[HN Gopher] E Ink smart screen puts a newspaper on your wall
___________________________________________________________________
E Ink smart screen puts a newspaper on your wall
Author : hiharryhere
Score : 472 points
Date : 2020-04-10 09:22 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (onezero.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (onezero.medium.com)
| social_quotient wrote:
| I wish for a baby monitor made out of an e-ink display. Would
| love to have a non emitting screen on for that. Maybe someday...
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| For $1500 you can buy a 55" 4K OLED screen.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/LG-OLED55C9PUA-Alexa-Built-Ultra/dp/B...
| ericd wrote:
| But that's not at all a good fit for what he's doing with this.
| _ph_ wrote:
| That is why I am wondering how low the prices of a 31 inch
| e-ink screen could come down, if only produced in reasonably
| high volume.
| b0rsuk wrote:
| Why there's no JS framework good at shaping text into columns and
| automatically flowing text around images? I understand it's not
| exactly trivial, but aren't the benefits obvious? It's so much
| more pleasant to read. Instead, we get designers praising
| "gorgeous" designs with a single narrow column, big fonts, etc.
| Why are designers missing the big picture?
| mplewis wrote:
| I think we call that CSS.
| lerpapoo wrote:
| would be cool with one that just shows a fresh copy of the times
| on a wall everyday but picks one for the current day from random
| ones in the past. or maybe make it fun where it picks one from
| the past with similar headlines.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| I was thinking the exact same thing. Or better yet, if you
| touch the screen, it changes to show a random front-page from
| that "day in history".
| capableweb wrote:
| Bonus points if you add a webcam that face scans the person who
| is standing in front of them, matches the face with the
| numerous profiles built from people (some combination of
| Facebook + Twitter + GitHub would probably find most people),
| get their birthday and show the frontpage from when they were
| born.
| kubami wrote:
| I am not sure if this is a reference to telescreen from 1984
| or not.
| capableweb wrote:
| Kind of but the vital difference that the entities holding
| the data are for-profit companies with no oversight instead
| of governments with no oversight.
| thomk wrote:
| Or if they were ever in the paper..
| dade_ wrote:
| New York Times redefines the paywall. How do I enter my credit
| card number or does it support tap payment?
| bArray wrote:
| "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.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldolTAeXs_w
| joyj2nd wrote:
| Great. But I don't want a f. Newspaper on my f. wall, I want a
| working, decent priced eInk screen for my computer.
| Erlich_Bachman wrote:
| Check out onyx boox offerings. They have an 11inch tablet that
| works as e-reader, and also as external HDMI (with HDMI port in
| the tablet) screen that can be connected to any device.
| uryga wrote:
| the Technology Connections yt channel has an experience
| report about the Onyx Boox Max 2 tablet (13.3 inch):
|
| https://youtu.be/7NfX0vlCa4k
|
| tldw: it's not great for non-ereader tasks. the display is
| fine, but the tablet is hampered by slow hardware and bugs in
| its customized Android. using normal apps is challenging even
| with the compat tricks the OS gives you (e.g. disabling
| animations, "high contrast")
|
| he mentions that Onyx also offers a non-tablet e-ink monitor,
| maybe that's better?
| Tade0 wrote:
| And here I am, wishing for a, for lack of a better term, binder
| of E-Ink sheets which would display what I currently working on.
| cs02rm0 wrote:
| Can anyone offer an LCD alternative?
| bryogenic wrote:
| All that beautiful design work and it still has a cord hanging
| off of it?
|
| A bit of drywall and electrical work would hide the cord
| completely; but I understand if that isn't possible in an
| apartment.
| secfirstmd wrote:
| Wowza. Put this out there fully and take my money.
| busymom0 wrote:
| I realize this might be a joke but is that even possible to do
| considering the eink display they used has a NDA on it and they
| couldn't even discuss the code? Also the $1500 price tag on top
| of the NDA was absolutely shocking to me.
| secfirstmd wrote:
| Yeh having read a bit more detail on their site you might be
| right. I think there is nothing more frustrating then
| companies that make it hard for you to give them your money.
| TacticalTable wrote:
| My guess is that these are effectively handmade prototype
| units, made almost at/below cost, to allow companies to
| experiment with limited runs and determine business
| viability, which would leave the possibility of large
| orders/contracts, whereas consumers are much less
| predictable and reliable.
| 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote:
| At this point OLED 4K screens of the same dimensions are
| _cheaper_ than e-ink. I really hope the the prices come down
| because these are just so awesome.
| pmichaud wrote:
| I am looking forward to having an e-ink monitor that I can write
| on (in the sense of using a word processor and looking at it
| through an eink monitor).
| DenisM wrote:
| Seen this? You can take it outside!
|
| https://getfreewrite.com/products/freewrite-traveler
| foofoo4u wrote:
| I love my Kindle's e-ink display for reading books and news
| articles. I simply cannot enjoy consuming this content as much
| with any other medium. But not only do I enjoy to read, but I
| also enjoy to write as well. I would love to have an e-ink
| monitor where I can type away my thoughts on my mechanical
| keyboard in a distraction free interface. I am surprised
| something like this doesn't exist. I would be more inclined to
| write more if it did.
| amelius wrote:
| This guy thought about every aspect of the UX except the fact
| that reading a newspaper from the wall is very bad ergonomically
| because the reading-height is most often not at eye-height
| because of the large size of the display!
| Animats wrote:
| It's a great idea, although kind of pricey, like most E-Ink
| stuff. (E-Ink was supposed to be cheap, but that didn't work
| out.) You could probably sell some of these to executive offices.
| Grustaf wrote:
| That's awesome, I always read my newspaper like that, hanging it
| in a wall.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| I believe this was how it used to be before the invention of
| the printing press [1]
|
| > Royal pronouncements typically used a written document posted
| on the drawbridge, castle door or main bridge into the village,
| but residents needed the crier to announce the information for
| those who were unable to read.
|
| [1] https://classroom.synonym.com/did-people-communicate-
| before-...
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I was gonna say...unless it's the wall across from my toilet,
| I'm not sure it would be functionally compatible with me.
| codegladiator wrote:
| And pretty soon it will be ads inside your house on your walls
| to calm you down.
| DenisM wrote:
| 2560x1440 at 31" is 95 ppi, in case you wondering.
| simplecto wrote:
| They can take the daily screenshots from my side project [1] and
| rotate them on their very cool screen.
|
| 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/
| mtzaldo wrote:
| So, yesterday post asking about a e-ink screen was a post to get
| people curious about it so you can click on this story _clever_
| mentos wrote:
| Anyone know what the thickness of the sheet is?
|
| If these were as cheap and thin as real paper what would the best
| application of this technology be?
| luka-birsa wrote:
| Such a good project. Reminds me of some of the projects people
| hacked using our solutions - for example this Digital Picture
| frame that is displaying the latest tweet from Donald Trump:
| https://www.visionect.com/blog/sign-of-the-times/.
| harshitaneja wrote:
| I was thinking of getting a large E Ink display and whenever I
| would have a guest the cameras in the house could capture their
| face and use a GAN or some model to change to create an image
| using their face and update the display just for a few seconds to
| spook guests. I studied E Ink displays and the low contrast ratio
| and enormous costs flushed my prank in a drain.
