E Ink - Page 26

Yota Devices (a spin-off from Russia's Yota telecom) is the company behind E Ink's dual-display (LCD/ E Ink) phone shown at IFA 2012. Back in September E Ink said we should expect such a device in 2013 - and Yota indeed says they will launch it in Q3 2013. Yota currently has a fully working prototype (called the YotaPhone) that has two 4.3" displays, a 720x1280 LCD and a 200 dpi E Ink.

Other features of this interesting phone include a dual-core 1.5Ghz CPU, 2GB of RAM and at least 32 GB of flash memory, LTE and a 12 mp camera. The whole phone weighs just 140 grams and is less than 10 mm thick. Yota says they are already in talks with US and European carriers to launch this phone overseas.

Our E Ink Persistency contest is over, and we selected the two winning ideas:

• Business cards ("no need to print new ones and throw hundreds of old ones away, when your email-address changes")
• Menus in restaurants (many people suggested this, so the winner will be the first one who did).

There were lot's of other good ideas. Some others that we really liked were the recyclable/re-usable labels for clothes / consumer goods, the free design game table, road signs and public transport timetables. There were some great ideas in there that sadly are not practical due to E Ink limitations - the screens are monochrome and cannot be made large enough for some applications. Maybe in the future!

When I wrote my post about E Ink persistency, I noted that E Ink has a display at their office that was turned off in 2001 - and it still shows the image correctly. A nice reader just sent me the following photo, showing an Active-Matrix E Ink display that was last refreshed on November 2000 - yes, 11 years ago!

This panel was developed by Philips, with the front panel made by E Ink and the back plane (AM) made in Philip' LCD plant in Kobe, Japan. The reader says that this is actually the world's first active-matrix E Ink panel, and is probably the oldest one that still shows an image. Over the years it has long some of its contrast, but the image is still clearly visible.

Here's a very cool E Ink display idea - PopSLATE is an upcoming project (trying to raise $150,000 at IndieGogo, currently they have almost $80,000) that aims to develop an iPhone 5 cover with an E Ink display:

In the beginning, they will only support Instagram (so you can show a photo on the E Ink display), but later on the will provide an API so more applications can use the screen. Pretty cool. They save they have "strong support: from E Ink, and hopefully they'll manage to raise enough money to start developing this.

Update: the contest is over, we have two winners with two great ideas!

Last week we posted about E Ink display persistency - and the fact that those displays can actually retain an image for years. Now it's your turn to try and think of applications for this feature. Besides making some nice B&W photo frames - what cool things can be done with a display that can stay persistent for such long times without a power source? For example gadgets that only need to change the display once a day...

Back in August 2011 E Ink sent me a nice gift - a picture frame with an E Ink "display". It's not really a display as you can't change the image - it's just like a printed photo, using a monochrome E Ink panel. Now it's been over a year since I received the frame, and when I look at it seems the image hasn't changed at all. We all know that E Ink displays are bi-stable - they do not require any energy to show a static display (the picture the frame has no batteries, of course) - but the displays are actually persistent for years.

E Ink says that if the display if sealed and protected properly - it simply will not deteriorate, unless exposed to extreme temperature (a strong magnetic or electric field should not effect the display). In fact, E Ink says that they have a display that was turned off in 2001 - and the image is still visible.

E Ink just shared this funny new video, comparing E Ink e-readers to tablets for reading applications. They discuss the usual E Ink advantages (lower power and good readability under direct light) - but they also say that your e-reader is better than your tablet for reading - because it does not distract you with emails, messages and videos. The motto is "E Ink is the best for focused reading, anything less is a distraction":

Maybe I'm not objective, but I agree with them on that one. While most people prefer a tablet over an e-reader because it can do much more, I personally prefer my Kindle (the new paperwhite one) to read. I love that it's low-power and low weight (I cannot understand how people can hold a 900 gram tablet for hours) and of course the E Ink display is great. I also think it's true that when you read, a device that is actually less capable will be better...

Epson announced a new controller-driver module for flexible E Ink-style displays based around Plastic Logic's OTFT arrays (shown in the video below). The new module (named S1D13541) supports E Ink displays 1 to 5 inches in size, and the maximum resolution is 480x854. It needs an external TFT gate driver.

The S1D13541 includes four display pipelines, which can be used in parallel to represent up to 16 levels of grey, 480 TFT source driver outputs, waveform memory, DC/DC boost circuit to generate "all required display voltages and a temperature sensor.

Project Vivit (a Japan-based company) unveiled a 6" color E Ink prototype that is fast enough to display video. They wouldn't disclose any more technical details, beside the fact that it uses a Seiko Epson SoC which enables the fast response time.

China's Onyx is working on an E Ink smartphone running Android. Obviously Android isn't perfect on E Ink (no color, slow refreshes) - but this is an interesting concept and might be quite usable for some people. Battery life is said to be around 1 week, but this will obviously depends on how much you talk and use the phone.

During IFA 2012 in September, E Ink themselves showed a prototype dual-screen smartphone with an LCD on side and an E Ink display on the other side. This is a really clever idea, but in the meantime we'll have to settle with Onyx's E Ink only phone...