Ask Slashdot: Where Are the E-Ink Dashboards? 242
fsck! writes "My office recently installed a pair of huge plasma TVs to display some metrics and graphs. They only update every 15 minutes or so, and I couldn't help but wonder, why can't this be E-Ink? I searched all over the place but couldn't find anything bigger than 9.5" (Amazon's Kindle DX). I want a >30" E-Ink picture frame with USB or WiFi. Can the Slashdot community find anything greener than these energy sucking plasma TVs that seem to be everywhere?"
DIY (Score:5, Funny)
Use a white board and erasable marker plotter, computer controlled.
Bonus, it would put you on slashdot and earn you nerd cred. Maybe.
Re:DIY (Score:5, Interesting)
How about a giant Raspberry Pi-powered etch-a-sketch?
The video isn't very good, and it's not giant, but: http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/3046 [raspberrypi.org]
Use E-Ink in an actual dash? (Score:2, Interesting)
It occurs to me that one place you could possibly use E-Ink would be in an actual cars dash, well provided you could make a good way to see it at night anyway. (The main advantage of E-Ink here, would be that the sun wouldn't wash it out, and perhaps you would stop seeing radios so integrated into the car. A radio should just be a radio in my opinion, although there can be value in tossing a GPS in there, if you manage to at least get a double din I suppose. In another thought, I half wish they just sold
Re: Use E-Ink in an actual dash? (Score:2)
You could have some sort of LEDs surrounding the dash, or back lighting similar to watches. The LEDs would need to be low/adjustable power.
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Re:Use E-Ink in an actual dash? (Score:5, Funny)
God it hits me in the Nerd when people open brackets and fail to close them - it even changes how I read the damn text!
Re:DIY (Score:5, Funny)
To *erase* it?? I was under the impression the sponge SAVES the data in COMPRESSED format every single time!
Re:DIY (Score:5, Funny)
Use LED LCD TV instead (Score:2, Informative)
Plasmas can easily be replaced by LED LCD TVs that use a lot less energy.
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Plasmas can easily be replaced by LED LCD TVs that use a lot less energy.
Less but still a lot.
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I just replaced a 42" LCD TV that consumed 200W with a 39" LED LCD TV that consumes 50W. Even if you leave that 39" TV on 24/7, it probably still won't cost more than about $50/year. I think that's why there isn't a market for big eink displays.
And the Kindle DX is practically the only 9.7" eink reader (there's one other one). Other than that, the next size is 6".
A better Ask Slashdot is why some Chinese company hasn't tried to marry an eink 9.7" screen to dual core Arm A9 to make a $100-150 android ein
Re:Use LED LCD TV instead -- not really (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you pay for that education?
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Re:Use LED LCD TV instead -- not really (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but with 15-minute updates, the plasma will burn in in a few weeks to months and the LED will stay in decent shape for a few years.
Re:Use LED LCD TV instead -- not really (Score:5, Funny)
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Furthermore, if you ever had any scientific credentials, I'd probably be asking for them given the fact that you're comparing two different sized units as though they were completely comparable.
Re:Use LED LCD TV instead -- not really (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not $8. Those numbers came from probably very conservative assumptions about how much the average TV buyer actually uses his TV, which probably isn't 24 hours/day (or even 8-16 hours, as you might expect for a TV being used as an in-office "dashboard"). I'm guessing their assumption might be 2 hours/day.
I just did some very rough calculations: if the TV is going to be on 2 hours/day on average, that's 730.5 hours/year. If the TV uses 100W when operating, that's about 73kWh over the whole year. If your power costs $0.20/kWh, then the TV will cost $14.61 to operate for one year.
I'd assume that these "dashboard" TVs will be operated 10-12 hours a day, which is 5-6 times those previous numbers. Plus, commercial electricity costs more than residential, IIRC (I could be wrong about that). So it's probably much closer to $100/year to run these TVs, or maybe more. Still not an astronomical amount of money, though.
