E-ink writing pad, Noteslate. | Hacker News Reader

E-ink writing pad, Noteslate.

noteslate.com

296 pointsmarkkat116 comments

Although it's obvious, I didn't immediately consider that these sketches could be saved. Once I did, my interest in something like this grew several-fold. I love to doodle and jot notes, I miss it. Now, I can do it again...

BTW, I don't know anything about the company. Maybe it's vaporware? I just happened across this on Kottke.org. I'd love to know more.

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I would love to have something like this for sketching out UI/design ideas. Digital tools are typically too bulky, and awkward for collaboration; pencil and paper lack the ability to save and re-edit easily. And at $99, it's cheap enough that I'm willing to gamble on it. Consider me sold once it's available for sale.

I've been using Moleskine notebooks for years; if you do get one, let us know how it goes. I expect it not to work very well, but every so often my expectations are confounded in a delightful way, the most recent being the Livescribe pen (see James Fallows's description here: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2009/07/my-new... ). Based on his recommendation, I bought one and, shockingly, it works as advertised and is vastly more convenient than conventional dictaphones or pen/paper.

I couldn't believe the iPad didn't come with digital ink native to the OS. If it did I think it would have been a killer educational device. I would have been one of the first to buy it had it come with digital ink.

This product has me excited too. I hope it doesn't get canceled like the Courier.

Digital ink doesn't work well with Apple's capacitive touch screen. You can buy a "stylus" for the iPad though it is really too fat/big to be worth calling it that. It's about the size of your finger, and you have better control just using your finger to touch the screen.

it looks fucking amazing, I can't wait to get hold of one. If it lives up to the marketing images, I think this is a game changer.

Awesome concept. I was thinking about this yesterday actually (while looking for the pads of paper I like, which are virtually impossible to find!).. I really think for these products to be successful, there needs to be an obsessive level of thought and craft put into how it feels. For one thing, in some of the screenshots you can see a shakiness in the lines... I've found any of the electronic writing surfaces I've used too sensitive, and without enough tactile feedback. There's a certain friction to pressing a pen into paper that makes for confident lines. I'd like to see this sort of product done really, really well... I'd certainly love to abandon my obsession for pen & paper.

They claim that "no antialiasing" is "one of our best features". I guess they like the jaggies.

I could see this as being useful as an input medium to something like Balsamiq, but that might conflict with the "we're keeping it simple. just like paper. nothing you can't do with paper." feel they're going for. Which is an odd pitch --- people selling electronic whiteboards usually say something like, "you can pretend it's like your other whiteboards, but here's all this other stuff you can also do with it!"

Jaggies aren't a good thing. No anti-aliasing is a good thing if you have a high enough dpi. I don't think 100 is going to cut it, though.

Yeah, I think for me this is a case of I'll wait for the retina display version.

I like how they emphasize "lack of internet" as a feature. :)

It really can be the bane of productivity.

Hi I'm selling a productivity boosting technology called "internet blackout", it will improve your company's output by about 3-4 fold while this technology is turned on.

As seen in Egypt!

...

Thanks, I already have a hosts file. Now if I only had the willpower to point ycombinator to 127.0.0.1, I'd have tons of extra time.

I hope you don't memorize the IP address :P

I am pretty sure this is a hoax (too many jokes in the copy below the image), but I think an "e-ink thin client" seriously is not a bad idea. Think livescribe, but bidirectional (not just the writing on the pad is saved, but it can also be viewed). Link it to a web service a la Evernote and go :)

If this is real, Evernote should buy them and sell it as the Evernote pad. Would be amazing.

The last thing I need is another place to write by hand. Handwriting is an incredibly inefficient way to transmit information from brain to computer, especially for me (I'm dysgraphic).

I just want a very long-life note-taking tablet with a decent keyboard. There's a reason the old Tandy 100 is still in use by a handful of journalists. Nothing has really taken the place of it, as far as I know.

