luka-birsa

I KNOW Bitcoin is really bad/evil/ponzi/fake, but can't you guys just leave the people to do mistakes on their own?

/sarcasm off

Funny how people tend to disregard this comment and keep doing just fine. For over a decade.

Try Windows - it's the best interface to experience Linux from :D.

This is untrue. As somebody that just defected from OSX to Windows I can tell you that you're missing out. Windows became a more stable and usable PC where everything just works. My 2 year old top of the line MBP was replaced by a 3 year old Dell XPS 13 after 10 years of OSX and I hate to break it to you, but Windows changed.

I replaced the MBP since the I had to replace the thinnest keyboard in the world, but I had problems with BT, WiFi, crashes, random external monitor glitches, no support for two external monitors via TB 3.0 (look it up, same hardware works under windows!!). Ask my diehard OSX fan coworker that just had to upgrade OSX just to get wifi working at home. I stayed for Windows since my MBP stopped working a week after I got the keyboard replaced and to be honest I really can't bother to move back. Everything just works here.

OSX has left the domain of the power user and has been relegated to into the domain of the consumer user that likes the Apple marketing.

I am monitoring the situation with ARM CPUS closely and that would be a motivation to switch back, but right now it feels my next computer upgrade will be windows based high end laptop. Better OS and better price performance are hard to argue with.

PS: If you're a developer and you're still clinging to OSX, try it - the whole experience is next level (compared to the whole brew ecosystem). Download WSL for windows, get Ubuntu from windows store and use the Windows Terminal to experience native Ubuntu. Hell if you're using VS Code, all you need to do is type "code ." from Ubuntu to open VS Code in Windows and develop in native Linux.

The screen really does not let a lot of light shine through. There is a reflective coating (imagine aluminum foil) that reflects back. We did try to use the opacity of screen with high power leds for some usecases but it did not work. I think you need to look at E Paper optical characteristics as you would look at 1 mm thick cardboard.

The best way to fix optical characteristics is to play with the substrate and layers in front. Like adding a very good frontlight really helps with contrast even in non-dark conditions.

We have ACeP in our labs and it looks really good while displaying images. It's not high end glossy print colorful, but it's very very close. More than enough for most applications. It's also a stark difference to the color-filter variants that were available previousy. There the contrast was poor due to the filter they overlaid over a regular E Ink reflective surface.

E Ink film is sensitive to UV light. It will optically degrade without proper UV protection. We've had a display without protection on a sunny desk by an open window (so no UV protection on the windows as well) and we got permanent burn in after a couple of months - this is why all finished devices take extra steps to protect against UV.

Properly protected screen will last for ever - we have units in the office running for at least 5 years without stopping.

Looks like the technology didn't pan out. Not sure what the end reason was, but E Ink won that battle.

With current E Ink technology no. Even if it was technically feasible (not sure about that), nobody is focusing on high refresh rates. Increasing refresh increases battery consumption and that means you're taking away one of the key benefits of EPD.

We tested 8fps video on our devices a while back and in the end you're getting a B&W display with 8 FPS updates... Why wouldn't you go for something like LCD or OLED instead? I don't believe you can beat LCD at being LCD.

There are other technolgies that promise fast update times, that offer similar characteristics (look into ClearInk), but they are nowhere near where E Ink is in terms of maturity.

If a lot of great things were built and bought by customers, eInk would be more widely available. :) If you want to make eInk happen in other applications, just go and buy the devices that are out there.

You can be the visionary that makes the segment happen. :)

It's a very niche product. Most people opt for modern OLED displays for consumer needs, so it's really a chicken and egg problem. I'm sure if you start buying in bulk companies will notice. Sony is working on a bunch of consumer E Ink devices and I'm sure they would be more than comfortable doing this at scale, as long as there is a need.

We have working prototypes of smaller displays in house, but I do not think E Ink offers large format solution. There is one caveat with color - the refresh rates are still not quite there yet (we've seen ~5-10s for the 4096 color version), but we've seen considerable improvment recently.

I think it's just a good use-case away. Perhaps we'll see the screens break out in the education space first and then the rest of industry as well, but we're looking at various applications with color and we might be first.

So we do have quite a lot of experience running these screens in extreme environments - we've worked with a company called Mercury Innovation and built a fleet of traffic signs that have been running in scorching Australia non-stop for about 4 years now.

