First Touch-Screen, Bendable E-Paper Developed 174
Al writes "The first touch-screen flexible e-paper has been developed by a team from Arizona State University and E-Ink (the company that makes the technology for Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader). Jann Kaminski and colleagues at ASU's Flexible Display Center say the main challenge is that most touch-screen technologies do not respond well to being flexed. So they used an inductive screen, which relies on a magnetized styluses to induce a field in a sensing layer at the back of the display. The first adopters for the technology are likely to be the US Army. Watch a video of the device being tested."
Sounds cool (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Sounds cool (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Sounds cool (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'm as anti-enthusiasm as anybody, but does it pose some problem for you if it is flexible and touch sensitive?
I suppose you might want access to one or the other at a lower price, but I doubt the availability of both in a single screen will have much impact on that.
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As a side note, yes, I realize this is a touch-screen but I'm thinking that for large-scale presentations and such where people are far away the fingerprints won't be noti
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Re:Sounds cool (Score:4, Informative)
"bended"? C'mon, I know /. is the home of the "offline illiterate", but "bended"?
While "bended" is archaic, it's still grammatically correct.
Re:Sounds cool (Score:4, Insightful)
Roll it up, stick it under my arm, and carry it to where I need it. Yeah, that sounds pretty handy.
Control with a mouse. Not draw with a mouse. I've given whiteboard talks, sketching out what I'm talking about. And I'm here to tell you you CANNOT give a whiteboard talk by trying to sketch with a mouse.
Not one person using standard accounting ledgers said, "You know, this is just unacceptable. This has to be able to do arithmetic on its own for me to do my job." Then they got to see computer spreadsheets.
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And I'm here to tell you you CANNOT give a whiteboard talk by trying to sketch with a mouse.
But you probably can with a pen tablet.
But obviously this has many usages, just that some people can't come up with them since it haven't been around and they haven't seen them yet.
But there are others which will come up with them so don't worry ...
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I agree with you. There are these electronic touch-sensitive whiteboards called SmartBoards that can be drawn on with pens. Teachers can even draw basic shapes by tapping the button for the shape and drawing it on the screen. Educationally this is a huge leap forward from drawing on a tablet or controlling a presentation with a mouse, considering that the teacher can remain at the same place in the room as they were before they started using computers for presentations. Being able to stand in front of the w
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That seems to me to be arguing just the opposite. The first line is a question if we actually have a need for this.
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I want to be able to type my papers on the shirt I am wearing, and then show it to my boss just by walking into his office.
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you really think a wall-sized flexible touch-screen display is going to be less expensive than a projector, ever?
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Yep.
This technology looks like it will be easier to scale, cheaper to manufacture, and have fewer parts..Once it's ramped into a full manufacturing life scale. There is a lot of manual work that still goes into a high quality projector. Meanwhile these will alp be the same quality, flattening the marketing field.
DO you think a computer will be less expensive then hiring extra accountants, ever?
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DO you think a computer will be less expensive then hiring extra accountants, ever?
But a computer cannot serve as a drop-in replacement for accountants (at least not effectively).
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If you're worried about casting a shadow on the scree while interacting with the projection, might I suggest that you drive the projector with a data tablet and just sit comfortably off to the side. That will work a lot better than cramming 50+ people around a palm pilot sized display.
Re:sure the display is flexible, but the backlight (Score:5, Informative)
e-ink displays have no back lights. That thing in the back was likely the magnetic sensor.
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Correct. Not having a back light is actually a good thing for military uses. I work a few offices down from some of the guys on this project and talk to them occasionally. At one point, one of them suggested adding a back light to it for night operations to an army guy, and he was firmly against it to avoid any light that might give the position away to an enemy. When asked how the user would use it at night, the response was something along the lines of "That's why I carry night vision goggles around."
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When asked how the user would use it at night, the response was something along the lines of "That's why I carry night vision goggles around."
Absolutely. And even if there isn't enough ambient light to make the NVGs work, you STILL don't want a typical backlight.