The Kindle keyboard isn't comfortable enough to write a book or an article on; phone keyboards are too small and editing too much of a chore (I'd use vim on my Nexus One if it weren't such a damned hassle to hit Esc and some of the other special keys). I currently use a netbook for this purpose, but the battery life is too short at only a couple of hours. I can't go to the park and knock out a chapter in two hours, and rebooting to change batteries every two hours would be a productivity killer, even if I wanted to spend a bunch of money on spares and go to the trouble to keep them charged.

I guess I'm just not the niche for this device, as I can't imagine ever using it for anything.

I'd make two points:

(1) I find handwriting a very very efficient way to take notes. I choose that over typing.

(2) Its not just about writing - sketching, wireframes, doodles, ideas, diagrams in a format I can email and save - very useful to me

>>ideas, diagrams

yes! Scribbling a small mock-up screen or a mind-map or an algo on an e-ink pad would be just so simple && awesome! (I can't even imagine doing that with a keyb/mouse)

>I'd use vim on my Nexus One if it weren't such a damned hassle to hit Esc and some of the other special keys

I run emacs on my N810 (Nokia tablet). I haven't yet seen another device with a good enough keyboard, though. The N810 has Esc and Control, and has () and <> on the keys, and I've configured the terminal for one-touch {}, [], and |.

For handwriting - I'd agree. The world is in need of a good digital sketchpad though.

I can handwrite math lecture notes much more quickly than I can type the same notation in LaTeX, etc. For me, this makes a tablet better for coursework than a keyboard.

>I just want a very long-life note-taking tablet with a decent keyboard.

I think you would like the Alphasmart NEO. http://www.neo-direct.com/NEO/default.aspx

It's got a full-sized keyboard with a built-in 6 line LCD screen. It runs on 3 AA batteries or a rechargeable pack and it honestly runs forever. I got one originally 5 years ago when I did Nanowrimo for the first time. I use it all the time when I'm in the mood to just write, because there's no distraction. The only real downside is the need to hook it up to USB to transfer files off of it.

That looks close to ideal. Maybe a little big, but 700 hours from 3 AA batteries is perfect. Better than the GameBoy I use as a musical scratchpad in the same kinds of situations.

wow, I might get this for writing my dissertation

Psion Series 5 or Revo.

QWERTY keyboard with proper keys in a decent shape and that aren't much smaller than netbook keys. But it'll fit into a pocket and run for plenty of time on AA batteries. I could and did touch type on it fast enough to take very usable notes in meetings. And for those that want to draw diagrams, it's got a touchscreen too.

Honestly, I've never found anything quite as good and think it's a major shame they're not still available. A smartphone with the keyboard from one of these things would be brilliant; I just can't understand why companies play about with these silly modified calculator keyboards when there was something so much better available in 1997. If I were HTC I'd be making it, if I were a VC I'd be funding whoever could make it.

In my experience, the Psion 5's are starting to break down now. I went through 4 in a year!

My solution was to buy a Psion 5MX, not because it's better built, but because it came out 2-3 years after the 5 and thus will last on average 2 years longer - which means they'll break in 2012. Also stockpiling the 5MX's so when mine breaks in 2012, I'll have 3 or 4 more to last me a few more years.

I've got a 5mx here that's not been used in a while, should have plenty of life left in it..... :-)

(Disclaimer - I stopped using it because I changed jobs and no longer needed its functionality, then eventually went for a netbook as I no longer so needed its portability and valued being able to run Visual Studio! I'd still recommend them to anyone who really wants a portable machine rather than just a toy though; in some ways I genuinely prefer it to my Android phone.)

I ought to add for those looking for a Revo: The inbuilt rechargeable AAA batteries are very hard to replace, and so Revo's (and Revo Plus's) on Ebay, so many years after being initially sold, are likely to have a poor recharge cycle. Stick with a 5MX as you can replace the batteries easily.

Two hours on a netbook? Seriously?

My NC-10 is getting long in the tooth on its original 6-cell battery, but it still gets 4.5-6 hours, depending upon what I'm doing, and I seldom (read "almost never") remember to turn off wifi, which is a major power suck.

Quite a few netbooks come (or came: the average spec may have increased since I bought mine two years ago) with a little 3-cell battery: some Acer models like my AA1 and some Dells like a friends Mini9, to name two.