What I want to know is: what kind of TVs is the submitter using anyway? He's apparently interested in an e-Ink screen that's 30 FEET diagonally.
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Actually, commercial power is usually cheaper than residential on a per-KWH basis, because they use more and get bumped into a lower cost bracket(if they aren't already there by being on a "commercial" account). The monthly cost, however, is much higher.
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Pretty much. Some utilities will kick a residential customer into a higher bracket if they 'use too much', but most actually drop the price for volume customers. Still, the bill consists of a utility charge per kwh, a fuel charge per kwh, and a connection/administration fee that's static.
Most Commercial customers pay a lower kwh charge, but also pay the connection fee, and a feeder charge that's set to their max draw - IE if they need 200A max, that's what they have to pay, even if they only need it for 1
Re:Use LED LCD TV instead -- not really (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's a direct comparison for you, from my local power company (the largest hydroelectric producer in the world, HydroQuebec) all prices in CAD, and I'm ignoring the fixed costs here:
Residential rate: /kWh /kWh
Power over 50 kW (winter): $6.21 / kW
Power over 50 kW (summer): $1.26 / kW
First 30 kWh per day: 5.32
Remaining consumption: 7.51
Business rates ("low power", below 100 kW every month): /kWh /kWh
Power over 50 kW: $15.54 / kW
First 15,090 kWh: 8.73
Remaining consumption: 4.85
Business rates ("medium power", at least one month a year over 50 kW): /kWh /kWh
Power over 0 kW: $13.44 / kW
First 210,000 kWh: 4.41
Remaining consumption: 3.19
Business rates ("Large power", every month over 5 megawatts): /kWh
Power over 0 kW: $12.18 / kW
All consumption: 2.95
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So we should buy a super expensive product (that doesn't even actually exist) to replace a cheap readily available product. Because we'll save a few dollars a year in electricity.
Why? Are we buying our way into environmentalist heaven?
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If you read my post further, I did note that even when you adjust the numbers for the amount of usage they'd get in this application, it's still not that much money. I was just pointing out that the difference is much more than $8. Of course, if you add in the fact that you'll need to toss out that plasma in 6 months because it'll have burn-in, that adds up to more money, but still not enough to buy some super-expensive product instead of using a cheap off-the-shelf product.
Still, however, this whole post
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What I want to know is: what kind of TVs is the submitter using anyway? He's apparently interested in an e-Ink screen that's 30 FEET diagonally.
I'm more interested in that 9.5 foot Kindle...
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According to this [nationmaster.com], the average person in the US watches 4 hours of TV per day.
However, that doesn't mean the average amount of time per day a TV is turned on is the same. First of all, the previous statistic averages in people who don't own TVs at all. Second, sometimes people leave the TV on when they're not watching it. Third, often the same TV gets watched by multiple people. The first two factors would tend to cause the average to increase, while the latter would tend to cause it to decrease. I haven't
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Ignoring the rather large screen diagonal difference here, multiplying all figures by a few thousand doesn't magically reverse the price/energy ratio of each of those units.
Led (Score:3)
Another vote for LED
You can get v big 60" jobs quite easily and theres no burn-in esp if theres alot of static content as you imply
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Plasmas take work to create burn-in now, but they will if you make them. Updating content once every 15 minutes will definitely make them get persistent images.
CRTs had the same problem. They were fine for regular viewing, but persistent content burned in badly, even on good ones. Plasmas are at least as bad, even modern ones. Use them for normal content and they're fine (mine's two years old and doing great) but persistent content is not good use of a plasma.
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My decade old plasma has a anti burnin feature to prevent this. It's basically set all pixels on (so bright white) for a few minutes a month.
Re:Led (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Led (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, I vaguely remember a time when "screensaver" wasn't an official synonym for "a zombie-making, disk encrypting, key logging trojan".
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This was especially bad in server monitor screens. I remember when Novell added the moving snake screen saver. The longer the snake, the higher the server utilization. Prevented CRT burn AND gave useful information.