In that case what you do is throw a poncho over your head, put your NVGs on and use IR light. The poncho is obviously a precaution against enemies with NVGs seeing your IR light, but you use IR light both because it doesn't reflect as much and because *only* enemies with NVGs can see it. If for some reason you don't have an IR light (maybe you don't have NVGs with their built-in IR l
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I wanted to kill, just slowly torture, the author of the last Powerpoint presentation I was forced to sit through. I truly contemplated taking the projector, picking it up and bashing his skull with it. I don't think I'm alone in this.
It just might be safer to have soft, roll up screens. Or just software that prohibits Powerpoint from displaying anything but black.
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The Last power point presentation I saw, was at an awards banquet. Everyone was at least slightly drunk, but even with 4 glasses of rum and a full belly of food I could barely sit and watch power point.
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Unfortunately, my employer frowns on pirates at work. Scares the customers.
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Re:Sounds cool (Score:4, Interesting)
A couple that come to mind:
The foreman in charge of a team constructing a building (say 3-4 stories) wants to check the blueprints to make sure of a detail. He unrolls his E-paper blueprint from his back pocket and navigates to the correct section, then zooms in. A PDA would limit the display area for the blueprint, while it would be kind of difficult to roll up the whole roll of paper blueprints and stick it in his pocket.
Similarly, an E-paper newspaper could be (potentially) folded to fit in a pocket and is reusable without requiring people to put it in a recycling bin.
Your local grocery or department store could have catalogs available at the entrance that show you where in the store the item you're looking at is located, and how many are left. You could pick one up when you enter and leave it when you're finished shopping. That I suppose a PDA could do, but if you're shopping with small children, having something that's easy to read (because of its size) and durable could be useful.
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> ...an E-paper newspaper could be (potentially) folded to fit in a pocket...
But this thing can't be folded: only bent on what looks to be about a 10cm radius.
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an E-paper newspaper could be (potentially) folded to fit in a pocket...
But this thing can't be folded: only bent on what looks to be about a 10cm radius.
Small moves, Ellie... small moves. Give it a few years or a decade and see how progress is then.
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True, but that isn't really that different from normal paper (i.e. posters get rolled and not folded and books and magazines have a pre-created fold in the middle). I think the flexibility is much more important for durability then it is for folding, since dropping a thing that can bent is pretty much a non-issue, while dropping a solid objects pretty much always kills it due to the much higher G-forces involved. And of course you could always add pre-created bends to an e-paper device as well if you need t
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Not for nothing, but no department store or grocery store would ever do such a thing. T
Re:Sounds cool (Score:5, Insightful)
Aricle: "Berkley finds cure for cancer."
Slashdot: "What the hell can they use that for?"
Are you telling me that you have such narrow, blinded, imagination-less vision that you can't see the use for something as thin and flexible as paper, but with the functionality of a touch-screen laptop? How about, I dunno, an e-Book that's as easy to transport and hold as a newspaper? Hell, with modern wireless technology, you could have your screen/input device sitting on the table with you at breakfast while the laptop "base" is over by the outlet. Carry the newspaper screen/input device around with you on the train and bus wirelessly connected to a PDA around your belt.
Think of the possibilities!
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> Are you telling me that you have such narrow, blinded, imagination-less vision that you
> can't see the use for something as thin and flexible as paper, but with the
> functionality of a touch-screen laptop?
This isn't it.
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My thoughts exactly, but you put it better than I could conceive. Wish I had mod points.
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I agree. We already have that $100 Wall Wart (not "Wal-Mart") computer. Imagine having a souped up version of that as the brains behind the "paper screen." It can be off in an out of the way location, using Ethernet Over Power to connect to the Internet. You'd pull out the "paper screen," browse your morning news sites, maybe a Twitter feed or two, some blog postings, Slashdot, etc. When you're done, it can fit into a tiny storage location (bookshelf, counter, etc) with no issues.
For a business use of
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> Does that mean I should get hyped up over every advancement in everything because it might one day meet a niche demand for someone?
Don't worry, nobody's trying to hype you up. It's just that there's this thing here now in some state of development, and you can do whatever you want to with the information.