| anthk wrote:
| 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.
| solarkraft wrote:
| > 1500$ display
|
| > (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.
| JustFinishedBSG wrote:
| > Additionally, how did they convince them they're not a
| consumer?
|
| By being a very wealthy google product manager ?
| Debonnys wrote:
| This is awesome!
|
| 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 wrote:
| Smaller e-ink displays are astronomically cheaper--I wonder if
| connecting several of them and then rastering the pdf would
| look much different?
| untog wrote:
| The joins would have to very _seamless_. The visual
| presentation is the whole point of this thing, so you wouldn
| 't want to ruin that.
| joi_de_vivre wrote:
| These guys make it seem nice:
| https://www.visionect.com/blog/tiling-eink-displays/. It
| would probably be a pain to set up, though.
| alistairSH wrote:
| 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.
| _ph_ wrote:
| 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.
| andrewla wrote:
| My theory is that since the settlement with Hachette, they
| don't see any way to make money in the space. E-books are
| ridiculously over-priced at the moment, and Amazon is not
| allowed to discount, so it makes it difficult to build up the
| kinds of volume Amazon needs to really push the market. Their
| direct publishing arm has lost a lot of momentum as
| publishers have really stepped up their game in acquiring
| authors because of the influx of cash they get through this
| system.
|
| As a side note, the Oasis is for me the pinnacle so far of
| the Kindle family -- the physical buttons and the asymmetric
| design make in an excellent device. It suffers from some
| usability in the touch screen, and the shopping experience is
| super shitty, but the device itself when you're reading a
| book is excellent.
|
| Amazon with their devices tends to push their own content,
| rather than the Apple model of having "apps" -- if Amazon
| would just make their own content second-class (by providing
| an API and an "amazon reader app" for the device, and
| allowing other bookstores and reader apps) then it would
| really be quite phenomenal.
| sparker72678 wrote:
| Seems like a reasonable conjecture.
|
| If this is the case, I wish they'd give in and support ePub
| and make side-loading a bit easier so that books purchased
| elsewhere could be added to your Kindle.
|
| I'd love an ultimate-eInk-reader device that supported
| everything from everywhere.
|
| (Yes, I have Calibre. It's way too tedious for most
| people.)
| achn wrote:
| You use commas, quite strangely.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Into random places to put, commas I quite like!
| WalterBright wrote:
| You can pry my Kindle DX from my cold, dead hands!
| cemregr wrote:
| Cringeworthy statement from the manufacturer:
|
| (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.
| _ph_ wrote:
| It is not quite uncommon to make evaluation kits only available
| to commercial customers as they come in a very bare form,
| lacking any safety notes and so on.
|
| But in the end points to what I think is wrong with e-ink:
| there are no offerings for hobbyists, which could help a lot to
| create markets. Why not have at least some displays sold for
| the Raspberry Pi crowd?
| flowersjeff wrote:
| Yeah, but it does seem like this could be a retail (via
| online sales) product. I don't really see many e-ink
| commercially deployed around me, and I'm in the bay area. I
| think the company(ies) controlling this tech ought to try to
| do anything to make their products more accessible/used.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| 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.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| 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?
| londons_explore wrote:
| I think it's insecure business leaders.
|
| They are worried a competitor might pop up and outcompete
| them, and they hope that lumbering their employees, their
| suppliers, and their customers with NDA's will prevent anyone
| from becoming that competitor.
|
| I'm not sure they realise how much the NDA's scare off good
| employees, suppliers, and customers, leaving them unable to
| make quick progress, and in turn making them ripe for someone
| to outcompete.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| And if someone does come along to compete with them, they
| might use patent lawfare to drive them out of business.
| roland35 wrote:
| I'm sure the NDA also says you're not supposed to talk about
| the NDA! We're all in trouble now.
| vasco wrote:
| We didn't sign it.
| magduf wrote:
| That probably doesn't matter to the people pushing the NDA.
| Why should they care about the realities of contract law,
| when they can just make up lies and get people to believe
| them under threat of lawsuit?
|
| It's just like how so many car dealerships will tell you
| that getting your car serviced anywhere else will "void
| your warranty" even though that's blatantly illegal.
| [deleted]
| bottle2 wrote:
| I didn't see the NDA, but it has this forbidding message (which
| I think the author of the article ignored):
|
| "(II) PURCHASER IS PURCHASING THE PRODUCTS FOR COMMERCIAL USE
| AND/OR IN A BUSINESS CAPACITY. ORDERS PLACED BY CONSUMERS WILL
| NOT BE ACCEPTED."
| sparker72678 wrote:
| It's possible they have agreements with whomever they're
| supplying that they won't compete by selling direct to
| consumers.
| jrockway wrote:
| I am sure the author put "Google X" in the "company" line of
| the order form and they didn't ask any further questions. (Or
| if they did, "it's confidential", and they probably sent him
| a couple extras for free.)
| runxel wrote:
| I'm pretty sure this is not lawful so you can't be sued if
| you lied in the first place.
| teraflop wrote:
| Why would it not be lawful?
| runxel wrote:
| Ask the other way around: Why would this be lawful?
|
| If you sell something you give up any rights on the item
| sold. You can not any longer demand what the object
| should be used for, nor by whom it should be used.
| flowersjeff wrote:
| ...How dare you even consider making something cool that others
| might want, and result in further sales! For Shame!
|
| (Truly insane position of the company - they ought to hire this
| person and make this a product one can buy.)
| Quequau wrote:
| 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.
| noir_lord wrote:
| I don't understand it either, a decent profit on a vast
| number of units versus a higher profit on a smaller number is
| a classic trade off.
|
| I guess they make enough from ebook readers they don't want
| to make them more widely available.
| sparker72678 wrote:
| Selling to one big company is a way better deal for most
| businesses if you can swing it. You have ONE customer to
| deal with, instead of thousands or millions, they will
| (likely) give you a ton of cash up front as you ramp up
| your production (payment for the rest on delivery), and you
| only have to work out how to ship them to one location,
| instead of either setting up a storefront or finding a
| distributor. You have easy-to-forecast revenue and you can
| stay in your niche as a component manufacturer instead of
| becoming a consumer goods product company.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > You have ONE customer to deal with
|
| That has its downsides. For one thing, they own you. For
| another, if their plans shift, you are out of business.
| woofie11 wrote:
| I'm not sure that's the trade-off. My experience is that
| it's hard to predict where new technologies will be used
| (see history of radio and telephone).
|
| With something like eInk, getting it into the hands of
| engineers building wonky prototypes would allow rapid
| exploration of a lot of new markets.
|
| But yeah, many business leaders are insecure and don't
| understand IP.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| _ph_ wrote:
| 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?
