black and white displays, there is zero penalty for running them 24/7. The newspaper is a great implemantation of this, but I also would like to have a large e-ink display for displaying b/w photographs.
And of course, a reader, large enough to cover the area of an open book (so almost A3) would be a dream. Displaying a double-page of any print at 100% would make for the ultimate e-reading experience. Would be the ideal accessory to any programmers desk, but also for any scientist.
So the big question is: why does all of this not exist?
[+] [-] luka-birsa|5 years ago|reply
You need high volumes to drop the price and you can't get high volumes with high price. The E Ink technology has a lot of downsides compared to OLED and LCD, such as update speed, limited colors,...
We (http://www.visionect.com) have been building E Ink solutions for past decade and we just stoped convincing people that they should use E Ink where they could use LCD or OLED. E Ink is useful only as a niche solution for specific, mostly not consumer (exception being Kindle and Remarkable) products. We've sold a platform for any application and after a while we saw that it only makes sense to focus on specific niches (digital signage, transportation, bus stops) or go for finished product (see our https://getjoan.com).
In the end it is what it is - everybody says they'd use an E Ink display everyday, but almost nobody is prepared to spend the cash when they can use iPads, phones or huge LCD/OLED instead.
E Ink will have it's day in digital signage as they solve the colors as these screens will replace all paper advertising eventually, but untill the you'll see this screens on ebook readers / note takers, on conference rooms and on digital bus stops.
[+] [-] IkmoIkmo|5 years ago|reply
Problem is that a 24 inch monitor takes about $15 to run 24/7 for a full year. You can run that for 50 years and still have a set-up that's hundreds of dollars cheaper with better contrast, can show colour, can show moving images etc.
And if you put a motion/use sensor on it and connect it to a smart home setup, the energy use differences (e.g. reading the paper while brushing teeth) become minimal. We're talking about pennies per year.
They're interesting as part of experimental art pieces, but as a large-scale consumer product very much unproven for these usecases.
[+] [-] throwanem|5 years ago|reply
So, emulating newsprint is a good e-ink use case, since newsprint's contrast sucks too. But black and white photos, which depend critically on effective use of contrast for a lot of their effect, will not look good on an e-ink display, any more than they would on a Game Boy.
[+] [-] luma|5 years ago|reply
eInk is cool, and the technology continues to be developed, but it's still a niche solution applicable to limited use cases due to the slow refresh and high cost.
[+] [-] sneak|5 years ago|reply
http://begthequestion.info
[+] [-] secfirstmd|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] anarcat|5 years ago|reply
Whereas there is a multitude of color display technologies with lots of prior art and overlap that would make patent disputes difficult, e-ink is so "special" in the way it works that it's easier for them to aggressively defend their patent, which means they take a huge skim off the top of anything that's produced. So there's lots of competition and innovation in the space of LCD and LED technology, because both those technologies are out of patent protection, but E-ink is a wasteland right now.
I think it's why it's so niche.
[+] [-] stevewillows|5 years ago|reply
I'm with you. I can't wait until we have a proper A4 / letter sized e-reader -- or better yet 2x A5 that could close.
I haven't kept tabs on the e-ink scene outside of a little digging twice a year. Outside of refresh rates, it doesn't seem like a lot has changed. The price is still up there and the screens are still roughly half of what they should be.
I fell in love with the general idea of e-ink with the Pebble watches (Sharp's Memory LCD.) Having a device that just works and doesn't require frequent charging is such a pleasure.
What I really don't understand is why e-ink hasn't consumed the mobile market (like the Yotaphone.)
edit: proper paper sizing
[+] [-] bArray|5 years ago|reply
> would like to have a large e-ink display for displaying b/w
> photographs.
I'm surprised that newspapers haven't picked up on this already, they could play the "we're going green" card, cut their own overheads and lock people into a platform.
Hell, they could even elbow their way into much larger markets, such as books, note taking, pictures, emails, document signing, etc.
Why the Amazon Kindle doesn't come with a newspaper is beyond me - it seems like it would be an absolutely killer feature for getting people to use their kindles every day. Doesn't Jeff Bezos own some newspaper already anyway?
[+] [-] svat|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rebelgecko|5 years ago|reply
Edit: actually most of the eink price tags use a button cell battery, oops
[+] [-] m-p-3|5 years ago|reply
I can't wait to see a color eReader and see magazines and comic books in all their glory.
[+] [-] m463|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ericson2314|5 years ago|reply
- blue LCD light (facebook's blue!), mass sleep deprivation - eyeball markets, surveillance capitalism, end of independent thought - power consumption, global warming
Conclusion, e-ink is the difference between UBI utopia and cyberpunk distopia!