You could even get hyped up about it, if you wanted to.
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Does that mean I should get hyped up over every advancement in everything because it might one day meet a niche demand for someone?
No, but you don't have to troll every article asking "Whats the point!!" just because you can't see how this will be useful in a few years. A simple "Ah, cool! Glad they're making progress!" is appropriate, I think.
And as easy to damage/lose/get stolen?
Your $300 EEEpc isn't easy to steal or damage or lose? Hell, this thing's probably MORE robust. I doubt dropping it would hurt it at all. Try dropping your EEEPC off your desk and see what happens.
And my $300 EEE netbook couldn't possibly meet this demand? Keep your flexible e-book. Real books meet my requirements.
Three years ago I'm sure your laptop met your requiremenst and you wondered what the deal with the
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All battles happen at the junction of four map segments, at night, in the rain. This solves the first problem. Hopefully it's illuminated and waterproof.
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Re:Sounds cool (Score:5, Insightful)
The applications people dream about are things like:
-Robustness. For field work a display that is inherently bendable is potentially less likely to break.
-Displays that are more compact/portable, since they can be folded up or rolled-up. E.g. a PDA with a small screen for quick work but a larger roll-out display for reading a book.
-Being able to read computer-text in a format roughly like a newspaper (thin, light, bendable, etc.). In principle not more useful that a rigid and flat e-book reader, but it is a format some people may prefer.
-Large format displays. E.g. instead of having a projector and unrolling a white screen, you just unroll a bendable display screen (with all the usual advantages of monitor technology: e.g. you can't block the beam, brighter display with better contrast, etc.). Or being able to unfold a screen (like a map) and put it on a table for impromptu collaboration (or display data in the field).
-Deformable displays for shifting surfaces. E.g. imagine a touchscreen that had a keyboard 'hidden' behind it. When required the keys press up (bending the display) so you can use it as a normal keyboard. With a switch the keys depress and lock, giving you a flat touchscreen.
-The ability to put touchscreens onto non-planar surfaces. Like having a screen that follows the contour of the dash in your car. Or having screens plastered onto columns in malls (for a mall directory, and advertising, probably...).
-The ability to put touchscreens anywhere: wallpapering a room, the inside surface of a tent, clothes (maybe just for novelty or maybe actually useful: e.g. a computer interface built into army uniforms), the surface of your desk, etc.
Those are just a few. If you can't think of any applications for a bendable touchscreen, you're not trying very hard!
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-Robustness. For field work a display that is inherently bendable is potentially less likely to break.
This is useful not only for field work, but also for day to day work as well. My Iliad screen cracked just by putting it the pouch on the back of the seat in front of me on an airplane. I thought that the E-reader from Plastic Logic (http://www.plasticlogic.com/) was supposed to be flexible, though.
Re:Sounds cool (Score:4, Funny)
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Low power, lightweight, non-rigid writable computing devices, capable of being rolled into a tube around it's hard circuitry?
K-12 schools- a cheap computing device for students to use that's near identical to paper, could allow a teacher to monitor an entire class's writing from his/her desk, and wouldn't snap like a twig or make a backpack extremely bulky if placed in a student's backpack? oh yeah, no use whatsoever there
Think of it this way, what's more familiar for people to use for note taking, a spiral
Re:Sounds cool (Score:5, Interesting)
If they can extend it to the size of A4 and A1 sheets of paper, that could replace the need for printing glossy posters for poster presentations sessions at conferences and in office corridors. These are relatively costly to print, and become out of date (E-mail addresses tend to change).
Taking an A1 sized poster to a conference usually requires taking a rocket launcher sized tube through airports and train stations, along with the laptop containing a powerpoint presentation.
Imagine if all that was required was to take a USB memory stick and download an image to a generic E-ink display at the conference.
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Jakar heavy tube Teletube - extends to double length and available from any art store [internet-s...ners.co.uk] - Might make a good wi-fi signal booster if lined with aluminum foil on the inside.