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| Because worse is better and LCDs and OLED dominate the display
| market.
|
| 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.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| On that matter, is there any reason why I can't find high-
| resolution monochrome non-backlit TFT matrices?
|
| I.e. how are they worse than rink?
| mdorazio wrote:
| If you've never had a screen with a broken backlight it
| might not be obvious, but without the light a normal TFT
| display is basically unreadable except in very specific
| orientations due to the way the layers are sandwiched.
| You're probably looking for what's referred to as
| "transparent LCD", which I think still are not very nice to
| look at (Google has plenty of example pictures).
| 101404 wrote:
| What is better, a hammer or a screw driver?
| FlyMoreRockets wrote:
| You can use a hammer to make a screw driver.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I often use a screw driver to hammer things.
| [deleted]
| sneak wrote:
| "raises the question", not "begs". That means something else.
|
| http://begthequestion.info
| slavik81 wrote:
| "You need better pickup lines. An introduction like that begs
| a slap in the face."
|
| "Stay away from that switch! Running the factory lights at
| night begs a German bomb right on top of us."
|
| "I beg your pardon?"
|
| "That's an interesting link, but it begs the question, 'why
| does an archaic idiom invalidate the plain meaning of a
| phrase?'"
|
| The English language is well prepared to deal with
| ambiguities. There are countless words and phrases with
| multiple meanings. This one is not even confusing! One is
| always followed by the question it raises, which makes it
| quite obvious what they meant.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Improper user of "begs the question" is like nails on
| chalkboard for me. Still, this has to be the best
| counterargument I've read. Well done.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Thanks for the information, I am a non-native speaker and
| only picked up the expression from the net. I have to admit
| though, that I fail to understand the reasoning on that page
| other than "it means something different".
| ableal wrote:
| It's somewhat like the phrase "it beggars belief" - it
| means that 'belief' is left in a very poor condition,
| begging alms ...
| sneak wrote:
| Don't sweat it, it's a common error made by native speakers
| too, myself included until I learned about it. :)
| zimpenfish wrote:
| It's really not an error anymore because it's been in
| common usage for years.
| rriepe wrote:
| Let them be. If we didn't have prescriptivists,
| everything would literally mean nothing.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| And if that was the common usage that people agreed on
| and understood, that would be perfectly fine. It's
| literally how language works!
| throwanem wrote:
| People who complain about this are mostly just being
| preciously prescriptivist, and they typically do a
| shockingly poor job of explaining the issue.
|
| To "beg the question", canonically, is to argue in a way
| that only makes sense if whatever you're arguing to support
| is true. It's a difficult sort of fallacy to provide
| examples for because it's quite rare, so most examples you
| see tend to be constructed for the sake of complaining
| about the supposed misuse of the phrase "beg the question",
| and so either trivial or incomprehensible or both.
|
| Too, the phrase "beg the question" itself relies on a
| rather outmoded sense of the word "beg", whose rarity in
| modern usage makes the prescribed meaning of the phrase
| very difficult to intuit compared to the supposedly
| incorrect one.
|
| All of which _begs the question_ : why should anyone care
| what complaints linguistic prescriptivists make in the case
| of this phrase, any more than in the case of any other?
| earthboundkid wrote:
| Someone mistranslated Latin into English 300 years ago and
| now some nerds are mad that people are misinterpreting the
| mistranslation. Best to just ignore the whole thing by
| never writing "begging the question." Always write either
| "raising the question" or "circular reasoning" depending on
| what you mean.
| chrbr wrote:
| Never knew that. Today I learned something!
| screye wrote:
| This is one of those cases where the popular (initially
| incorrect) use of the word has far outstripped the one this
| link mentions.
|
| It's like the word 'literally' (whose bastardization is both
| far more egregious and hilarious)
|
| Even Google now reflects the 'incorrect' use of beg as the
| primary meaning of it: beg - raise a
| question or point that has not been dealt with; invite an
| obvious question
|
| Unfortunate, but true.
| LanceH wrote:
| The "problem" with "begs the question" is that makes
| literal sense. Then there are people who know that phrase
| from something and apparently once a phrase is used
| somewhere it can't be used in any other context to mean
| anything else.
|
| There is no problem here as long it isn't being applied to
| the wrong logical fallacy.
|
| A guy walks into a bar with a duck on his head, which begs
| the question, "why is there a duck on his head?" (be
| asked.)
|
| "Begging" and "asking for" are commonly used to
| anthropomorphize situations. "The ball spinning on the goal
| line was begging to be tapped in." "With John's attitude,
| he was was just asking to be fired."
|
| Nothing wrong with the phrase at all. It is consistent with
| other common usages.
|
| Maybe it's the phrase used in the logical fallacy that
| doesn't make sense.
| gjm11 wrote:
| Yup.
|
| The hweird logical-fallacy use of "begging the question"
| is a mistranslation.
|
| It goes back to Aristotle, who talked about "to ex
| arkhes", meaning "asking for the first thing". That is:
| you're debating some proposition X, which in the
| rhetorical terminology of the time was called "the first
| thing" (imagine that you're holding an actual debate, and
| you start by saying: The question before us is whether
| X), and the logical fallacy is when, in the course of
| arguing for X, you assume (ask us to accept -- ask for)
| X, the "first thing".
|
| So far, so good.
|
| So after the age when Serious Thinking was done in Greek
| came the age when Serious Thinking was done in Latin.
| Aristotle's term was translated to "petitio principii".
| The first word means "assuming" in mediaeval Latin but
| "asking for" in classical Latin. The second word means
| "first thing", a rather literal translation of the Greek.
|
| So far, still so good.
|
| And then, some time in the 16th century, some genius
| decided to translate the term into English and (1) render
| "petitio" as "asking for" ("begging") rather than
| "assuming", and (2) render "principii" as "question"
| instead of "first thing". Presumably they did #1 because
| "asking for" is _one_ meaning of "petitio", even though
| it's not the one that's relevant here. Presumably they
| did #2 because in a debate (which, again, was the
| original context for the term) "the question" means
| whatever proposition you're debating.
|
| The result of which is the ridiculous term we have now.
| The common usage of the phrase to mean "raising the
| question" is a _much_ better thing for "begging the
| question" to mean. Personally, I mostly avoid using the
| term at all because some people will think it means
| "raising the question" and think I'm weird and pedantic
| if I use it to mean "arguing in a circle", while other
| people will think it means "arguing in a circle" and
| think I'm ignorant if I use it to mean "raising the
| question". (So it's an example of what Fowler called a
| "skunked" term:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunked_term.)
| renewiltord wrote:
| Haha brilliant, thank you for that etymology trace and
| the Skunked Term phrase! Good stuff.
| mcphage wrote:
| > It's like the word 'literally' (whose bastardization is
| both far more egregious and hilarious)
|
| "literally" has been used to mean "figuratively" for
| hundreds of years, by plenty of famous authors. The idea
| that "literally" should _only_ mean "actually; without
| exaggeration or inaccuracy" seems to be the actual recent
| invention.
| andrewla wrote:
| Mostly a question of euphemism drift (or rhetorical
| drift, if that's a thing) -- "really" and "very" are
| former terms that meant "without exaggeration or
| inaccuracy" but slowly drifted towards a rhetoric use.
| rriepe wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| (That's another one that tends to mean the opposite)
| aembleton wrote:
| What is the point of the word literally then? What
| information does it convey if not to say that it is
| actually, without exaggeration?
