The other monitor milestone - New E-reader with colored E-ink

[williamcll]

Traditionally, E-ink tablets such as the Amazon Kindle are only available in monochrome colors, however, a company has announced that they have developed a new monitor called the  Advanced Colour ePaper.

Quote

Mono e-ink displays are quite commonplace now. These low power persistent displays have found a natural home in e-reader devices but have been making their way into other interesting gadgets. However, e-ink and colour don't seem to have mixed, which holds back the display's potential.

Now the E Ink company hopes to expand the colour e-ink market with a new technology dubbed 'Print-Color E Ink'. The new tech means that colour e-ink displays can be similarly fast and as responsive as their mono brethren. Moreover, the 'Print-Color E Ink' panels are thinner and lighter than previous glass colour filter electronic paper while offering a better optical quality.

The attractions of this eye-health-friendly display will be first marketed to reading, education, and professional use applications. Taiwan's CTimes says these screens will first feature in products such as e-readers or e-paper notebooks aimed at these markets.

As well as 'Print-Color E Ink', E Ink develops and markets Advanced Colour ePaper (AceP) - a high-quality and fully-reflective colour e-paper display. This allows for a richer colour experience that maintains low power consumption and sunlight readability. AceP is targeted at digital signage and retail markets and is currently available in 13.3-inch demo kit form with a bundled Raspberry Pi 3. There must be something about the more saturated and vibrant looking AceP that makes it unsuitable for the kinds of applications 'Print-Color E Ink' will be used for - perhaps power consumption, response times, and/or panel thickness/weight.

Back with Print-Color E Ink, and it was demonstrated on a couple of devices at the Wacom Connected Event in Japan last month (see video above). A report and video from the event say that it will be in mass production by Q2 2020 and be shipping in products by Q3 2020.

Source:https://hexus.net/mobile/news/e-readers/138080-colour-e-ink-displays-way-e-readers-e-notebooks/

https://www.eink.com/

http://en.ctimes.com.tw/DispNews.asp?O=HK3CGCCW3NISAA00NG

Thoughts: E-readers have always walked in the shadow of Tablet computers, perhaps with this technology they gain more foothold in the market.

[That Franc]

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/08/technology/08ink.html

 

Coloured e-ink screens have been available for close to a decade. What's different this time?

[williamcll]

7 minutes ago, That Franc said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/08/technology/08ink.html

 

Coloured e-ink screens have been available for close to a decade. What's different this time?

Odd, I guess they've never really sold the product at all?

[TempestCatto]

15 minutes ago, That Franc said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/08/technology/08ink.html

 

Coloured e-ink screens have been available for close to a decade. What's different this time?

Perhaps it was expensive and not very feasible for the consumer market just yet. That and tech has come a very long way in ten years. So I'm sure whatever the concept was ten years ago has been vastly improved upon since.

[Radium_Angel]

35 minutes ago, williamcll said:

they gain more foothold in the market.

With the kind of lag they showcase in the video, I highly doubt it!

[Doobeedoo]

What I'm waiting is when we'll move away from LCD for monitors that still lack CRT clarity in motion. MicroLED can't come soon enough. 

[WereCatf]

I've been waiting for high-colour (ie. 64 colours or more) e-Ink displays for a long time now, but things just don't look promising. Even the monochrome-ones are still stupid expensive and the reasons are purely licensing- and greed-related instead of technical. I would have PLENTY of use in my DIY-projects for reasonably-sized, reasonably-priced e-Ink displays.

[Kilrah]

1 hour ago, That Franc said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/08/technology/08ink.html

 

Coloured e-ink screens have been available for close to a decade. What's different this time?

They weren't full color, only a choice between 2-3 predefined colors. And extremely slow.

[Bombastinator]

The problem as I understand it is the macanics of how the tech works.  E-ink is bajillions of tiny little magnetized balls that are colored.  B/w is easiest because the balls are half black, half white and they just flip them. Colored e-ink is striped like a beach ball black, white, red, green, blue cyan, magenta, yellow. and they not only have to flip them more carefully but they can show less of the ball because they have to cover most of it.  They’ve probably done something clever here like figure out a way to use 3 color balls they can show more of and do black and white another way.  

[Bombastinator]

6 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

why not separate CMYK with white undersides? if 300ppi RGGB subpixels are too small to discern, i'm pretty sure the overlap (in regular offset printing) won't be necessary ._.

Might be that way too.  Stil 5 sections though.  It’s reflective color so cmyk is what they would actually use.  Or cmy with k(black) and white.  I’ve been thinking in production color too long. Rgb is wrong.  Wouldn’t work.

 

fixed now.  Thanks.

[RedRound2]

2 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

With the kind of lag they showcase in the video, I highly doubt it!