Rocket launcher [science.co.il]
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I don't know, which part of it? Seems like there are 3 things going on here: (1) e-paper; (2) touchscreen; and (3) bendable.
Now the value of e-paper is that it uses less electricity than an LCD screen and is easier on the eyes (in many circumstances) for prolonged reading. The fact that it's touch-sensitive gives you another option in how you interact with it.
Now those two things aren't new. They're already being used in the Kindle, for example, with considerable success. The fact that it's bendable m
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The bendable makes it so that it's more flexible in its use (get it? haha!) and the touch sensitive makes it so that it doesn't have to have other controls on it. I don't think this is the sort of thing where everyone says, "yes, this is what we've been waiting for!" but instead waits for development to catch up to it.
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E-book readers that fit in a pen.
The ability to apply a screen to any surface in any shape without having to pre-fab it into that shape.
Complete elimination of all of those imposed form factors that make devices take a certain size because the screen is fixed and rigid.
I got to tour the facility a year or so ago when they gave the MIT Club of Phoenix a tour. It was really cool. They had a pre-production mode
Re:Sounds cool (Score:5, Insightful)
You8r missinf the bigges and most important use:
Gaming!
Now I can have my table sized roll out, and just have the map display on it, with monsters as they come into sight!
SA well as be able to play every parker brothers game with just one board.
Think man, THINK!
Won't anybody think of the gamers?
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You8r missinf the bigges and most important use:
You seem to be missing some letters on your keyboard.
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Future generations judge technology by comparing the merits of what they're used to versus what came before. What's old though functional becomes hobbled and retrograde -- quaint, at best.
As this e-ink tech catches on, for whatever reasons we can imagine, our grandchildren will look at our solid technology and ask themselves, "Why *doesn't* this flex? Why *isn't* it touch-sensitive?"
Sort of the same way the current youth might express surprise at an all-green terminal screen. "What do you mean, it's only
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Bloke, go read your post [slashdot.org]. Or http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1147647&cid=27053677 [slashdot.org]. You were douche bagging on a development. You now try to make it sound like you were observing a great phenomenon or something. This is not how you edit your /. comments!
Failure on video! (Score:2, Informative)
notice how a row and column goes dead after the flexibility demonstration.
Still very neat demo of the first stage prototype.
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Re:Failure on video! (Score:5, Informative)
Actually not, that row and column are light from the get-go, rewind and rewatch. I'm also not sure, but that could be a reflection.
How flexible? (Score:4, Funny)
Will it blend?
All Right (Score:4, Interesting)
Bendable e-paper! I look forward to the day when the stack of textbooks and file folders I keep can be easily replaced by one or two screens and a million tiny hard drives I can lose.
Although, it would be nice if a subscription to a newspaper meant that they would give me their proprietary e-paper and update it once a day with the new issue, keeping all previous issues on file and searchable on the same piece of hardware.
Re:All Right (Score:5, Insightful)
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At least they will be able to bend the truth...
+++++ NO CARRIER ++++++
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Actually many magazines are this way EXCEPT you have to manually get the pdf, download it and then put it on your device.
I wish I could get all my e-magazines I subscribe to as a RSS feed and by passing my login info automate the download to my reader. It seems that almost every magazine publisher wants to do it their way and make it difficult for the subscriber to get the latest issue automatically.
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Works great for websites, it sucks for magazines in pdf form that require you to log in, click here, click here, wait, click here click here, oh there's the latest issue, click there... Then their Webdesigners have tp prove they are needed so they redesign the site weekly so my automated scrapers dont work.
Servo, nuts and volts both have a pdf edition but are a raging PITA to automate their download from the sites
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That's so you can pull up an old issue to use in the bottom of your birdcage, right?
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Although, it would be nice if a subscription to a newspaper meant that they would give me their proprietary e-paper and update it once a day with the new issue, keeping all previous issues on file and searchable on the same piece of hardware.
They already do, if you consider an iPhone "e-paper" and their Web site a "subscription."