There are a couple of things you need to do: - Protect the screen against UV (there are protective foils and glass with integrated protection you can use). Failing to do so will cause permanent damage to the screen. This is a solved problem with loads of companies using EPD for external usage. - Make sure you respect the maximum temperature limits - the driving board should be aware of extreme (>50C temperatures) and prevent updates in those cases. There are special waveforms that extend the operating range to beyond that, but you will get only black and white updates.

Realistically EPD robustness is a solved problem. About 6/7 years ago we've launched a product based on epaper that was water tight and was intended to be used outside (permanent mounting on desks). We did not see any problems with display. And the parking signs have been running 4 years non stop any failures in the field.

You can acually buy them today - Dasung did manage to productivize them enough for people to try them out. But it's really hard to compete on price, especially with consumer 27" 4k display costing 100-200$.

E Ink owns the majority of the patents, so direct clones of E Ink are being made under license. I do not think that the patents are the limiting factor - the specific applications are somewhat limited compared to widespread use of OLED.

For the applications that have mass apeal we saw that the price goes down to a comparable level of an LCD (eg in ebook readers and shelf labels).

There is also a bunch of innovation happening in the market - competitors like ClearInk are trying to build a better version of E paper, but it's always hard to scale some new technology and it will take some time before anything substantial comes along. E Ink was lucky that they found the killer app in ebook readers and that really helped them get to volumes that allow them to build these screens in commercial volumes.

I know right!

Consumer market is all about quantities and pricing, so it's really hard to launch a successful consumer product in this space as E Ink internet connected photo frame is as niche you can get.

We actually offer a device that can be used in this way (it's intended for business use) - it's a 13" device that will work up to a year on battery power, can be mounted with a magnet (no drilling) and has a Red Dot award for design (https://getjoan.com/shop/joan-13). You can upload images or connect whatever webpage you want.

So you asked - we delivered. :)

If you're looking for a less hacky version that still looks good (similar to the OPs 32" display) and is simple to build upon - you can use our 13" touchless variant.

The Joan line is fully productivized and you can use our hosted service to connect to any HTML source (https://getjoan.com/shop/joan-13/).

Or if you'd like to tinker with the platform itself, then Visionect offers a fully customizable solution (https://www.visionect.com/product/place-and-play-13/) with the same hardware.

We've had a lot of people take our 6" panels and build their own Home Automation controllers. Here are the instructions: https://getjoan.com/blog/diy-home-automation-system/

The screens usually have at least 1-2mm border around them, plus driving complexity will go over the roof. But it's a great tinkerers project - go for it!

Since our software allows tiling we've built some test large scale composite screens out of our 6" and 9" devices - I think maximum was around 25-50 screens combined in a big virtual surface, with resolution over 10k x 10k pixels. So sure, it can be done, but is a pain to setup and run.

Hey, don't hold our heritage against us and rather swing by our Valley office when C-19 allows us to meet.

On the subject of price - I fully agree with you - the price for sure can't be justified just by energy savings. It's a completely different product, with totaly different features and use cases. And yes, using it just for reading the news is costly.

I do like I how it looks tho, but that's just me. :)

Founder of Visionect here. I'm so happy when these kinds of posts surface as this is exactly how we've envisoned our platform to be used - by tinkerers builidng interesting ideas.

I do see a lot of comments regarding the price, so it's best if I do the general disclaimer. E Ink screens are very pricy (compared to LCD). The driving is even pricier. And since this is not a mass-mass produced product (at least not in a sense of your 75" OLED TV) you get to the price that you have. We've worked for years on getting the price down for the E Ink screens (trust me on this), but there is a question of critical mass. E Ink in the non-reader, non-shelf label applications is still a very niche solution, that will command very high price. I hate to say it, but the only way we could have brought the price down with current quantities is if we built an inferior product as the price right now is the function of Bill-of-Materials.

We tried a lot of applications, some covered previously here on HN, we currently see that there are just two other avenues where E Ink is being used and has the potential for mass depoyments in the near future.

1. In offices it can be used as interactive signage - we've built a very successful solution for meeting room booking around it (see http://getjoan.com).

2. The market for outdoor displays - especialy smart bus stops that run on solar - is starting to ramp up. Check out what our partners are doing in this space (a recent live deployment https://www.visionect.com/blog/coimbra-the-city-of-the-stude...).

If anyone would like to get more information about E Ink, please shoot - we've tried every E Ink display out there, played with color display and probably seen every E Ink application out there. You can also shoot me a direct mail to luka.birsa AT visionect.com.

November is the month that doesn't stop giving.

Bitcoin over 15k, the old Yello on its way out and now Covid vaccine.