| mcphage wrote:
| > What is the point of the word literally then?
|
| I don't think words have a _point_.
|
| > What information does it convey if not to say that it
| is actually, without exaggeration?
|
| Sometimes it does convey that. And sometimes it's merely
| an intensifier. Lots of words are like that.
| ajennings wrote:
| The problem is that we need a way to say "actually;
| without exaggeration or inaccuracy" succinctly. Also, to
| say "I am using an idiom, but non-idiomatically."
|
| "Literally" should be that tool. I understand that a
| word's meaning is, by definition, what people mean when
| they say it, but it is frustrating to have this
| communication tool drift away with nothing to replace it.
|
| As another commenter said, this same thing happened to
| "very" and "really" in the past. So maybe it's time to
| let "literally" go and make up a new word for it?
| mcphage wrote:
| > but it is frustrating to have this communication tool
| drift away with nothing to replace it.
|
| My point is that it isn't "drifting away"--it has been
| used as an intensifier for _hundreds_ of years.
| m463 wrote:
| Also do something on accident (instead of by accident).
|
| And the word softwares (software is correct for the plural
| form).
| alexilliamson wrote:
| You're doing God's work. That site is hilarious.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| begs the question has multiple meanings now because we say it
| does.
| vortico wrote:
| This is my _only_ grammatical pet peeve, so thanks for the
| link. I 'll be posting that around some. :)
| zimpenfish wrote:
| It's daft wrong-headed prescriptivism contrary to all
| common sense and usage. It just screams "I don't care about
| actual language, just silly pedantry".
| ryandvm wrote:
| I like to be a grammar Nazi as much as the next guy, but
| honestly I'm over this one.
|
| It seems that the logical fallacy definition of "begs the
| question" has now become a recursive example of question
| begging itself. The only reason it means self-referencing
| argument is because 10% of the population believes it does.
| I'm half-convinced this was all just some linguist's April
| Fool's prank gone awry.
|
| The reality is the literal definition of "begs the question"
| is commonly accepted, well understood, and frankly, makes a
| hell of lot more sense. I'm fairly certain that it is the
| _only_ definition for that term that is held by a majority of
| English speakers. If that doesn 't make it the official
| definition, then what does? There is no English Language
| Preservation Organization. If most people think that is what
| it means, then that is what it means.
| boffinism wrote:
| Nah. "Beg the question" is used as a term of art in academia
| to mean one thing, but it is also used in common parlance to
| mean something else.
|
| See also 'fruit', and whether or not tomatoes are displayed
| in the vegetable aisle.
| jimktrains2 wrote:
| Botanically it's a fruit. Culinary its uses are more
| aligned with those of a vegetable.
|
| Fruits and vegetables aren't opposite things. Fruit is a
| term of art in botany, but it's lay usage is fairly close
| to that. The word vegetable can be fairly broad to include
| almost any edible part of a plant. This is why I'm a
| vegetarian and not a vegetarian and fruitarian.
|
| Culinary vegetable is often used as a "soft opposite" of
| fruit because they often require different preparations and
| uses.
|
| The interesting thing about "begs the question" is that
| it's a matter of who is doing the begging (asking).
| Classically your answer is asking for your premise, so
| you're sort of working backwards and likely circularly. In
| modern usage, the answer is asking for more research.
|
| Sometimes people use it to mean dodging a question, which
| I'm not quite sure why and would consider wrong usage.
| hyperdimension wrote:
| Off topic, but well, as the saying goes, "Knowledge is
| knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a
| fruit salad."
| throwanem wrote:
| 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.
| Roritharr wrote:
| For the quoted 1500$ for the display I could buy a printer
| and print the page for quite some time...
| throwanem wrote:
| A large-format printer, yet. A Pixma Pro 1000 that can do
| excellent 17x22-inch prints - and color! - only runs about
| a grand, so you'd even have a bit left over for some good
| Hahnemuhle photo paper.
| mrmanner wrote:
| While the format is an important point, I don't
| understand why one would print a newspaper front page on
| good paper?
| throwanem wrote:
| Beats me, but that's not really my point anyway.
| Displaying photographs was cited as a good use case for
| an e-ink display, and as a photographer who puts
| considerable effort into producing high-quality display
| prints of their work, I felt it worth explaining why
| that's a _terrible_ use case for e-ink.
|
| (Anyway, why do people frame newspaper front pages? Given
| the total lack of archival quality in newsprint, I could
| see scanning and printing to frame in a way that'd hold
| up better over time.)
| tjoff wrote:
| I don't think those use-cases are in collision with one
| another. I'd be happy to take an e-ink display for
| photographs.
|
| But also buy high-quality prints as well. Even though
| both will end up on the wall they are totally different
| use-cases.
| throwanem wrote:
| Are they? I don't see how. Where's the use in displaying
| a photograph, at whatever size, as a muddy, contrastless
| mess?
| nitrogen wrote:
| The advantage of e-ink is that it blends perfectly with
| the ambient lighting, without eyestrain or backlight
| bleed. Low contrast is kind of the point, combined with
| the ability to change the display remotely/automatically.
| throwanem wrote:
| What's here under discussion is contrast ratio - not
| contrast between the image and its surroundings, but
| contrast between the lightest and darkest tones that can
| be represented within the image itself. Another term
| would be "dynamic range", if that helps; "contrast ratio"
| is how the concept is typically expressed in the context
| of raster displays, so that's what I've gone with here.
|
| Under either name, it's a major figure of merit for
| quality of image reproduction, and my point is that
| e-ink, being worst at it of any raster display technology
| of which I'm aware, is thus a very poor choice for
| displaying images if quality of reproduction is a
| criterion.
| nitrogen wrote:
| I know, and quality of photographic reproduction is not a
| criterion I would need from an eink display. My goal is
| subtlety. Honestly in a parallel universe I have probably
| built the same exact prototypes from the blog. My
| (defunct) startup was called Nitrogen Logic because
| technology should be as critical but invisible as the
| nitrogen in the air.
|
| I am totally fine with an 8:1 contrast ratio if it gives
| me perfect integration into the ambient light :)
|
| Photography would be displayed elsewhere, in a place that
| is _meant_ to draw attention. I want eink because it
| shouldn 't grab attention at all.
| tjoff wrote:
| Family vacation? The LCD picture frames are popular and
| can be described just like that. Even the kindle
| grayscale images could be decent as decoration. (I'm
| guessing e-ink would look best in grayscale, but I
| haven't seen one in color)
|
| Maybe not the living-room centerpiece, but still.
| throwanem wrote:
| Even there, much better options exist. For the same money
| you can get a 55" Samsung Frame with color, excellent
| contrast, and that also doubles as a quite good TV - it
| can _be_ the living-room centerpiece.
| tjoff wrote:
| Much better for what? I'd never use that - absolutely
| hideous for the use-cases I'd use an e-ink for.
|
| I'd use the one in the article in a heartbeat, much more
| elegant and no backlight. No it won't display a
| photograph as good as the Samsung but it will not be
| cheesy or look out of place (or consume tons of energy) -
| which the Samsung will if it is positioned anywhere else
| but in front of and in eye-level of a sofa.