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I can't wait until I can change the wallpaper that is on my real walls without having to hang new wallpaper. Being able to dynamically display things (from, say the tv/computer) on the walls around the room would be spiffy too.
theres a train tunnel in my room! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:All Right (Score:5, Funny)
Oh God. That's... Ow. Imagine MySpace, but in everyone's living room.
Seriously, man. Be careful what you wish for.
Some day, I'm going to say 'Oh man, you remember the Goatse wallpaper virus of 2024? What month that was.
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Sounds great, but don't forget others will be able to do that as well.
That's doesn't scare you? take a walk around and look at some peoples wallpaper on there computer. Keep in mind that they could ahve just about anything there.
I'm sure you choice would be stylish~
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I can't wait until I can change the wallpaper that is on my real walls without having to hang new wallpaper. Being able to dynamically display things (from, say the tv/computer) on the walls around the room would be spiffy too.
It's not so great. Read "carpet bugs" [livejournal.com]
Easy! (Score:4, Funny)
I'm not impressed. I can do this with my current LCD Screen. Watch thi*#&$&#*((*#
Re:Easy! (Score:4, Funny)
You flexed your keyboard, not your screen! Watcg thia: I;m flezing my LCS screeen now...
Magnetic stylus != touch screen (Score:4, Informative)
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A stylus is quite small, and can be positioned accurately. My finger is quite fat. Waving a finger around is OK for scrolling through lists and selecting large icons, but writing with your finger on something the size of a PDA is really sucky.
Re:Magnetic stylus != touch screen (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to be dismissive of your point (it's a good point), but I think it just depends on the application. If the purpose is navigation of an OS, then I might be much more interested in using my finger. If, on the other hand, the purpose is to allow me to write on something, then I'm more comfortable using something resembling a pen.
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Agreed.
The iPod Touch is great for all sorts of things, but trying to use the handwriting recognition is a real pain. I normally write with a pen or pencil, so a stylus is a "natural" substitute - it feels very much like a pen or pencil, but works on the touch screen. I can do that with my Windows Mobile device, but not with my iPod Touch.
I know about the stylus at ThinkGeek. I don't have one yet, and the price is a bit too high in my opinion for a stylus.
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Use the negative side of a AAA or AAAA battery with a bit of felt on it.
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using your finger is fine when you don't mind smeared, bad readable displays.
Your definition of touch-screen would be annoying (Score:4, Interesting)
So if they made a little finger-glove that just goes over the tip of your finger that's magnetic, or even if they eventually develop something that's basically a magnetic version of a false fingernail, would you not consider THAT touch screen? For your definition, does it HAVE to require actual skin-to-screen contact?
For my money, I'd rather NOT directly touch and smear up a screen. You'll have a sharper, more accurate touching point using anything other than the rounded, soft surface of a fingertip as well.
And finally, if something can sense a finger touching it, odds are it'll be set off by just about anything touching it. If they can make it so that it's ONLY activated by the previously mentioned fingertip cover, I'd consider that WAY better.
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The primary sucky point with a stylus is that they are easy to lose. You can generally find an easy back up for a passive stylus by using a retracted ball point pen or the back of a pencil or such. A magnetic stylus is a specialized item.
irex? (Score:2)
Will this new technology make the iRex Iliad more affordable?
http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad [irextechnologies.com]
Currently this cool reader is basically eInk over a Wacom tablet, and costs >$7C
I still want one, though.
As soon... (Score:2)
Return of the scroll (Score:5, Interesting)
I've tried something similar... (Score:5, Funny)
Now how about some research... (Score:2)
To me that's a much more serious limitation of the current displays than the inability to bend them.
What happens if... (Score:2)
... the display touches itself?
Most glaring issue of epaper needs fixing (Score:2)
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No kidding - there are so many hundreds if not thousands of applications for this that I wish I'd had the technological know-how to make one of these.
Imagine if you will:
- Flexible advertising that would allow you to interact with it (e.g. the hood of a car in a showroom - you could explore all the specs and details)
- Portable point of sale - maybe you sell things at concerts or trade shows - unroll the screen, plug it into a micro-format computer with wifi/3G and have e-commerce available on a 50 inch scre
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