C'mon, chronically anxious Brooklyn ad industry employees, this shit is easy.
[+] [-] zitterbewegung|5 years ago|reply
People rather have a backlit display in a small form factor with a higher refresh rate than reading on an eink display.
My Phone / Tablet allows me to read and also watch movies in color but eink can't do that.
[+] [-] dmitrygr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Quequau|5 years ago|reply
I'm convinced that this is a significant factor in the relative narrowness of success, or out right lack, of the technology.
[+] [-] Nextgrid|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bottle2|5 years ago|reply
"(II) PURCHASER IS PURCHASING THE PRODUCTS FOR COMMERCIAL USE AND/OR IN A BUSINESS CAPACITY. ORDERS PLACED BY CONSUMERS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED."
[+] [-] flowersjeff|5 years ago|reply
(Truly insane position of the company - they ought to hire this person and make this a product one can buy.)
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] roland35|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alistairSH|5 years ago|reply
If it was $300 instead of $1500+, I'd be all in. Heck, a larger format Kindle might work too. The current book reader is just too small for newspaper consumption.
[+] [-] _ph_|5 years ago|reply
Also, it would be great, if they made it easy to connect your Kindle to e.g. a Raspberry Pi and use it as a touchscreen display. I might pick up a couple of paperwhites, if that were possible.
[+] [-] brainpool|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Debonnys|5 years ago|reply
However as the discussion from earlier today shows (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22827833), it is still very expensive.
The display used in this article costs about $1500 (https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2%CB%9D-monochrome-epap...). Which is a bit too high for me to want to make something similar for myself.
[+] [-] joi_de_vivre|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roland35|5 years ago|reply
One thing I also learned is that you can download a PDF of the New York Times front page every day!
[+] [-] stefan_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abbracadabbra|5 years ago|reply
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/04/10/nytfrontpage/scan...
[+] [-] cowsandmilk|5 years ago|reply
https://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/
[+] [-] avianlyric|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThinkingGuy|5 years ago|reply
https://epaper.ajc.com
[+] [-] gullyfur|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eatbitseveryday|5 years ago|reply
http://sz.de
[+] [-] Grustaf|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cemregr|5 years ago|reply
(I) THE PRODUCTS ARE NOT CONSUMER PRODUCTS INTENDED FOR PERSONAL, FAMILY OR HOUSEHOLD PURPOSES; AND (II) PURCHASER IS PURCHASING THE PRODUCTS FOR COMMERCIAL USE AND/OR IN A BUSINESS CAPACITY. ORDERS PLACED BY CONSUMERS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.
[+] [-] botolo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] solarkraft|5 years ago|reply
> (I) THE PRODUCTS ARE NOT CONSUMER PRODUCTS INTENDED FOR PERSONAL, FAMILY OR HOUSEHOLD PURPOSES; AND (II) PURCHASER IS PURCHASING THE PRODUCTS FOR COMMERCIAL USE AND/OR IN A BUSINESS CAPACITY. ORDERS PLACED BY CONSUMERS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.
> 500$ driver board with the same terms
> E Ink’s NDA prevents me from sharing the source code
It amazes me every single time I think about it: Why is this company working so hard to keep their products away from the public?
Additionally, how did they convince them they're not a consumer?
My mode of acquiring e-ink displays is looking for e-reader replacement parts and data sheets online. Never interacting with the e-ink company isn't only easier (please stop screaming at me that I suck if I'm a consumer, thanks), but a lot cheaper. Haven't found a knock-off for the 31" screen yet, unfortunately, that would be quite cool.
[+] [-] bufferoverflow|5 years ago|reply
https://www.amazon.com/LG-OLED55C9PUA-Alexa-Built-Ultra/dp/B...
[+] [-] bryogenic|5 years ago|reply
A bit of drywall and electrical work would hide the cord completely; but I understand if that isn't possible in an apartment.
[+] [-] jjguy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bArray|5 years ago|reply
I'm really looking forward to this price point coming down.
EEVblog was talking about an interesting effect where LCDs can potentially become a cheaper alternative to "e-paper" [1]. An LCD panel of similar size is significantly cheaper due to products such as laptops, monitors, TVs, etc.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldolTAeXs_w
[+] [-] simplecto|5 years ago|reply
Or they can take the high-fidelity pdfs from Newseum [2] and rotate them.
[1] - https://newshots.simplecto.com -- Daily screenshots of hundreds of publications
[2] - https://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/
[+] [-] trevyn|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rollinDyno|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] harel|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anthk|5 years ago|reply