|
| The only thing it is good for is as a TV, which I guess
| is great if you want a TV.
| throwanem wrote:
| I'd rather take a chance on the Frame's automatic
| backlight adjustment to match the ambient light level
| _maybe_ working, than on e-ink which _guarantees_ poor
| reproduction.
|
| It's just super odd to me to think about wanting to go to
| all the trouble of displaying an image at that size and
| scale, and also being willing to accept it looking as
| lousy as e-ink's awful contrast will necessarily make it.
| Sure, it's a lot easier to change the displayed image
| than it is with a paper print, but what's the benefit of
| that when they're all going to look equally bad?
|
| Granted I'm a photographer and I want my own work to look
| good, but it's not as if I had to develop that interest
| to want whatever I did put on my walls to look good...
| jayd16 wrote:
| You could print glossy magazine covers.
| atomwaffel wrote:
| Perhaps you could even pay a company to print the entire
| paper for you and have it delivered to your door every
| morning.
| m463 wrote:
| But you can read it outside.
| throwanem wrote:
| Presumably taking it off the wall, first?
|
| I don't claim that e-ink has _no_ use case, only that it 's
| bad at displaying photographs. If you mean to argue
| otherwise, please do so with respect to statements I've
| made, rather than to ones I have not.
| m463 wrote:
| I was addressing the contrast ratio, which people seem to
| sort of measure inadequately in sunlight.
|
| There are two comparisons between LCD displays that
| should properly be referencing S/N ratio instead of
| contrast.
|
| With a glossy display, whatever is behind you STRONGLY
| affects your S/N ratio, especially in black.
|
| In sunlight even a very bright LCD is washed out almost
| to unreadability (though I am surprised how well recent
| phones still manage to still function)
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > For comparison, a baseline gallery-quality inkjet with good
| glossy photo paper can easily exceed 200:1, and professional
| repro methods do better still.
|
| That's only for glossy though, right? That comes with glare,
| which is annoying for reading.
| throwanem wrote:
| Matte is "only" around 50:1, which still beats e-ink by a
| lot. Newsprint struggles to approach even that because the
| inks are formulated to be inexpensive, thus not heavily
| saturated, so the "black" is really a dark gray, and the
| paper is cheap pulp that probably couldn't be bleached
| really white without disintegrating anyway.
| bArray wrote:
| > 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?
| secfirstmd wrote:
| 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.
| _ph_ wrote:
| I have been eying the remarkable. I would literally like to
| try it, but I am not aware of any German shops carrying it. I
| am very hesitant to order an expensive gadget I might not
| like.
|
| As you have one: what is the basis for sharing documents? I
| would mostly be using it as an ebook reader, how do you
| upload ebooks, what formats are supported?
| notpeter wrote:
| Remarkable is direct-only I believe, but they do have a
| 30day return policy.
|
| As for the software/sharing, they have desktop (Win, Mac,
| Linux), Android and iOS apps and their own cloud hosted
| service for syncing documents, inks, ebooks, etc amongst
| your devices and the tablet. The apps are a little clunky
| (due to cross platform widgets) but you can quickly export
| a PDF of a drawing or drag in an ebook (PDF/ePUB) and it'll
| auto sync to your device.
|
| P.S. The device itself is quite hacker friendly, it
| supports SSH over USB out of the box and they've shared
| their cross-compliation toolchain.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Now you have me interested, what happens when you ssh
| into it, does it run a shell? Do you know about the
| programmability and can you give me some pointers?
| net4all wrote:
| Yup. I own one and have tested to ssh but not actually
| done much yet. It runs Linux and a shell. These are a
| good start:
|
| https://remarkablewiki.com/tech/start
| https://remarkablewiki.com/tips/start
| https://github.com/reMarkable
|
| I should add that this is a relatively open platform. It
| runs Linux, there is an official GitHub org with code.
| jmilloy wrote:
| They have a 30-day free return period if you don't like it.
| vinay427 wrote:
| It's a Norwegian product AFAIK, and the company officially
| sells it to EU/EEA/CH markets on their website.
| Jagat wrote:
| Comments below indicate people's shock at the price: $1500.
|
| ReMarkable isn't cheap either: $400
| limomium wrote:
| Well, I don't know. A decent tablet goes for $300. I could
| see myself paying +33% for significantly increased battery
| life. On mobile devices, the screen eats most of the
| battery charge, therefore also contributing most to the
| battery's degredation over years. An e-ink tablet could
| potentially last much longer.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| 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.
| anthk wrote:
| sct 3500.
| m463 wrote:
| 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.
| luka-birsa wrote:
| Chicken and the egg?
|
| 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.
| _ph_ wrote:
| The Place and Play looks very much like what I am looking
| for, but indeed, the prices are not exactly consumer-level.
|
| I really wonder, whether there would not be more consumer
| interest in these devices, if there were actual offerings.
| What about offering the 13" display in a plastic housing with
| a software more crafted to the consumer/hobbyist? Perhaps
| powered and controlled by USB-C or optimized for the
| Raspberry Pi. How low could the prices go, especially with
| larger volumes?
|
| Of course, it could be just me, and there is not much
| interest in the wider audience.
| luka-birsa wrote:
| The components cost too much.
|
| Perhaps if this was some open source play where everybody
| did everything for free. We tried different pricing,
| different positioning and we could not breakthrough into
| large volumes with a platform play. Everybody in the end
| tries to haggle you on the price / cut you out and unless
| you have Google-deep pockets you can't afford to lose money
| for a couple years to launch this wide.
|
| I'd say that it's pretty much impossible to do a platform
| play in hardware if you're a startup. Even when talking
| about IOT, which is arguably the simplest hardware I don't
| remember of a platform play that went really well. Most of
| them are meh or random successes like the ESP WiFI (again
| not started by a small startup, but still could be argued
| that is a proper hacker platform).
|
| If you want to play with some of our solutions, hit me up
| at luka dot birsa [at] visionect dot com and I'll see what
| I can do.
| taude wrote:
| For me the ideal size would be like a 10 or 11" device I
| could use for text-based things. (Think Emacs-ish only type
| of device, or something)....super light weight, long
| battery life.
| umvi wrote:
| You don't have to convince me to use eink, you just have to
| convince me it is worth the price.
|
| For example, I've been dying for one of these:
|
| https://www.padformusician.com/en/
|
| Imagine having my entire music library in an eink tablet.
| Then, when I go to my parents' house I can play any of my
| music on their piano.
|
| But I'm not willing to spend $900+. I'd be willing to spend
| up to $200
| dhosek wrote:
| I've ended up using an iPad Pro for this. It's a little
| more expensive but multi-function so I use it for more than
| music.
| organsnyder wrote:
| I've been eyeing a Remarkable tablet for similar use. I'm
| an (avocational) organist and choral singer, and would love
| to have my entire library accessible at all times. The
| Remarkable has a smaller screen (10.3") than the PadMu
| (13"), but it is somewhat cheaper.