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He meant there will be no burned in images on the LCD due to long exposure of static content.
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Image persistence on LCD is a real thing. I've only seen it on panels that have been in use for a long time but it's still real.
Of course, it's not a big deal if the displays are only used for fairly static displays. It'll only be a problem when the display format is updated to a new layout. Then you'll have outlines of boxes, dark patches where the text was, etc. Fortunately, the damage can usually be reversed by "exercising" the pixels. I have a 37" 1080p panel that I rehab'd by using it to display v
Re:Led (Score:5, Informative)
Usually just setting an LCD to all-white for overnight will get rid of any persistent images. That's from what I've read online and my own personal experience.
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Tried that for several days with no change. Also tried the "turn it off" method for several days with no change. So I moved it to video playback duty and now the shadows are gone.
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My experience is that while persistent images aren't permanent on an LCD, a panel that has had burn-in once will get it again if you leave a static image on for too long.
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The problem, however, is that there's no 30-foot LED/LCD screens (then again, neither are there any Plasma screens that large). This guy needs one of those outdoor displays like they use in Times Square or on highway billboards.
Black white or grey (Score:2, Interesting)
E-ink is only black white or grey. So there is very little need for large sized versions. As most things that big you want color for.
a 30" eink display could be built though. make it from panels of smaller units like they do jumbo tron's.
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Agreed. The purpose of these large screens is to provide status updates, and give notice to things requiring special attention. Something that color was born for. It's very difficult to draw attention to something on a monochrome display.
Having the majority of the content grey and saving the black for important items, or trying to make something flash on E-Ink would make an unreadable mess of it all.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I still think there is a market for large e-ink displays.
For instance, there is a large LCD screen outside every lecture hall at my university. Each screen displays a blue-on-white list of scheduled lectures and events for that hall, which is updated every second hour or so. Replacing those screens with e-ink displays would presumably save a lot of power, without any loss of functionality.
There may be a market for large e-ink displays (thousands? tens of thousands?), but it's a tiny fraction of the market for 50 inch LCD/Plasma screens (millions), so the economies of scale mean that it would be prohibitively expensive.
The black-and-white nature of the displays and limited refresh rate mean they aren't a drop-in replacement for every large format display, which limits their usefulness.
Re:Black white or grey (Score:5, Insightful)
Airports, stations, hospitals, schools... Big market I'd say.
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Sure there is. Back when e-ink was a novelty, there were some big advertising banners made with it. I'm sure if you wanted one you could ask the manufacturer and they'd do a custom job for you.
Saving a little on energy just isn't worth the cost of buying something made in the tens of thousands when you can just pick up something made in the tens of millions.
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A Japanese company called Soken demoed an e-ink display covering an entire wall a few years ago, but it used a different technology to the type used in the Kindle and similar devices. I have a feeling those won't scale, or someone would have demonstrated a larger display by now.
Also the OP is wrong, his company didn't buy plasma screens. Plasma suffers from burn-in and would be ruined by a static image being displayed for 15 minutes, so chances are they are LCD.
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You're absolutely right: plasma would suffer from burn-in pretty quickly in that application. But what makes you think the OP is wrong? Companies make bone-headed purchasing decisions all the time. You think the average manager knows about plasma burn-in?
Re:Black white or grey (Score:5, Informative)
E-ink is only black white or grey.
Definitively not. Color E-ink does exist, and what's more: it exists in large sizes. This stuff was developed for digital signage projects.
Check out Magink [magink.com].
Unfortunately in most real world situations it is easier to either use a billboard, or a LED screen.
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My favorite part of the practical applications they present is the security camera pointed at the billboard. Presumably the tech is expensive enough that someone might just scale the tower and steal it.
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It comes in color now.
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Maybe I can just use an e-ink billboard that says "STOP," "GO," or "GET OUT OF THE INTERSECTION."
