I love e-ink ereaders because they're like this vestige of when tech was good
The battery lasts like a month
They work fine (better) without an internet connexion
You can interact with them using the file manager and it's perfectly good
The files are an open format
It isn't surveillance ad-tech
@researchfairy not to mention that e-ink is a great technology that has been underutilised
you can display dynamic images in a way that uses no power after you set it; this is why e-ink displays are perfect for books and use little power
and they work exceptionally well in high light scenarios, where normal screens do not
except loads of folks still just use LED-based screens for signs and things anyway, because that's where the world is atm
@clarfonthey @researchfairy Worth noting that the primary reason for this is patents - essentially all "production-ready" e-paper patents are held by the E-Ink Corporation and they've historically been extremely cagey about letting others use them.
@maegul @joepie91 @clarfonthey @researchfairy This is correct for the original patents, but there's a ton that went into getting it to the point where it was usable. I remember these being invented in the 90s but there were zero commercial displays until the kindle right?
The manufacturing tech is so different from other kinds of displays they had to really custom build a factory (I believe). Certainly that could be copied, but I think it is harder than copying a design, algorithm, chemical...
@maegul @joepie91 @clarfonthey @researchfairy I definitely *hope* it gets more exciting soon, as soon as those ridiculous patents on 3d printing expired we got a boom of actual useful tech. As soon as the ridiculous patents on color changing LED lights started expiring, we got a boom of common and cheap LED lighting.
Wouldn't mind that for low power display tech...
@bipolaron @maegul @joepie91 @clarfonthey @researchfairy not to mention that this would be a huge blessing for people like me with horribly light-sensitive eyes…
@bipolaron @maegul @clarfonthey @researchfairy AFAIK there were e-readers before the Kindle (eg. from Sony) but e-paper display technology has definitely come a long way in terms of contrast. Kindle also definitely just uses panels from E-Ink Corporation.
@joepie91 @clarfonthey @researchfairy I've heard that these patents might be reaching their expiry soon and e-ink could be getting interesting soon ... is that right?