Nice and light, but you only get about 2-to-2-ana-half hours (three if you are careful with screen brightness and turn wireless off). I have a chunky after-market battery that lives in the Acer giving ~7 hours active use with everything turned on, but sometimes chuck the little one back in for the size/weight convenience.

The latest netbooks advertise 13-hour battery life. And they're finally available with matte displays, which should be readable outdoors.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0042TYYI4/

Server down. Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9HT6OkA...

Am I the only one who thinks this is an obvious fake?!!!

180 hrs battery, usb, SD, wifi, mp3 player - all for $99! Hardware guys please let us know if this is even feasible and what the BOM would be!

I'm guessing us doodlers & sketchers will have to wait a few more years.

EDIT: just saw the Boogie Board post and clearly I'm wrong about the feasibility of a basic slate. Someone please make one: just needs sketch and USB for charging and export. All day battery and raw bitmap is enough to start!

Seems cheap for a piece of e-ink display that size...

Screen size seems to be about the same as a Kindle DX. That goes for $379 and is thought to be a loss leader for Amazon. Also, I suspect that if somebody found a way to do stylus input on e-ink, AMZN would already be offering (or at least hyping) it.

So yeah, I'm going to agree with you...

The BoogieBoard is based on one of these: http://www.kentdisplays.com/products/lcdwritingtablets.html

It's output only; think dragging your nail across a laptop screen. You might be able to send signal to it, but there's no way to get information off.

I agree that this thing looks like vaporware. Too good to be true.

I really hope it is not fake. One data point: seems like their site is hosted in the Czech Republic.

First thing I looked for is a mention of the digitizing technology...and there is none. Capacitive? Ultrasonic? How do they do it with such long battery life?

This looks very promising, and I hope that they're able to pull it off (especially at that price point--it has enough potential that I might be willing to buy it sight-unseen for $99... heck, I'm considering putting in a pre-order already!)

Reasons that I want one: * E-INK * Optionally in color! (I like the blackboard aesthetic, to say nothing of green-on-black) * Lightweight * Long battery life * Ability to read text files (on the dev roadmap, at least) * Open-source firmware (in case the ability to read text files doesn't manifest itself quickly enough for my tastes, and for general hackability) * Central place that I can keep all my notes and easily take them with me pretty much anywhere

Additional things that I probably need in order to have it be more than a fun toy: * Responsiveness (as others have mentioned, too much lag between pen motion and stroke appearance is probably a deal-breaker, though if it only happens occasionally it's okay; my current tablet has the same problem and it's still usable for me) * Better navigation (it seems pretty shoddy; I don't want to have to flip through a hundred pages to find a particular note... and once I do, how do I get back to the front page?) * Hierarchical ability to group pages together (so I can keep my shopping lists in one place, my notes for classes in a different place--sets of pages grouped together by specific lecture, which are then grouped together by class--and my todo list in another place...)

Additional things that I want but don't need: * Ability to use external keyboard to write to text files (this would be awesome, but I can also appreciate that it might go against their ethos) * PDF and text file annotation * Infinite paper with scroll and zoom (I'm less certain of this, though; seems like it would be great for mindmapping and stuff like that, but it also seems like it could be easy to lose things off in the middle of nowhere) * Ability to rearrange text (rectangle/lasso select and then drag/cut/paste) * Tactile sense of drawing on paper (This would be awesome, but my tablet works pretty well for me without it)

Is this a joke or is this really just a legal pad for $99? (Serious question.)

If it actually did what it says well, $99 would be a reasonable price.

I don't know why you're being downvoted. It's a legitimate question. I had a hard time figuring out whether it was a joke or not. I remain convinced that it's either a joke or just some dumb, wishful prank.

"no superfluous features" ... but it includes an MP3 player.

"any ordinary pen or pencil usage" "real paper design"

"solar energy backside cover"

"no antialiasing (on of our best features)"

"180 hours battery life" ... So 180 hours of OCR on a 6mm thick device? Sure. That's totally plausible.

HN's bullshit detector has been firmly switched to the "off" position.