Re:Black white or grey (Score:5, Informative)
E-ink is only black white or grey. So there is very little need for large sized versions. As most things that big you want color for.
a 30" eink display could be built though. make it from panels of smaller units like they do jumbo tron's.
You are completely incorrect. Prototype color eInk screens have been around for years, and they are now commercially available. Of course, they are not used in a Kindle or Nook, so perhaps you are not familar with them. Google "color e-ink" or just look at this ECTACO jetBook Color with color E Ink screen [newegg.com] for an example.
The trick with color e-ink is that, just like black and white e-ink, the screen looks more like newsprint rather than a bright plasma or LCD. If a billboard or advertisement used color e-ink, it would require some kind of bright lighting to make the screen look vibrant. Once you add a bright LED lamp to illuminate your e-ink board, will it save much energy vs. an LCD tv?
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You Can Getr Colour e-Ink Readers, Just Not In US (Score:3)
E-ink is only black white or gre
That's not true [mobileread.com] and hasn't been true for a number of years. You can get colour e-ink readers [mobileread.com], just not in the US which is, as has become depressingly common for many consumer portable electronics gadgets, running several years behind Asia for newest tech.
Who modded this mistake up? (Score:2)
E-ink is one colour on a background, but the foreground colour can be cyan, magenta, blue, black or whatever. Combine a few and you can have an e-ink device such a the "Jetbook Color" (I purchased one of those for a relative due to the educational software on it + long battery life). Since there's no backlight you don't have the g
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PlasticLogic (http://plasticlogic.com) is working on a 20" display made out of 4 10" tiles that are (almost) rimless on two sides. I've contacted them about these panels and they promised availability around this January. Unfortunately I haven't had time to ask for an update yet... but this is definitely something to look out for. I'll be getting one of those if it is possible at all. However, PlasticLogic will almost certainly not sell finished displays, but panels and development kits for controlling them
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Why would there me more or less need for a big sized display depending on how many colors it can display? As long as the contrast is decent I would love a large eInk display
You and a few other maybe, but most want to take advantage of having color. In the systems at my work, rows can be made red, yellow, green, or white, each indicating the status of that item. Furthermore, each item has icons to designate different things and the color adds to the recognition of such icons. Even if they did make such thing, most display programs will already be done in color as the are probably expecting to output to a computer monitor, which these large LCDs are simply acting as. The actual
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You and a few other maybe, but most want to take advantage of having colour.
I can think of quite a few uses for a large, low power black and white display: airports, railway stations, bus stations, museums (interactive text for displays), shopping centre interactive maps etc. etc. In fact all the things which old black and white CRTs or paper used to be used for. The problem is that they cannot make e-Ink displays that large cheaply enough yet, not that there is no market for them if they could.
Re:Black white or grey (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would there me more or less need for a big sized display depending on how many colors it can display?
As long as the contrast is decent I would love a large eInk display
You alone do not make large enough market.
Large CRTs and panels, before becoming parts of consumer products, where literally exclusively used by businesses for marketing purposes (displays in shops, exhibitions and so on). They bore the high price of very early adopters. And: marketing wants to have colors.
Unless there would appear a market for large B/W panels or the color version of e-Ink would enter production, chances of a large e-Ink panel are very close to zero.
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Energy sucking plasma? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously dude?
Most 60" LED LCD tvs can be run 24/7 for less than $75 a year. That is practically nothing.
Your office could easily save an order of magnitude more by turning the thermostat up 1 degree.
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Well, putting a plasma in an office displaying static images for hours per day might just do it.
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I have had it happen
I have a 5 inch audiovox TFT LCD TV that I use on my apple IIc
I am developing hardware for it that interfaces with ADT pro (disk transfer utility)
one Saturday I started working on it at around noon, and since I was testing against the software I left it on... until 10 or 11 that night and there it was
A BIG ASS GHOST of the ADTpro's main screen, and it would not go away, couple weeks later I let an arduino hammer the screen with full white and full black as fast as it could (it just looke
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We've "burned" an image into several iPad2 LCD screen quite effectively. It's not horribly noticeable while the tablet is in use, but display a uniform dark/black image and it's clear that there is permanent damage. We've since started using a screensaver for that application to prevent the issue from worsening, but the damage was permanent.