| jrockway wrote:
| I think you've hit the nail on the head here. An e-ink
| tablet needs the same SoC, battery, metal case, and
| software engineering that an LCD tablet needs. So if an
| e-ink display cost the same as an LCD, the tablet would
| cost the same. But because of the limitations of the
| display technology, the device would do less than the
| equivalent tablet. You can't play games on it. You can't
| watch Netflix on it. Browsing the web would be a chore that
| nobody would do except in an emergency.
|
| For that reason, the devices don't exist.
| ghaff wrote:
| Something like a Kindle Paperwhite works, especially for
| people who read a lot of fiction. It's small, light, easy
| to read outside, and fairly cheap.But upsize it and now
| you have a very limited function tablet.
|
| OK, it works for reading PDFs of things like scientific
| papers (which I understand is something people like the
| Remarkable tablet for). And it's easier to read outside.
| (Might be a bit cheaper too because you don't need as
| powerful a processor.) But you're mostly trading off a
| pretty general purpose device--which is getting even more
| so--for something that has a really narrow set of use
| cases. And isn't really as good as the smaller models for
| just reading text.
| webmaven wrote:
| Not quite the same; battery needs are a fraction even
| with front lighting, CPU can be slower due to lower
| display refresh rate, displays are less fragile so you
| can have a less robust case, etc. Unfortunately, this
| doesn't overcome the higher display cost. Perhaps an
| e-ink feature phone would have a high enough volume to do
| so.
| thazework wrote:
| The Hisense A5 e-ink phone is available now for around
| $200and runs on Android 9.
| https://goodereader.com/blog/reviews/hisense-a5-e-ink-
| smartp...
| ghaff wrote:
| And even E Ink Kindle is a bit niche. It's great for reading
| flowing text as in most fiction. However, for things with a
| lot of graphics/photographs a tablet or even a phone tends to
| be a lot better. To say nothing of all the other things you
| can do with a tablet. As a result, when I travel, I almost
| never take my Kindle because a tablet is so much more
| versatile.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Right. E-ink ist really only for mostly static display.
| Thats why I think that for proper pdf-reading you would
| need an e-ink reader which can display the whole page at
| its original size, so roughly A4 sized. Even the 12.9" iPad
| Pro is a bit small for that, but at least it can quickly
| zoom and scroll.
| catalogia wrote:
| There was the Kindle DX which was 12.6" on the diagonal
| IIRC. I guess that's still a bit too small though, and
| the last model of that came out a decade ago.. I'm
| guessing it didn't sell well because I've never seen
| anybody using one.
| ajford wrote:
| I knew some professors in college that had the DX and
| that was exactly why they used it. They could download a
| bunch of newly published papers/references frequently and
| only have to carry the DX.
|
| You'd see them roaming about the campus reading them.
| Eventually I think that swapped out for iPads since they
| could be used for non-paper things.
| ghaff wrote:
| Personally I'm fine with reading PDFs on the 11". I have
| a 12.9" I bought mostly as an experiment in creating
| videos. For drawing and so forth the larger screen is
| nice. But I find it's too big/heavy to read on.
| pfortuny wrote:
| Well, margins do not need to exist when reading on a
| tablet (unless for margin notes but these are usually
| scant). I have an iPad 2019 which I think is 10'3'' and
| honestly, math papers (my area) are pretty much equal to
| the "real thing".
| echelon wrote:
| I would pay $2 - $5k for a poster sized, high-dpi black and
| white E Ink display that had wifi and a bunch of readily
| available art. Especially if it could be battery powered so I
| could mount it on brick wall. The technology and novelty is
| incredibly cool.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Eink cost comes mostly from lockin by Eink, Epson and few
| other parties.
|
| The technology is ridiculously low tech by the industry
| standards in comparison to any tft screen
| bradgessler wrote:
| Could you sell a home Joan? We have those at work and I find
| myself wanting that form factor with WiFi, but instead of
| scheduling I'd put my own content on there.
| Shank wrote:
| They sell this now! https://getjoan.com/shop/joan-home
| bmelton wrote:
| It should probably not be lost on us that the E-ink
| display[1] he's using in the prototype costs $1500. That's a
| lot for what basically amounts to a one color display, and if
| we ignore all the other features of E-ink, you could
| replicate this for less cost with other tech.
|
| I recently experienced the Samsung Frame[2] which - to be
| clear - is NOT an E-ink panel, doesn't have the power
| savings, etc., but it's larger, cheaper, and has a very
| believable art mode. I was one of those guys who tried
| mounting an old flat panel to the wall to display art that I
| liked before realizing that it just wasn't believable. It was
| a nice enough effect in a well lit room, but turn the lights
| down in the slightest, and it's very obviously a television
| set, and just didn't feel at all arty. On the other hand, the
| Frame is extremely believable as a framed art print, to the
| extent that it fooled me the first time I saw one.
|
| I haven't bought one yet, but it's much easier to imagine
| spending the $1000 for a Frame, mounting it vertically, and
| hacking out a way to format a newspaper graphic into its art
| mode than it is for me to imagine spending $1500 on an E-Ink
| display. Aside from being cheaper, if the project doesn't
| work out, then I can at least use the Frame for its intended
| purpose.
|
| [1] -
| https://shopkits.eink.com/product/31-2%CB%9D-monochrome-
| epap...
|
| [2] - https://www.samsung.com/us/televisions-home-
| theater/tvs/the-...
| cs02rm0 wrote:
| $1500 for the display, plus a $500 board to drive it,
| plus...
|
| I really like it, but not that much!
| fullstop wrote:
| For $1500 you could hire someone to come over and put a new
| newspaper into the frame from time to time.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| That reminds me of the newspaper walls they have (or
| had?) in China. Basically, it's a place outside where the
| newspaper is pinned up so people can come by and read it
| while standing, kind of like a bulletin board (probably
| was like this everywhere before newspapers became cheap).
| Someone wrote:
| That was how government announcements were published for
| centuries. You ?still? see that at police offices, with
| "Wanted" posters.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Sure, we also have bulletin boards, we just don't pin
| entire newspapers to them (anymore?).
| umvi wrote:
| That's not a living wage
| kfriede wrote:
| Let's say it takes someone 30 minutes in total to drive
| to your house, replace it, and drive back to their own
| house.
|
| If they did it every day, that's 15 hours in a month, or
| 182.5 hours in a year.
|
| If you paid that person $1500 for the year, that's $8.22
| per hour, above federal minimum wage.
| organsnyder wrote:
| The minimum wage is far lower than a living wage, even in
| low-COL areas.
| arkanciscan wrote:
| Y'all need hobbies
| Phrenzy wrote:
| I suggest they put a newspaper on someone's wall.
| ColanR wrote:
| If someone considers it the best use of their time,
| they're better off with extra cash than without.
| umvi wrote:
| By that logic gig economy apps are good, yet they are
| heavily criticized and in some cases sued.
| Green_man wrote:
| Gig economy apps being criticized or even sued is not
| evidence they are bad.
|
| *I don't personally like them, but no doubt there are
| workers that like their jobs at doordash or uber--> not
| everyone doing those jobs is doing them out of
| desperation.