I doubt the OCR would be 'live'. More likely, it would be used when transferring files back to your computer. As the device doesn't have wifi or any files to rename, there is nothing that would take character input on the device..

If it's not real, I'm guessing someone will make it due to all of the buzz going on about it (assuming it's practical to manufacture).

At first I thought "Oh, that's a pretty cool way to sketch wireframes." Then I thought "Holy crap, if I take this to client meetings I can easily raise my rates by $20/hour."

Kind of like how it was bringing an aluminum Powerbook to a client meeting before Macs got popular again :)

Perfect. This is exactly what I've been waiting for - a low power consumption e-ink input device.

Pretty much perfect, yeah.

The only drawback to it that I can see is that it doesn't really exist.

Yeah, I can't believe how long we've had to wait for a notepad and pen. Finally someone invents a notepad and pen!

This would be twice as cool if it had two nobs and shake to erase.

Remember, you have to hold it upside down: http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Etch-a-sketch

I could see myself buying this on one condition: absolutely zero lag. If I move the stylus and then watch it fill in after me, I'm not buying. Otherwise (especially with the possibility of solar power), I might buy.

I wonder if, since I believe the little e-ink bubbles are magnetized, you could use a magnetic tip stylus to "override" the current state. Ostensibly you could use the same tech that turns he bubbles to read their state. That would give you zero lag, pixel perfect line recognition.

Anyone know if this has been tried?

Sounds like a very advanced Magna Doodle.

Since their server seems to be buckling: http://noteslate.com.nyud.net/

Very nice. Take one of these, stick an Eye-Fi[1] in it, set up a few background jobs that interact with my calendar, and not only can I take an unlimited amount of notes (with a pen!), but they can be automatically categorized by date and context with no special action on my part. Throw up an Apache instance, and I can access them from anywhere.

I don't exactly wish I were taking classes just so I could do that, but if I were, oh man would this be useful. At that price, it's probably worth picking up as-is when it comes out.

[1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Eye-Fi

Isn't the poor refresh rate one of the disadvantages of e-ink displays? And isn't the long battery life a function of use (ie. e-ink displays only use significant power when refreshing)? Writing on displays also has texture and resolution issues that can't be ignored: it needs to look and feel like a paper drawing.

Lots of hard questions, but if they pulled it off, I'll be first in line.

"it needs to look and feel like a paper drawing"

Why?

I think Mike's right. I LOVE using pad and paper for sketches, mindmaps, flows, tables. There really is a satisfaction of 'scribbling', which for me, includes the actual feel or pencil touching paper.

What he probably meant: It needs to look and feel like a paper drawing, or better. There's not currently anything in the "better" category.

As I understand it, the poor refresh is because each pixel element doesn't store its state in silicon; the physical orientation/charge/whatever of the display element itself is the state. So you have to wait on each pixel to change before moving on to another (you can of course do multiple chunks in parallel, but your bus is only so wide). In an active-matrix lcd you write to a memory cell that lives close to the liquid crystal, and that cell continuously drives the crystal to twist the desired amount. You can rapidly write to those memory cells without waiting on the physical twist of the crystals to complete.

You can see on the kindle the loading indicator is able to spin at a decent refresh rate; ditto word selection, menu selection, etc. This is because you are waiting on few elements to make the physical change at a time.

A simple pen based drawing surface would only update a few pixels at a time would and presumably work quickly as well.

(Any corrections welcome; this is just sort of how I assume it works based on using a kindle, not based on much looking into of how eink actually works)

The response time for individual pixels is quite slow, around 250ms. It takes that long to apply the necessary sequence of voltages to get a clear image without visible ghosting. That slowness is an obstacle even if you had no bus limitations. Something like the loading indicator might be moving faster, but ghosting is acceptable for something like that.

I wrote low-level software for E Ink displays years ago, when the practical response time was more like 400ms IIRC. At the time, drawing lagged too much to be pleasant for a consumer device. Maybe now, if you do something clever with a quick 1st pass and a slow 2nd, darkening pass, you could get a reasonable result... Maybe.

