Hacker News Reader

> To relieve eye strain.

I think this will expose another, possibly larger, problem. My room is too poorly lit other than the screen.

If there is no light coming from the screen, I am forced to turn on a light to read the screen. Maybe that's a good thing, I am not sure.

View on HN

Some people have an inverse problem - it is difficult to position a monitor so that it doesn't reflect a window. This technology sounds perfect for that.

EPD displays aren't magically paper-like; in fact they are far from looking like actual paper. There's either plastic or glass in front, and they give the same glare as any other matte or glossy display. If anything, active lighting (either backlight or frontlight) helps mitigate glares, shadows, and other external lighting non-uniformities.

> Maybe that's a good thing, I am not sure.

If you are young or if you are old with eyestrain issues it may be worth your while to learn about things like bias lighting, blue filters, PWM dimming, etc.

If you are old with good vision then I guess just keep doing what works :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com