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Hacking Esquire's E-ink Cover
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Sep 08, 2008 07:50 PM
from the be-one-of-the-hundred-thousand dept.
from the be-one-of-the-hundred-thousand dept.
ptorrone writes "I picked up the Esquire E-inked cover today and took a bunch of high res photos, for the makers out there. It has a programming header, 5-pin ISP, a Microchip PIC 12f629 which is flash programmable, 8 pin, 6 lithium coin cell CR2016s, 3 volts each. Two E-ink screens with flex connections — looks like it was made to be reprogrammed and different screens. The top screen has 11 segments, the bottom has 3. It was designed 2008-06-04. The PCB was made by Forewin, half thickness, 2 layer board (FR4). I think someone out there will likely reflash the PIC and make the segments go on / off at different times and perhaps put other displays on it, there's a little bit of hacking to be had but not that much really."
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The internet is getting to me (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wow, a magazine with a digital cover (Score:5, Funny)
who cares! until the magazine can read to me while I'm on the toilet, and answer my questions, or rebuttal my comments, I don't care how much technology goes into the cover.
Then again if Playboy gets a digital cover that talks dirty to me then I have the option of recanting my previous statement.
what a waste (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are e-ink based e-books so expensive, while Esquire can afford to use it as a cover for their magazine? Something's missing here.
Re:what a waste (Score:5, Informative)
My guess would be that this "screen" is not able to display arbitrary images, rather it can only display those images pre-burned onto the "e-ink". The PIC controller merely flips switches on and off at set time intervals or by button presses. Although interesting and indeed hackable, the hardware necessary to do this stuff is already quite cheap (something like $25 for a USB pickit 1 from Microchip.com).
Parent
Re:what a waste (Score:5, Informative)
Right. The display is just like old Game & Watch games (or any other cheap LCD display). They have a bunch of segments (in this case mostly blocks of words) that can be turned on or off. I'd expect that just like LCDs the more segments you have the more expensive it is to manufacture the thing (not including the cost of controller).
If you watch the little video that the Make blog post links to, you can see how limited it is.
That said, it seems to refresh quite fast, which the e-books have problems with. I don't know if this is a consequence of the controller (I doubt it, Amazon/Sony would do better), the size of the pixels (smaller pixels switch slower for some reason, perhaps the small traces prevent higher current that can switch things faster), manufacturing (faster switching is too expensive to make an 800x600 screen), or just perception (since the elements are so large it's not noticeable like when you change small blocks of text).
Parent
simple segments vs. dot matrix (Score:5, Informative)
Why are e-ink based e-books so expensive, while Esquire can afford to use it as a cover for their magazine? Something's missing here.
11 very large segments versus 480,000 very small segments. PIC programed to go "turn on segment 1, then 2, then 3. Pause. Switch all them off. Repeat"...versus "fully fledged operating system and electronic document presentation system."
Oh yes, and Equire printed roughly 233,300 of them (one in three of their circulation of 700,000) in one go. That's roughly equal to the 240,000 Kindle units Amazon has supposedly sold in about 10 months.
Still, the biggie is the simplicity...
Parent
Esquire welcomes hacking (Score:5, Interesting)
<blink>? (Score:5, Funny)
Great. The <blink> tag made it to real life!
Why?? Whyyyyyyyy........??? ;)
Adn so it begins... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes this first feeble attempt is fairly lame, a few segments that will burn out in a couple of months and took a fair investment in hardware to pull off. But it won't end here.
Soon they will put solar collectors on the things to keep it going indefinately, add more segments, etc. Hell, it won't be a generation before they are printing complex enough circuits on the damned things that they will be doing full motion video. On cereal boxes. Or having generic advertising, think shopping carts, seatbacks, etc updating their ad copy over slow radio links. And they already know how to make flat paper speakers so they damned things will be talking whenever somebody is in range.
Re:What would happen (Score:5, Funny)
if someone went and re-flashed all the controllers in the Esquire mags to display porn (first thing that comes to mind is Goatse) instead of the original content?
Um, then it would display goatse.
Parent
Re:What would happen (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't get it. What do YOU think will happen?
All I can see is a company gets a black eye, blames the whole thing on 'those evil hackers', and sends a potentially cool technology away forever.
And if the first thing you think of when you think of porn is 'Goatse', man, I'm sorry.
Parent
Re:What would happen (Score:5, Funny)
That's not an eye...
Parent
Re:What would happen (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:What would happen (Score:5, Interesting)
A pixel is just a very small, very square segment. I believe what the grandparent poster is trying to say is that this particular e-ink display is heavily segment based, and proposition supported by how it is being used in the cover and how cheap it is to make.
The cheap calculator displays are mostly LCD, which power both high end pixel-driven displays and the videogames that come free with your Happy Meal. This particular implementation of the technology appears to fall to the latter.
Hence, it would be nearly impossible to display anything other than what is currently on the cover without rebuilding the e-ink sheet. In this particular case, we're all winners.
Parent
Re:What would happen (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:What would happen (Score:5, Funny)
Then a bunch of artsy fashionistas would parade around saying that gaping anus is the new black.
Parent
Recycling instructions (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Recycling instructions (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Recycling instructions (Score:5, Insightful)
A fear of getting caught isn't the reason people comply, it's to keep hazardous material out of the landfill. The same reason we recycle our electronics through free programs instead of burying them in the backyard (well technically the fee is paid at point-of-sale).
Parent
Re:Recycling instructions (Score:5, Informative)
Somewhere there's a website with a list of companies that participate in the program.
Parent
Re:Great for the environment (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Great for the environment (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Great for the environment (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Ink ink ink (Score:5, Funny)
Until they are programmable enough.
When I was in middle school, our typing teacher gave repetitive exercises like that, to do at home or in lab. I happened to have a daisy wheel printer at home for my TRS-80 (m4, 32k and 2 drives!), which was basically a - you guessed it! - typewriter.
A for-next loop and homework was done... even trimmed the edges so the perforation marks wouldn't be there to tip her off....
Parent
Re:Boring, boring, boring (Score:5, Funny)
Parent