DayLight Computer | Hacker News Reader

DayLight Computer

in-silo.com

70 pointsluu40 comments

I love the idea behind it, and understand that the solution shown—which is more of an artistic installation rather than a real alternative for screens—is meant to serve as a conversation starter. How about, in the next step, developing an app based on this idea that uses the light sensor typically integrated in screens in combination with the local time of day and the respective sunrises and sunsets to regulate screen brightness? I’d be interested in how many users would engage in this experiment.

Mac laptops have been doing the light sensor thing for the longest time.

More recently TrueTone also does tone mapping to adjust for colour perception from the environment. Not to be confused with Night Shift, which "merely" biases the colour profile based on time of day.

Lunar.app aims to bring all of this to external displays/clamshell mode. It can use an external sensor.

https://lunar.fyi/sensor

So the experiment is kind of out there already :)

Controlling brightness means there is brightness to control, IOW there's a flashlight pointing at your eyes. The post's experiment removes the flashlight altogether. The above tries to make the flashlight less impactful on the eye, but it's still a flashlight.

this makes the device more usable in low-light conditions. the DayLight Computer is deliberately un-usable in low-light conditions.

The post you’re replying to was responding to the question posed in the above comment:

> How about, in the next step, developing an app based on this idea that uses the light sensor typically integrated in screens in combination with the local time of day and the respective sunrises and sunsets to regulate screen brightness?

Basically saying that what the above post was asking for already exists.

They weren’t trying to improve on the DayLight computer.

i interpreted:

> to regulate screen brightness [such that it emulates the daylight computer]

i.e. turn the brightness all the way down in low-light environments, making the display useless. it would be a way to have the daylight computer "experience" without building/modifying hardware.

If you set the screen brightness and background color right, you can make a screen look like paper or maybe an e-ink display. Unfortunately, the illusion can break within minutes if clouds are moving in the sky. Also the screen doesn't reflect like paper if viewed at different angles. Nevertheless, I wonder how well it would work to do such a calibration with a sensor.

"a computer screen that works in front of a window or on a sunny day instead of using the embedded electric light. A desktop screen that is resistant to function at night times. [...] The screen’s light source is now the environmental light or daylight."

Ah, a gameboy! Why didn't you say! This brings back memories

Seems more like the playdate. Gameboy screens are not that great outside in the sun.

You’re holding it wrong! You need to hold it so the sun is behind it and can shine through the screen.

Things such as this make me miss the transflective display on my Fujitsu Stylistic ST-4110 and wish that there were computers available with such a display now (which weren't intended, and priced, for military and maritime usage).

It really is nice to have a screen which works in full, bright, direct sunlight with no need to fuss with angles or seek shade.

Interestingly, Lenovo recently announced a prototype laptop with transparent display:

https://www.gadgets360.com/laptops/news/lenovo-transparent-l...

which I think has a lot of potential:

- it would be amazing for repair work

- similarly for instruction --- hold up the device to compare the current state with what the screen displays

and I'm surprised that they didn't try pairing this with some sort of multiple display setup such as on the Yoga Book 9i (which I'd buy if it just had Wacom EMR).

The name will be confusing, https://daylightcomputer.com/ is a fast e-ink tablet.

Despite the common confusion, it's not e-ink but rather a reflective LCD (rLCD) screen. It's the same principle as the original Game Boy where instead of using a backlight, the LCD reflects light instead.

There's an early review available here for anyone interested: https://arun.is/blog/daylight-tablet/

Ah, good to know and thanks for the link, I hadn't seen that yet.

This is strange. I could find no information on that page. Searching online I found a few light articles about it, some of which pointed to two YouTube videos put out by the company. However, both videos have been removed (by the uploader).

If it's about e-ink and it's not strange, it's even stranger. It's like all e-ink products are intentionally obfuscated and generally not available unless it's a hacked Kindle.

Indeed there's little information available, but there have been demos and I've seen some shots on their twitter (@daylightco).

For some more portable examples of removing an.lcd backlight for more outdoor or daylight-powered use, see

https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMobileComputers/comments/1awpgj...

And https://twitter.com/mljmljmlj/status/1254231084482482176/pho...

This already exists as a product: https://www.sunvisiondisplay.com/rE-Monitor

My schedule in the past years was not linked to daylight at all. But that changed recently. I have a new window where the first sunlight in the morning now enters the room.

Since I have that window I'm very aware of the time the sun rises every day and how that time shifts a few minutes every day. At least in the location where I life. (South of Germany)

This thread has so much valuable information! I fly gliders, and our avionics use bright backlights to make the screens usable in direct sunlight. We need about 1200 nits. Since everything is powered by 12 volt batteries, the backlights are a large factor of the total energy consumption. In the past the ipaq 3825 series was liked due to its transflective screen.

OLED screens work fine during the daylight, but the problem is that I afraid to increase the brightness in order not to burn the screen.

I hate the cable management in that photo so much. Honestly, that photo was so triggering I can not even look at the displays.

Seems like it would be way better to use a Fresnel lens and some fiber optics to put this light where ever it might be useful.

Saw a Ltt video about a sunscreen monitor. Isn't it the same thing?

Not quite. The monitor LTT reviewed works on the same principle, but it was manufactured as an ambient light monitor rather than being retrofitted later on.

So, he disassembled the screen and made it 50% useful?

1.) The artist is a she [0]

2.) Almost every new technological idea starts with a worse product than the older technology. It's clearly not meant to be a product, but a conversation starter on how we interact with screens in and outside of daylight. I consider this problem not to be solved and would love to see more art projects (and ultimately, products)

[0] https://basaktuna.com/Contact-and-Bio

On today's episode of "Hacker News critiques art"...

I mean, who needs art when we use 80x24 terminals all day. /s

Now, if you pardon, I need to fine-tune my color scheme and touch up my welcome banner ASCII art.

I'd say 30% or less. Works not at light, works bad at non-homogenous daylight. And you need to look against a window to look into the screen.

Also, Picasso wasted a lot of paint which could have been put to good use painting fences.

And canvas! Just imagine how many trousers could have been made out of the canvas needed for Guernica!

Army trousers, of course.

Just googled the painting. I do agree with the "painting fences" argument.

Somebody should tell Citroen about this.

They have won a couple of awards with their translucent C4 dashboard LCD which uses daylight when it's available.

She: "Başak Tuna develops, rethinks and reproduces a project she called DayLight Computer".