I write with dry erase markers just fine, and that's not ideal.

I think the real key is an acceptable amount of friction. This looks like it could fit that bill.

And if not, well, back in the Palm Pilot days (remember?) we'd just put scotch tape over the Graffiti box to give it just enough friction. I'm sure someone can come up with something similar now. ;)

Great submission markkat and don't worry about it too much. Whether or not this specific company is real, I'm not sure, but I am certain the tech to do a product like this exists.

The "copy" under the photos is terrible. Doesn't seem real.

The server is in Czech Republic. I'm guessing English isn't their first language.

Why is that an excuse for bad copy? If you're marketing it to the Angloverse, hire a fluent-English copywriter.

Besides, it's a wall of text. That's bad no matter the quality of the writing.

It's hard to tell if your copywriter isn't perfect if they're doing it in a language that you don't know as well.

That raised some flags with me as well. I would not advise anyone to purchase one of these devices, until a credible source has actually seen one in operation.

If this existed, I'd buy it on the spot even though I'm far from an early adopter when it comes to electronics.

Too bad it doesn't-the lack of a next page button and actual product pictures (among other things) signals this.

Oh well, back to dreaming about the MS Courier Concept.

closest you can get to a courier is a kindle and tab in the same carry case.

scarily, exactly what i was thinking of after seeing the tab. run a web server on the tab running in hotspot mode and you have document transfer.

If it would display a background of my choice, grid or typical notebook lines then it would very quickly replace several of my 'must have' travel items--- where travel is a variation of 'don't leave home without it'...

This looks great, I hope it's real someday.

one thing was funny: "No superfluous features" then a paragraph later "it's an MP3 player!"

This seems absolutely perfect for note taking during lectures Right now I either:

Use a pad of paper and lose all my notes over time or Use my laptop and cringe every time the professor uses a symbol I can't easily type

This seems perfect

This seems really interesting, and the price is right. Some uses close to my heart could be website wireframing, photography lighting diagrams, drawing out complex math in lectures that isn't easy to type. However, I personally don't have enough art skill to make these work on paper, so this probably isn't for me.

Is this truly better than a real notebook and pencil? I'm having a hard time convincing myself it is...

Can you back up a notebook page easily, send it instantly to someone the otherside of the planet, tag it for search and lookup on a computer, perform OCR on it in-situ, etc. ... horse for courses I say.

I agree this would be a cool thing to have, but: back up, send it out: many people have a phone that can help there (snap a photo and email it; imperfect, but often will do the job)

Also, I guess you need the OCR because flipping through pages is too slow to be useful.

Another disadvantage of this is that it you can look at only one sheet at a time. With a paper notebook, you can tear of some pages if desired.

Good points, like I said - horses for courses (the right thing where it fits in other words).

My IT teacher at school instilled the notion that we shouldn't always take a computer based approach but look at the best tech for the job, even if that is pen+paper. Sometimes a spreadsheet is the best db to use, sometimes ascii is a better image format (rarely IMO), etc..

This looks like it is either a hoax or wishful thinking from someone looking for feedback on a product concept.

1) At $99, the profit margins will be near zero or negative. Remember that Kindle and Nook are both subsidized by the sale of content and this is for 7 inches devices, so it would be hard to make money from an 13 inches e-ink screen with resistive touch at $99.

2) e-ink has a very slow refresh rate, so it won't be able to keep up with someone writing on it.

3) "wi-fi module on request with order", do they have multiple models? One with and one without wi-fi both at the same price, definitely a hoax.

Would be cool if you could have something like "crayon physics" on this.

Expandable memory via SD + PDF viewer + hierarchical folder structure + E-ink in a form/fit as shown would be perfect for my academic needs of reading through journal papers.

E-Ink has a very slow screen refresh rate, so I'm skeptical this can deliver a snappy writing experience. I have found writing on a laggy screen to be quite unpleasant.

I think this has a LOT of potential. As a web developer, it would help me make quick wireframes and share it immediately with my client. This is priceless.

Have you considered a wacom? You could pick up a used one for around $150 or less, and it will allow a lot more flexiblilty in what program you wire-frame in.