Quite the November surprise.

We've been funded by various research grants from EU as well asEU VC money.

Grants are bureaucracy, sure, but if you understand how you navigate it - and every entrepreneurial person shoud - then it's really free money with a bit of strings attached. But it's primarily used for seed purposes (vs. series A, B...) in new companies or as a suplement in existing companies.

EU also does investment matching (one of our VCs had half of his fund matched by the EU). Based on my experience, this is an even better model, since it derisks investmens for local VCs - the biggest problem in investing here is not the lack of funds, but insane risk aversion. It really feels like everybody is looking for stable and good performing businesses and not for investment opportunities that would be moon shots.

Getting paying customers is great for idea validation.

If nobody wants to pay, you at least know that.

The funny thing is, I had a pitch by Azure to convince us to switch from GCP.

And they point blank said that Google is not investing into GCP and implied that it's on a death bed.

LOL

It is quite amusing to see Slack filing competition complaint after being so brash in bashing MS at the launch of MS Teams.

Remember the full page ad they ran in NYT? https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/2/13497766/slack-microsoft-...

My oh my how the tables have turned. There is something to be said about Microsoft and their ability to execute in the office space. Even my Dad, an architect at 70yrs old, is using MS Teams, while he never heard about Slack or any other collaboration tools.

And looking at their product portfolio around MS Teams, if there is a company I'd be willing to bet that they win the workplace transformation race is Microsoft. It's easy to forget when you're working comfortably in the Silicon Valley tech scene, that there is a real business world out there and MS is the ruler.

Why would a doctor promote Heroin? If they would, especially for recreative purposes, would be very much at odds with any medical ethics. What is clear via Oxy example is that medical ethics really need to be upheld and profit taken out of the equation.

Do you see doctors promoting cigarettes? Alcohol?

I would say that your reasoning why you aren't doing CBD is highly rational. Do you really think that even if you wanted to try heroin and if you did it, it would automatically addict you? Like you're instantly gone in to the abyss?

People try heroin and nothing happens to them. Some even hate the experience. People use heroin for prolonged periods and then simply stop (non unusual in the late teens, with some kind of a trigger in the mid 20).

If there was not so much stigma involved and so much risk taking the stuff, we might see people coming out of this juvenile experimenting phase in a much much better state.

Also, do you really think that people that lifelong addicts, don't have some kind of deeper psychological reasons to go down that path?

Probably not so hard to do:

- Personal reports from drug users

- since the majority of users are recreative users and not hardcore junkies, and even those are just people with various levels of mental issues, I would actually find this reliable.

- There are surveys that are taken, at least here in the EU, that track drug usage.

- Quality sampling of confiscated drugs

- Analysis of medical data (deaths, overdoses,...)

- Analysis of police data (crimes related to drug usage)

A lot of data out there.

I wonder if they changed the licensing to something you can actually use in a non FOSS product. Way way back (8 years ago?) we were deciding between webkit and gecko for our solution (we needed a web engine for server side GFX rendering) and the licence made it very simple for us to decide - WebKit was MIT, Gecko wasn't.

As somebody living in Europe I find this data very interesting. We had a super strong flu season, which was incredibly contagious. This is the first year (in a decade) that everybody in my family got it. One kid first, then the other, then wife, then grandparents that were babysitting while wife was down. I'm the only one that didn't get it, but I was on travels during that time. Effects were mild on the kids, while the grandparents needed 14 days to recover. Wife lost sense of taste and smell.

I really want to do a serological test for Covid just to see if we might have gone through it in January, when 0 cases were reported in our vicinity (Slovenia, which is next to Italy).

So far 100% of HN articles re: E Ink contain a comment like this. Sadly it is highly unlikely that you will get something like this at an acceptable price point.

We (https://www.visionect.com/) have been making non-ebook based E Ink solutions for a decade now. Except for Joan, our room booking solution (https://getjoan.com), we have not found a customer application that could survive the low-volume incurred high price of an E Ink solution (beyond E book readers and Note taking to some extent).

LCDs are simply too cheap and when customers get the option of going for a 75" color LCD display for a price of a 32" E Ink, it's a really tough sell to the consumer. The application really needs to make sense.

If you consider yourself as an outlier from the general feedback we got from the market, then do let me know - the 13" devices we offer come with a years worth of battery, have WiFi built in and our software allows you to display any web-based content or upload images. They even mount to the wall using a magnet. You can buy one on our online store.

They would drop the price if there was a large enough volume play behind it. Do you think they don't want to make money?