| umvi wrote:
| Well I guess the question is: if desperate people might
| take the job, and the job is not sustainable for anyone
| but teenagers and retirees, should the job be allowed to
| exist seeing as it would not sustain the desperate
| person?
| blisterpeanuts wrote:
| I was thinking the same thing. Or you could get 10-15
| annual newspaper subscriptions, delivered to your
| door/mailbox.
| arkanciscan wrote:
| Yes but the refresh rate of newsprint is terrible!
| 1MoreThing wrote:
| 24 hours isn't optimal, but it gets the job done.
| saltcured wrote:
| How about an inkjet plotter and a big spool of paper...
| later revisions might dabble with erasable ink and
| surface combinations. If it is monochromatic, it might
| even be able to collect and recycle the ink.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Actually the display he used was a color eInk display but
| he chose to use it in greyscale mode as an aesthetic
| decision.
| stouset wrote:
| > E Ink's 31.2-inch monochrome display fit the bill. The
| 31.2-inch color display gives you colors, but not at any
| satisfying resolution or contrast ratio. I
| detaro wrote:
| Question about the Samsung Frame that I didn't find
| answered in reviews: Does the adjusting brightness etc to
| look natural also work with external signals, or only when
| showing images in "art mode"?
| bmelton wrote:
| From my limited exposure, my best guess is that whatever
| lighting / contrast adjustments it makes in art mode are
| only enabled for art mode.
|
| I'm not sure what 'looking natural' for a television
| screen might look like. Naively, if you wanted the
| television mode to look more like moving pictures, I'd
| think you'd have to figure out a way to knock down the
| refresh rate considerably. 15Hz ought to do it. If you're
| asking me if it just adjusts the television brightness to
| surrounding lighting conditions, I don't know, but it
| _feels like_ art mode is doing more than just adjusting
| brightness (though possibly I 'm wrong here and
| brightness is just much more convincing than I've
| experienced in the past)
| detaro wrote:
| Ah, too bad. I had hoped for something that could display
| a slideshow from a Raspberry Pi etc, since I'd want the
| content to update automatically in regular intervals and
| not rely on cloud services.
| bmelton wrote:
| IIRC you can add your own 4K images to it via thumb drive
| and it'll rotate through them without relying on a
| connection to their upstream art server.
|
| Take this with grains of salt as I don't own one, don't
| know the interval, and couldn't guarantee that it isn't
| bricked without an internet connection, though I find
| that highly unlikely.
| detaro wrote:
| I guess for automatic updates one could simulate a USB
| drive and send remote control commands, but that feels a
| bit too hacky and disruptive for something where
| sleekness is the focus. Thanks for your responses!
| blakes wrote:
| I own a Frame, and the normal viewing mode does have a
| very slight brightness adjustment that is automatic, I
| think I turned that on. It's not as dramatic as the Art
| Mode setting.
|
| The art mode dimming is very good, it has tricked every
| single visitor I've had in my living room, they always
| say nice painting. Then their minds are blown when it's
| revealed it's a TV. It's very convincing at first glance.
|
| Problem is showing personal images, it does not do as
| good of a job. I think it uses the same settings as other
| inputs.
| detaro wrote:
| Aww, that's what I feared after the reviews always just
| raved about the art mode. If it doesn't even work so well
| for imported images, even worse.
|
| Well, that's one expensive toy expense saved I guess.
| zhoujianfu wrote:
| Also, my frame at least has some kind of broken internal
| Wifi.. so using it as a tv with the internal apps is
| annoying, I have to almost daily factory reset it to get
| it to reconnect to our (otherwise fine) WiFi and stream
| stuff... :/
| jerrysievert wrote:
| just a heads up, the page you linked seems to hijack the
| scroll bar on safari and is generally unusable (clicks not
| working, etc). it appears to be your bundle.js coming from
| assets.ubembed.com that is causing all sorts of issues.
|
| might be something to look at.
| Taniwha wrote:
| Back around maybe 1988-9 I worked with a company that built
| the first big screen video card for the Mac 2. They went to
| Sony and said "we want to buy 15,000 monitors", they were
| humorously heavy 19 inch 1kx768 monitors, cost something like
| $5-10k.
|
| Sony laughed at us, we'd never sell that many, besides
| (unlike TVs) they essentially made them by hand on a
| minimalist assembly line - we sold 25k that year.
|
| It's the same chicken and egg thing there's not a lot of
| incentive to optimise the production costs until the volumes
| spike and that wont happen until the prices drop
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Sounds like a valid use for burning VC. Rather than
| subsidize bicycle sharing or cheap car rides, VC could
| bootstrap scaled production lines for new risky tech.
| rkangel wrote:
| China has basically sorted the scaling of production
| lines. A large part of the VC money for bicycle sharing
| _should_ be capex in a large number of bicycles, but that
| 's a lot cheaper than it used to be due to the available
| manufacturing capability.
|
| That's true for general electronic and mechanical stuff
| and obviously not true for everything. Semiconductor,
| batteries etc. are much more specialised.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| 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
| luma wrote:
| 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.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > but might not be well suited for touchscreen use where UI
| elements need to react to user interactions in a timely
| manner
|
| I feel like my phone often responds to my input a hell of a
| lot slower than the refresh rate of an e-ink display.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Well, obviously, this price is extremely high. But the
| question is: why is it so high? Is there anything in the
| technology which makes it even more expensive than OLED
| technology, or is this a problem with the company, which kind
| of seems to work hard at preventing the technology to enter
| the mass market and become cheaper?
|
| And of course, I am very aware of the downsides of e-ink.
| Readers like the kindle are pushing as far as it is possible
| with respect for interactivity. But for all kind of mostly
| static displays, it would shine.
| magduf wrote:
| Because the volumes are low. It's the same with any
| technology. High volumes = low cost, and vice-versa. When
| the manufacturing is geared up to produce enormous volumes
| and there's a bunch of competitors, the final product cost
| will be very low. When there's only one manufacturer and
| it's a niche product and there's very low demand, the cost
| is very high.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Right, I just wonder why no one tried hard to break that
| cycle and whenever I read about e-ink technology, I get
| the impression that the company behind it is not making
| it easy to create products with their technology.
| cs02rm0 wrote:
| One suggestion I've seen is patents.
|
| Unfortunately, I think it's killing a whole corner of the
| market. I'd happily pay $500 for one of these but not
| $2k. At that price I'd struggle to not use something that
| has more colours and a higher refresh rate.
| IkmoIkmo wrote:
| 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.
| flowersjeff wrote:
| Insanely cool.
|
| E-ink is just one of those technologies that ought to be so much
| further along, but I've always gotten the gut feeling that the
| company that controls this tech is just so out of touch.
|
| Reading how the software can't be shared... I shouldn't have been
| surprised.
| the_biot wrote:
| Display is $1500, controller $500, software under NDA and you
| can't buy it as a mere mortal. It probably takes over a minute to
| update the display, considering those 3-color waveshare 10" ones
| take 15 seconds.
|
| Honestly, this is crap in every way.
| schaefer wrote:
| there's another way to look at this project... a fellow human
| wanted to make something that does not exist in this world.
