While the grocery stores in our hood are apparently a little too low-tech for the stuff, Nemoptic has made quite a name for itself in produce circles with its tiny, cheap
e-paper price tags, able to reflect the continually rising costs of Cap'n Crunch. Now the company is branching out with rather more high-tech but still tiny displays called Binem Active Matrix E-paper, which show a variety of interesting tricks in a series of videos from June that
Technology Review is just now bringing to light. The two-inch, 170dpi screens can manage a 30ms refresh rate -- just fast enough to handle video -- and can do partial refreshing, changing only portions of the display. Perhaps most interestingly the screens can be backlit, meaning they use a rather different construction than traditional
E-Ink, but exactly how they work has yet to be disclosed. Check out the
thrilling demonstration after the break and see if you can solve the mystery.
posted July 13th 2010 9:06AM
why is that atrocious looking rabbit in *ever* video demo?
@skyblaze
*every . . . .
@skyblaze
Its an open source movie done in blender so anyone can use it.
@skyblaze
The film is Big Buck Bunny (http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/) and it's popular with video demos because it's available in HD and open source (unlike ripped HD material).
This display looks pretty awesome in terms of capability and pixel density, however it looks to me like the dynamic range is, er, binary (the photos look very dithered).
The simultaneous bistable/monostable mode presumably has massive advantages in terms of power. I'm very curious as to how it works an whether or not versions with higher dynamic range and colour are possible.
@skyblaze It looks like crap to me. The colors are so obviously oversaturated.
Do i want this? And for what purpose exactly, just a question
@lbmeijer
Partial refresh, bistable displays with the ability to be partially non-bistable, i.e. play video on part of the screen, would be a step towards making e-readers practical and preferable for scientific textbooks. Currently a textbook ships with a disk that contains an array of animations and videos to supplement the content. With this sort of display those things can be embedded in the text just like static figures and viewed without completely ruining the battery life of the e-reader. I just wish we could have a color-capable version (http://www.engadget.com/search/?q=color+e-paper&invocationType=wl-gadget)... still dreaming...
@walkej
lucky kids of the future!!
@lbmeijer It could be like the newspapers in the Harry Potter movies.
So when can we expect the Android phone with such a display?
They're adding webcams to them in Arizona to more effectively adjust the price based on the image of the consumer.
@lbmeijer -- ever heard of the e-ink readers? this is a leap ahead in terms of the displays. ever heard of the phones with a few weeks standby time? this can make their batteries last even longer.
If they make it large enough it might even be great as a secondary (or third) monitor for people who spend most of the time reading/writing.
wow that's very nice... but what about the power problem ?
This display is a "Bi-stable Nematic" active matrix LCD. Most of these terms are probably familiar- active matrix means an individual switch (transistor) actively turns each pixel on or off- so it can operate at high speeds over a large area. Liquid Crystal means the switched voltage tips or twists a fluid containing microscopic cigar shaped molecules to distort the light path. Carefully designed, this distortion can (in conjunction with polarizers and other filters) act like a shutter. So an active matrix LCD display is just your standard laptop screen, flipping each pixel on or off under computer control.
The new invention is "bi-stability", which means the little liquid crystal molecules will remain in the open or closed position without the necessity of added power. So they hope for the best of all worlds- the low power of a Kindle display with the speed of an iphone, possibly with good sunlight visibility. How they do this is proprietary, but probably the liquid crystal molecules are mixed with another plastic (possibly an epoxy) to form a slurry like mixture. That other plastic then hardens in place, with the liquid crystal penetrating its foam like cavities. The small cigar shaped molecules line up in a crystalline arrangement called a "nematic" when the voltage is applied. Normally, turning off the voltage would allow the molecules to relax away from the nematic patterns, but the interpenetrating plastic slurry mechanically restrains the cigar shaped molecules. Only with a strong kick will the pixel open or closed. So its bistable- remembering if each pixel is on or off, even with power removed.
Tricky technology to master.
@gregeb Good read, thanks.
@gregeb thanks mate, always nice to know a bit more how these things work.
@gregeb You are saying if it is physically jarred the state of the pixel would change? If that is the case, it could become the high tech equivalent of the Etch-a-sketch.
@miniskunk
The pores are so small you couldn't jar the molecules with simple tap. It takes a kick from an electrical pulse to shift their position. But you COULD make a slick etch-a-sketch by writing on the surface with an electrically charged pen.
wow!! Retina 2.0 is already out! :O So quick!!
This looks fantastic.
I can't help but feel like I'm looking at a tech demo from 1983.
The would be perfect for a watch.
@runswithjedi
Been there, done that. http://direct.msn.com/
Coming to er... a wristwatch?
looks like my ti-84
Reminds me of my old blackberry that was capable of running without a charge for a week. Backlight looks like it too.
I wonder how good Metropolis would look on this...
This is awesome. The revolution of e-ink. I've often wondered what video would look like on e-ink, and now I know. Now then, Amazon just needs to implement this into the Kindle line...