Someday soon, we expect Google's Android OS (like Microsoft's ubiquitous WinCE platform) to power pretty much any consumer device available. Until then, we're left to peer wistfully into the misfit laboratories of the hacking community to get our open-source kicks. The cats at the MOTO Development Group have written a custom driver to create what they claim is the first instance of Android running on an E-Ink display. Unfortunately, there's plenty of that annoying white / black E-Ink flicker as the display refreshes. While that won't be eliminated anytime soon, it's certainly possible to minimize the effect through some future optimization -- this is just a first step, after all. See it in action after the break.
posted Feb 13th 2009 2:02AM
So awesome, Android is pretty powerful. Surprised it came out from Moto, now where are the phones?!
Looks like Moto is not Motorola, but a research firm
Very nice :)
E-ink with a good processor/ram could be a real kindle alternative...
No! Bad title pun!
My understanding is that the Broadsheet display controller is actually optimized for this sort of thing. It's supposed to allow for partial area updates. They're just not using that feature here.
The crazy screen flashing makes it look like data is warping in from another dimension.
ahhh 1 post per hour is killing me here on the west coast.
So this is what you should do... DO SOMETHING OTHER THAN SIT IN FRONT OF THE COMPUTER WAITING FOR A REPLY!
LOL!!..
mayb then the 1hr span wont kill u so much!!
rofl
Hm, a bit disappointed by the ghost effect even after those multiple refreshes. But: great job!
this is cool!
Im becoming a big fan of E-ink... cant wait in few years to see the evolution.
Did you *look* at the background of the video? That's a pimp logic analyzer you've got there! And there's something comforting about a shelf full of components, too.
Looks like the android dev kit has several test points arranged in the shape of a connector. Are there options besides USB for sending video to the display? USB is usually relegated to a chip separate from the main processor, so I bet there's at least 3 USB transceivers; one on the Android dev kit, one on the E-ink display, and one (or more?) on the driver board in the middle. If they're hi-speed, they've all got PLLs trying to make 480 MHz for the serializing logic.
Therefore, if the goal is to further reduce power consumption, I would investigate other options for transmitting the information to the E-ink display. I see it's a dev kit, and without docs it's hard to give suggestions, but I bet the eventual goal would be to place your driver chip and the E-ink chip all on the same PCB with the android chip.
Assuming the broadsheet kit works like the old metronome kits(its entirely possible there are additional display options I don't know about) that USB will just be sending files to memory on the kit. The actual interface for sending images to the display from the driver boards is a 39-pin LCD interface. So yes, the eventual goal is to put the broadsheet IC onto a PCB with the processor to bypass the USB entirely.
Keeping with tradition of Friday the 13th... Love the addition of Jason Voorhees in the picture.
Just to let you know Engadget - the board there isn't really an OMAP dev kit, it's a Beagleboard. It's a commercially sold device that uses the powerful OMAP 3530 SoC, and allows for development in an embedded environment. It's not made by TI, and is sold as a miniature, fanless computer with similar power to today's laptops (they're probably more similar to today's netbooks, but that's just marketing for you).
Close. There were a couple of TI engineers involved in the design of the BeagleBoard, but it is open source hardware, supported by the community, produced outside of TI and sold through Digi-Key. Digi-Key funded the initial boards and is currently the sole authorized original distributor (there are a couple value-added re-distributors).
Because it is open hardware, several people have taken the design and improved it into other developments and products. There are some other nice development platforms, like the Gumstix Overo, that show you just how small a system can be. There are also some even less-expensive development platforms, like the RealtimeDSP Mini Board, but I'm only aware of them being sold in China.
I see what you did with that title.
To Peter @1 -- there is at least one e-ink phone and surprisingly it's made by Motorola, you might want to check out the Motorola F3. It offers a great lifetime (well, comparable to the OLED-using Philips long-life phones) but unlike Philipses it's very cheap.
Haha, Found another one! Little tiny Jason Application on the desktop. Maybe he's the Cut and Paste? Or at least the Cut?