Good idea, thanks. I realized that almost immediately after posting this :)

It's unfortunate that internal wifi is not an option as plugging a cable in or swapping a card out is a hassle. Bluetooth with a syncing server on your computer would be great. think about it press button on pad and have it show you a list of computer to send the file to.

Apart from "cool", is there a tangible advantage to this over a pad of paper? I don't see one. It looks to me like a future expensive thing I forgot on the bus. I'd also for sure lose the pen and end up using it to support real paper to write on.

Now, if you could do things like zoom, copy/paste, and connect (wifi) with a computer/projector, I could see buying one.

I've wanted one for a while. As a student, I take notes all day long. Digitizing them by hand is a pain, but if they were immediately put into digital format, that would be great. I could carry around years of notes on a flash drive, conveniently organized by subject. With a little work, you can even add keywords/subject searchability to notes.

Currently, I could take notes on a laptop, but in mathematics this is extremely difficult (you have to be very very fast with LaTeX), and realtime diagram entering/editing is basically impossible with a laptop.

Only black & white? How much more would it cost to get one in, say, 4 levels instead of 2? A couple greys go an extremely long way to making handwriting readable.

4 color model + solar back = note-taker's dream, though. Very interested to see this thing come out. And please please please leave it programmable in some way / shape / form.

Can we call this "the last notebook you'll ever need"?

Just brilliant. This is one of those things you kick yourself for not thinking of. Ridiculously simple, yet infinitely useful. I wish the price was just a bit lower, because for the same price (maybe slightly more) you can have a low-end Android tablet with similar functionality and more bang for your buck.

I've been looking for something to replace pen and paper for quite sometime and have never quite taken to any of the available solutions (Livescribe, Tablet PC) but this looks spot on.

I'd have liked to have seen a video though, too early to tell whether it will actually make it to market, as advertised, as polished looking and as low priced.

Fingers crossed.

I was wondering about LiveScribe as a note taking tool myself. What about it don't you like?

The pen is simply too big, my preference is for a smaller pen.

The Boogie Board (http://www.myboogieboard.com/) is worth a look for anyone interested in this sort of thing.

It's technologically MUCH simpler than this concept — you can't save what you draw — but the response time is instant and it's a real thing, today.

When my friend and I saw the Boogie Board the first thing we thought of was saving off what you write. So I'm pretty excited for this NoteSlate if it comes out of vaporware mode with just that feature.

I like the concept, but one feature that would make this rock is audio recording.

When I'm in class, writing away on notes, I have a hard time listen and writing at the same time. Let me scribble away while the pad records in tandem. That would be neat.

I'm sure you could just use your phone for that.

Have you considered a Livescribe pen? They record audio in sync with the notes you take.

The NoteSlate is trying to define the product itself, archetype, electronic paper. We are trying to define this archetype for general public, bit against their today`s usual network expectations.

Huh?

Memo to vendor: edit your copy before releasing it.

A beautiful and dedicated note-taking device.

Microsoft should buy NoteSlate and rename the device the Microsoft OneNote. Have it sync with Microsoft Office OneNote and Office Web Apps.

Kindle DX - 24cm diagonal $379

Noteslate - 33cm diagonal $99

I will buy one just for reading PDF. But like a few other commenters, I seriously doubt this is a real product though.

Looks amazing. I've seen similar devices before but nothing as beautiful as Notelate. Definitely getting one!

Wow this is pretty, this is the tablet I actually want to use, the price is just the icing on the cake!

posted this one two weeks ago, nobody cared ... :) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2130647

looks like a neat idea. still I wait to get one to play with. pdf support seems to be interesting ...

Paper for everyone!

Silly slogan when you're trying to replace something low cost and pervasive.

Service Temporarily Unavailable

Last thing someone wants after a post which it #1 at HN. :(

Server seems down. Anyone kind enough to post a link to cached pictures?

I've been waiting for this for thirty years.

Errr, thats incredible.

Apple seems to be on the case as well:

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2011/02/apple-ta...

10" is already too big...

A4 is fine for paper because you can fold it if you need.

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