It may not be the same mechanism, but the end-user result is the same.
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I doubt 24/7 is necessary.
08-18h (10 hours a day, allowing for flexible working hours) 5 days a week for a 92W 60" TV [currys.co.uk] works out to 0.092*10*5*52 = 240kWh a year. I think my electric is about 15p/kWh, so £35/year.
24/7 it would be £120/year.
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Don't believe manufacturer's claims for energy use. Especially not if you are using the display for things that aren't regular home TV-viewing. A TV used during working hours will typically need its brightness set quite high, and that can use quite a bit extra power. It will also wear the display out faster, but often you can buy 3 regular TV's for the price of one display made for business use. Even if it does wear out after 2 years, prices will have come down and quality improved.
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I picked the first large TV that came up on a search, but the same TV is the "best" for energy efficiency according to an impartial consumer review organisation in the UK: http://www.which.co.uk/technology/tv-and-dvd/guides/tv-energy-running-costs/#/the-best [which.co.uk] . You have to pay to see the detailed statistics (that's how they remain impartial), so I don't know how they measured the consumption.
In any case, it's closer to £120 than $1095 a year.
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Cost to a business would also including the cost of having somebody buy the TV's and installing them.
You can buy 3 regular TV's for the price of a business-use display, but you'll also have to pay three times as much to install them. (plus 3x as much downtime, assuming the mechanic won't be able to replace the TV within a 1/50th of a second).
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Yes, I was thinking when I first read the GP that he should have remembered the rest of the world before posting that.... I'm the UK, I doubt turning the thermostat up would save me money either.
Where are you, anyway? Alaska? A polar station? The ISS??? Hi from -3 England, anyhow! Brrrr!
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Alaska sounds like a real possibility, or Canada. Personally, I'm in Alaska, -41 when I woke up this morning.
Turning the thermostat up a degree would certainly feel nice; but it'd be expensive. Of course, heating oil is still a lot cheaper than electricity for heat, so I still use energy saving appliances - not to mention that said energy saving appliances keeps me from looking at installing an air conditioner at all.
Call Centres (Score:5, Interesting)
They have 4 large LCD screen in the centre of the rooms, facing outwards. These screens only show how many people are on the phones and how many customers are waiting. This display is updated every 15 seconds.
A large e-Ink display would be perfect for this. There is no colour needed and should save a fair chunk of power. That is, of course, I'm mistaken about the energy usage of e-ink displays?
Surely someone has created one if that is the case? Surely there would be a market for it now? And if you needed a bit of colour, I'm sure basic colour e-ink displays can do the job fine.
Not mistaken. 99.9% power savings (Score:2)
Updated every 15 seconds. ... should save a fair chunk of power. That is, of course, I'm mistaken about the energy usage of e-ink dislays.
You are not mistaken. E-ink only uses power when it updates, so for something updated every 15 minutes, that would be 99.9% power savings.
In one type of e-ink display, each pixel is a ball, white on one side, black on the other. The balls sit in grease / oil. Power is used only to turn the balls the right direction, black-side-up or white-side-up. You could unplug it / remove the battery and the display would stay.
Re:Not mistaken. 99.9% power savings (Score:4, Informative)
each pixel is a ball
Close, but not quite. Each pixel is made up of hundreds to tens of thousands of these nanoscale spheres.
It's a similar mistake that people who are only used to discrete displays (e.g. LCDs) make when first working with CRTs: a CRT phosphor triad is not a pixel; a pixel will likely cover several triads. It certainly took me a bit before this finally clicked.
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"I currently work in a call centre while I'm studying."
How do you concentrate?
