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Comment by dtx1 | Hacker News Reader

So this is an advanced form of reflective LCD? Interesting. LTT recently tested a color display like that too[0].

A few Questions: Why is it black and white? Does the Image stay the same when the device is off? What is the surface like for the Pen? Is the Display recessed so there's parallax between pen and Display or is it laminated like an iPad? How is the repairability? Can the battery be replaced easily? How is software support going to be? Since I'm supposed to link all kinds of cloud accounts to it, I would not buy this without a statement regarding security updates and support lifetime.

Looks cool though! [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0TcGjzKbag

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1) black & white because bayer color filter will cut your brightness by 66%

2) alas we gave up bistability for speed, so the image doesn't stay when you turn it off (however, we maybe can do quasi-bistability with this tech for watch or kindle sized future devices)

3) the pen writing feel is similar to my favorite japanese paper campus kokoyu. you could argue comparable to a remarkable or maybe even better for some

4)its all laminated / optically bonded

5) we can improve on repairability, its fine, but nothing stand out. we have big plans in the future here though

6) we're aiming to build the business on customer trust so we better be good at software updates! android is hard though, so its definitely a learning curve and requires a lot of resources

7) we'll do better to earn your trust around using our accounts - lots of plans in the coming months and years to be the best privacy + security + sovereignty computers!

Some more questions about software support. It seems the device is using android. Do you have any plan to support mainline linux kernel? It could allow the possibility to use native linux distro like PostmarketOS (https://postmarketos.org/) for device longevity. Your team could also benefit from delegating some softare support effort to linux kernel team.

we're open to it! we just need to better understand what resources we need internally to support this effort and for the specific mediatek/qualcomm chips we're looking at

If a standard linux image is produced, I would potentially replace my laptop with this device.

What specific mediatek/qaulcom chips are you looking at? It says you've already shipped two batches, so I assume that's been decided?

Given the level of excitement around this, and the community expertise, if I were you I'd open up as much of the info as you legally can and let the community help. I think there's a decent chance that if you set up the framework, you may not have to do much to get it done. I would:

1. Create a github page where you include as much of the hardware info as you can

2. Include any custom kernel patches that you have for the hardware (I'm pretty sure this is legally required anyway because of GPL on the kernel, so this could double as fulfillment of publishing/distribution)

3. Let people go at it! Early on I expect a community leader (usually a top contributor) will emerge that you can work with to get it done. I suspect you wouldn't have to do a whole lot (beyond information sharing) to get stuff mainlined and even prebuilt distros assembled for the device!

Even if it doesn't work, it's not a big investment and it gives you a massive amount of credibility with the community.

+1. Especially since you drew the comparison yourself to the Pebble watch. Shelling out that much money on a product that might fail is a draw back. Tinkering on this infinitely knowing I could load whatever software is attractive.

Plus I think the Linux crowd would eat up a monitor that lets users bask in the feeling of nostalgia of a terminal with limited color.

I, for one, would love to finally work outside/well lit places using g a terminal and not having to crank my brightness

I think the average person (myself included) does not know that something can be considered ePaper without being bistable. The two are married in my head because all of the ePaper devices that I've been exposed to thus far have been bistable. If I were you, I would find a clever way to communicate this fact without making it sound like too much of a drawback.

7) hits home for me. This is already buy worthy.

Same. This coming shift in computing looks to be ugly and closed to a higher degree. Makes me want to support anything like this.

> 2) alas we gave up bistability for speed, so the image doesn't stay when you turn it off

Huh????? I feel cheated after reading this. Only using power for screen changes is half the point of e-ink!

It sounds like they're calling it e-paper because it's a variable refresh reflective LCD, not e-ink.

Yeah it's the exact same thing that pebble did. They used Sharp low energy self-refreshing LCD

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