What are you talking about? E-inks have always been this laggy. They need to refresh the whole screen and it always takes about a second

[Kilrah]

The "half white half black" balls was how it was initially done but hasn't been like that anymore for a decade or more. There's liquid in the balls with charged colored particles floating in it, half of them are positively charged and black, half of them are negatively charged and white (or the opposite, you get the idea) and an electric field pushes some in front and the others in the back or vice versa. 3-color is done with different particle sizes so some move slower.

[Kilrah]

BTW that same AecP was already mentioned in this video back in March.

[Radium_Angel]

1 hour ago, RedRound2 said:

What are you talking about? E-inks have always been this laggy. They need to refresh the whole screen and it always takes about a second

I'm fully aware of that.

I have seen e-ink readers, and that's acceptable for that sort of thing, but the video shows a tablet like device with google maps, play store, etc, where that kind of lag wouldn't be acceptable...

[yian88]

pointless tech without fast response high resolution and at least LCD quality its not an usefull product for consumers maybe for other uses.

[RedRound2]

20 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

I'm fully aware of that.

I have seen e-ink readers, and that's acceptable for that sort of thing, but the video shows a tablet like device with google maps, play store, etc, where that kind of lag wouldn't be acceptable...

 

17 minutes ago, yian88 said:

pointless tech without fast response high resolution and at least LCD quality its not an usefull product for consumers maybe for other uses.

 

This isn't a technology to replace LCD or OLED screens. It's just an alternative tech where persistent images can be shown on huge displays without any power consumption. Imagine, billboards, ads, book readers, etc. And in that regard, coloured e-ink displays is truly a great thing, even if it's colour range might be limited compared to what we're used to these days

[CephDigital]

Ooooo interesting, would be cool to see this in a smart watch.

[Zodiark1593]

1 hour ago, yian88 said:

pointless tech without fast response high resolution and at least LCD quality its not an usefull product for consumers maybe for other uses.

E-ink displays are designed to supplant paper, not interactive displays.

 

Along with books and manga, this would be really useful for colored pdfs, such as digitized game guides.

[Kilrah]

2 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

I'm fully aware of that.

I have seen e-ink readers, and that's acceptable for that sort of thing, but the video shows a tablet like device with google maps, play store, etc, where that kind of lag wouldn't be acceptable...

I have a Mobiscribe, it's basically an eReader but that's also a notepad with a wacom-style stylus and touchscreen and runs android, seems their demo unit in the video is similar. You won't be running android apps as a main function, it's still primarily for the above 2 functions, but it's convenient to be able to. That way you can load apps for your favorite file formats without issue, use network sync/cloud solutions etc,...

Will be nice to have that with color too.

[DeScruff]

6 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

The problem as I understand it is the macanics of how the tech works.  E-ink is bajillions of tiny little magnetized balls that are colored.  B/w is easiest because the balls are half black, half white and they just flip them. Colored e-ink is striped like a beach ball black, white, red, green, blue cyan, magenta, yellow. and they not only have to flip them more carefully but they can show less of the ball because they have to cover most of it.  They’ve probably done something clever here like figure out a way to use 3 color balls they can show more of and do black and white another way.  

I remember hearing they work like too... But its fairly inaccurate (refering to "flipping" in B/W)

Technology connections has a video on this skip foward to 6:20 on this video: https://youtu.be/dhRgw0HfrYU

 

Edit darn you mobile only noticed now someone else posted the video.

 

Its fancinating how it works. Its kinda like toner but without the fusing part of the laser printer

[Bombastinator]

29 minutes ago, Sypran said:

I remember hearing they work like too... But its fairly inaccurate (refering to "flipping" in B/W)

Technology connections has a video on this skip foward to 6:20 on this video: https://youtu.be/dhRgw0HfrYU

 

Edit darn you mobile only noticed now someone else posted the video.

 

Its fancinating how it works. Its kinda like toner but without the fusing part of the laser printer

So it seems. It’s tiny little bags of fluid with magnetic particles in them.  That’s a world of difference.  I wonder where I read that.  Early attempts maybe?  Well it’s good to be updated.   Thankyou

[Kilrah]

Either it was early attempts, or just the "simplified version for dummies" that went into mainstream media.

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Either it was early attempts, or just the "simplified version for dummies" that went into mainstream media.

Inaccurate version by dummies anyway.  Seems to be a repetitive problem.  Too much information telephone game turns into BS so fast.

[DeScruff]

26 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

So it seems. It’s tiny little bags of fluid with magnetic particles in them.  That’s a world of difference.  I wonder where I read that.  Early attempts maybe?  Well it’s good to be updated.   Thankyou

Did you used to watch G4TV? specifically "Attack of the Show"?
Cause I am fairly sure that was where I first heard it described as "flipping ping pong balls" - back when the first kindle first came out.

[RainingTacco]

Pros of eink screen vs modern smartphone amoled/ips screen with high ppi[like retina level -300 ppi]?