| they believed in their project enough to invest their money,
| time, and expertise. after tackling countless technical
| details, they succeeded by their own measure!
|
| this project never was intended to be a consumer product.
| Judging it by that standard misses the point.
|
| this is one specific engineer's equivalent to training for and
| then running a marathon.
|
| this is a human with a highly skilled and devoted engineering
| practice. just like a runner crossing the finish line, that is
| what this article is about.
|
| and personally, I'll gladly cheer Max on.
| jborichevskiy wrote:
| Absolutely agreed. It's a gorgeous piece of tech, or art, or
| really some blend of the two. I want to see more of these
| projects in the world, not less.
| trevyn wrote:
| If you seek calm, a newspaper on your wall isn't going to deliver
| it.
| eternauta3k wrote:
| It could show headlines from peacetime slow news days from the
| past.
| brainpool wrote:
| 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.
| rollinDyno wrote:
| I can't read the article since I don't own a Medium account. Why
| does the author need me to sign in?
| visarga wrote:
| My policy is to close the window, be it Medium, NYTimes, etc
|
| Plenty of free access websites to cover my needs without them.
| Why should I jump through hoops if they don't want to share
| publicly?
| rapind wrote:
| Would you rather be advertised to and spied on (pretty sure
| they track you regardless of whether you're a paying customer
| though)?
|
| Personally I'd rather pay for quality content than this
| devolution into everything is clickbait.
| harel wrote:
| Open it in Incognito mode.
| Zenbit_UX wrote:
| No, you can't read the article because you never found the
| close button on the medium pop-up.
| spiantino wrote:
| Try again
| busymom0 wrote:
| I don't think it's the author. I think it's medium itself which
| sometimes forces that login popup. I get it too but I get rid
| of it by going to incognito.
| rollinDyno wrote:
| Thanks for the tip. I think some responsibility lies on the
| author as he chose which platform to publish with.
| codegladiator wrote:
| Does medium randomly chooses who should login ? Because I
| didn't get a login prompt.
| davidhyde wrote:
| Don't store medium cookies, that works.
| harel wrote:
| It depends on how many articles you've read this month...
| pacamara619 wrote:
| Delete your medium cookies, should work then.
| abbracadabbra wrote:
| Do other newspapers publish scans of their print editions? From
| the article, nytimes:
|
| https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/04/10/nytfrontpage/scan...
| cowsandmilk wrote:
| Newseum appears to still have the daily front page of a ton of
| newspapers. (A bit surprised since they closed their physical
| building)
|
| https://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/
| avianlyric wrote:
| 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.
| gullyfur wrote:
| Wow, I haven't looked at a print edition in years, but wow I
| can't believe it's now up to $3 to buy a newspaper? Way more
| than I remember...
| eatbitseveryday wrote:
| The German Suddeutsche Zeitung allows subscribers to download
| the full PDFs.
|
| http://sz.de
| ThinkingGuy wrote:
| During the pandemic, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is making
| the electronic version of their paper available (downloadable
| as a PDF) free of charge.
|
| https://epaper.ajc.com
| botolo wrote:
| 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.
| jason0597 wrote:
| Especially manga since it's mostly black and white! I am
| shocked that not even a Japanese company has even given it a
| try
| gh02t wrote:
| I used to read manga on an OLED tablet and it was wonderful
| with the true blacks. I've tried reading it on my Kindle and
| it's overall quite pleasant as well, but really makes you
| wish the display was bigger.
| intopieces wrote:
| There are "manga editions" of Kindle[0] and Kobo [1]
|
| Basically just their normal version with more storage, though.
|
| [0]https://www.engadget.com/2016-11-12-amazon-kindle-
| paperwhite...
|
| [1]https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/kobo-aura-
| on...
| jjguy wrote:
| 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!
| et-al wrote:
| The negativity here is rooted in disappointment from lack of
| progress and high pricing, not skepticism of the future.
|
| Most of us have been dreaming of mounting an _affordable_
| A3-sized e-ink display on our walls.
| smilekzs wrote:
| Except that eInk has been around for decades without much
| breakthrough you'd see in even LCD/OLED technologies. This
| cannot be easily explained off as lack of R&D investment. IMHO
| the scalability is the biggest hurdle. That, and the lack of
| even basic coloring, let alone full CMYK.
| harel wrote:
| 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.
| aembleton wrote:
| Use umatrix to block medium cookies or read it here
| https://outline.com/qWVkuf
| ag56 wrote:
| I read medium articles all the time and I've never once been
| asked to login, much less pay.
| catalogia wrote:
| Usually I manage to read medium articles fine, but today I
| encounter:
|
| > _The page isn't redirecting properly_
|
| > _An error occurred during a connection to
| onezero.medium.com._
|
| > _This problem can sometimes be caused by disabling or
| refusing to accept cookies._
| roland35 wrote:
| What a great idea, it's too bad the display costs $1,500 but I
| suppose that is partially because it includes a Linux controller.
|
| One thing I also learned is that you can download a PDF of the
| New York Times front page every day!
| stefan_ wrote:
| It does not include the controller, that's another 500 bucks.
| Round numbers at eInk.
| broabprobe wrote:
| jeez, I submitted this 44 days ago and got no traction,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22420685
|
| oh well! It's a cool project!
| azinman2 wrote:
| What does get traction, how, and why is a big mystery to me.
| I've experienced the same.
| [deleted]
| chrisallick wrote:
| That's a $1500 non interactive single image viewer... why not
| just mount an iPad Pro?
|
| _eye roll_
| jason0597 wrote:
| Simply because of the e-ink screen
| ipsum2 wrote:
| Because an iPad pro isn't 31".
| droithomme wrote:
| The photo in the article looks cool, showing a full page of the
| New York Times in tiny dense font on a huge screen. But is anyone
| really going to want to read a paper in that format by standing
| next to a wall for an hour while squatting to various heights to
| allow their head to be level with the text they are reading?
| joosters wrote:
| The only place that sticks pages from today's newspaper on the
| wall is your local bookmaker, showing the Racing Post data for
| the 2:10 race at Newmarket.
|
| ...but now you too can recreate the charm of your local bookie at
| home :-)
| scrumper wrote:
| Or your local pub toilet.
|
| EDIT: snarky joke, I actually rather like the wall thing that
| Max Braun created.
| catalogia wrote:
| I've read things on walls before, mostly at museums. It's not
| ergonomic.
| trianglem wrote:
| A slight tit bit here, I don't think Paper is a great name for
| this great looking product. How are people supposed to find it
| easily online?
| mplewis wrote:
| It's not a product. It's a thing he made for himself.
| beezle wrote:
| The unfortunate thing is the display is only 4 bit. At 16 bit I
| could see using it to display b&w prints. The dpi is a little low
| but is ok for viewing at distances greater than about 6 feet.
| inappropriated wrote:
| I can smear shit on my own wall for free, thanks. No need for
| technology.
| stephbu wrote:
| While I love the clarity from of the technology, the ergonomics
| of reading while standing isn't great, let alone contortions I
| used to go they on the Tube to do it.
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