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They do exist. See this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jT9PJoHIgo [youtube.com]
This interview explains a bit about the technology, mainly what the constraints are in terms of PPI:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubd0dx5q4fg [youtube.com]
More on colour displays:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtXRG7sS3ps [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXANJ115dm4 [youtube.com]
Mobile phones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnUlAnrkw_M [youtube.com]
Matrix and segmented displays:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnUlAnrkw_M [youtube.com]
Units (Score:3, Insightful)
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Probably someone not used to the old-fangled inches and foot and just chucking quotey symbols on the end of a number.
The only thing I'm thinking of is "Stonehenge!"
E-Ink Illumination (Score:2)
I love my e-ink reader and I love the idea of a large (color?) e-ink display, but it would require more than just the energy to update the e-ink. For example, in a darkened call center, you'd still need to shine a front light onto it which might not offer much savings over the LED back lighting of an LED LCD.
-Hovsep
Someone is making these. (Score:2, Interesting)
Someone is making these. http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/06/giant-e-paper-display-spotted-ogled-at-taiwanese-book-show/ This is from three years ago, so you can bet the technology has improved.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Flipdots (Score:2)
You really want a display that large? (Score:2)
I want a >30' E-Ink picture frame with USB or WiFi
30 foot is almost Jumbotron size. Does your office really have room for something that large (to say nothing of the budget)?
Forget e-ink, introducing IGZO! (Score:5, Interesting)
TLDR; Check out this (cheesy) video where IGZO introduces "himself" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnUUXoFsjoY [youtube.com]
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Economics of scale (Score:2)
Repurposed plasma screens are just that; you're making use of a huge supply chain designed for providing TVs to provide for a special purpose application. It would cost rather a lot to produce 30" eink displays, and there aren't many people to spread the initial costs around.
Fabrication costs for 30" are too high (Score:4, Interesting)
The fabrication costs for 30" are too high.
The way these things are fabricated results in a sufficien number of pixel failures in a 30" display as to make it uneconomical.
They are typically fabricated in large sheets, then the sheets are tested for dead pixels, and then the standard display sizes are cut out from between the dead pixels, and the individual units are retested. The smallest display sizes are used for things like watches and digital thermometers, etc..
The fabrication process has barely improved enough that they can (as of very recently) offer 9.74" displays in quantity sufficient to make them worth manufacturing.
Unless you can personally improve the process/methods to significantly improve yields for larger areas of the sheets, then what you are asking for will remain uneconomical, probably for several decades, as process improvements in LCD, LED, and OLED continue to outstrip E-Ink, and therefore their power consumption costs drop toward that of E-Ink. Currently, the only practical value for E-Ink is power consumption for infrequently updated displays which tend to be power sensitive only because they run off batteries.
So the short answer is you haven't personally invented the fabrication processes yet.
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They are typically fabricated in large sheets, then the sheets are tested for dead pixels, and then the standard display sizes are cut out from between the dead pixels, and the individual units are retested.
To be fair, though, a 30" display meant to be read at 20' can have a few dead pixels and that won't matter.
Electromechanical pixels (Score:2)
Forget E-Ink, you need something like this:
http://blog.makezine.com/2012/07/18/super-fast-electromagnetic-flip-dot-display/ [makezine.com]
problem is (Score:2)
I just had this conversation with a coworker (Score:2)
man that LCD with the LED backlight runs 24/7 and it just rotates through a slide show, can we put it on a timer or something?
who cares, the pc thats running is is sucking 300 watts
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I want a >30' E-Ink picture frame with...
Yep, e-ink billboards...
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The summary referred to a 9.5-foot Kindle. That's one hell of a giant e-book reader.
Re:9.5' (Score:5, Funny)
That's one hell of a giant e-book reader.
Well, that's based on the amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area this morning.
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I believe he's using "dashboard" in the Google sense of the word: a computer display, usually in a public area, which is periodically updated with information, such as server status, uptime, software project status, build status, testing status, release engineering information, etc.. They are frequently used in boiler-room situations to remind people of slipping deadlines, source tree instability, testing failures, and so on.