Initially I thought this would work great for development but then I thought of all the different colors in my IDE. Regardless I think this is an interesting idea to reduce eyestrain when looking at code, even if imperfect.
I experimented with a monochromatic color scheme for my F# projects. Basically, I wanted the code to look like a page from a beautifully typeset math book. It got pretty close, but for want of italics, which VS does not support.
The CLRS Algorithms textbook typesets its pseudocode with keywords in bold, variables in italics, function names in small caps, and the rest in plain. You could go even further with a bit of grayscale shading or a complementary pair of serif and sans serif typefaces, but like any syntax highlighting scheme it would be very language-specific.
Wow, that looks way better than I thought it would. I'm saddened to hear that after all the effort into the new VS text system it isn't capable of doing all you wanted.
Once you're doing typesetting like that, I think it would be even better if you start replacing keywords with special symbols and reformatting the lines to some canonical representation. That would make it way easier to read.
Thanks… I actually got the idea to start using proportional typefaces from a comment that you made.
Another thing that I tried was to extract each font variant into a separate file, and then to force VS to use those explicitly for different code element types, but that didn't work.
It's funny, but for me languages have typographic affinities. Of the ones that I regularly use:, F# feels like it should be Garamond, C# and JavaScript feel fine in pretty much any monospace sans serif typeface, and VB is most congruent with "fun" typefaces like comic sans (I don't mean that as a dig).
Not sure why I'm being downvoted. I want to buy one, I'm completely serious.
It doesn't have to be fantastically high res, it doesn't even need to do color well or have a good bit-depth, having 2 or 3 bits of RGB is good enough.
After a long day at work, I get home with my eyes "burned". I sit on the couch and the ceiling lamp hurts my eyes. I turn it off and can only stand the dim light. I think this monitor is perfect for people like me. (Recently started using f.lux, it's helping though)
You should go see an optometrist. This was me as well until about a month ago; turns out I am slightly farsighted and my eyes were straining to focus on my computer monitor all day. Now I wear an appropriate pair of computer/reading glasses and my eyes don't hurt anymore.
Results suggested that reading on the two display types is very similar in terms of both subjective and objective measures.
CONCLUSIONS:
It is not the technology itself, but rather the image quality that seems crucial for reading. Compared to the visual display units used in the previous few decades, these more recent electronic displays allow for good and comfortable reading, even for extended periods of time.
Interesting study but by no means conclusive and has a few flas as they only measured 6 female participants reading 300 words at a time on each device.(10 inch ipad, two sony e-ink devices of 6 inch variety)
Number and sex of participants might not be that crucial here but 300 words at a time seems very low amount.
Anecdotally, I can read just fine and quickly on a most glossiest of LCDs for a few minutes.
If I have to read for an hour or longer give me e-ink screen any time.
This doesn't mention anything about the light promoting wakefulness, but rather simply assesses levels of comprehension: "These dependent measures included subjective (visual) fatigue, a letter search task, reading speed, oculomotor behaviour and the pupillary light reflex."
Staring at a light producing screen all day then not staring at one could still be a good move.
I love the idea of an e-ink monitor. This would be a great performance display for a headless server. Weather and news display connected to an arduino? Low power systems that expend just enough power to display some information then shutdown while allowing the display to retain its static display?
It might not be the most versatile of displays but use of this should really be in the "right tool for the right job" mindset.
If you are looking for something for those purposes, some e-readers used rootable android as their OS, which would make displaying custom stuff relatively easy.
do you know of which ones exactly? I was looking into using an old kindle for such a think, but couldn't figure out a straightforward way of pushing data onto it
For devices which do have a VNC viewer, is it possible to periodically (e.g. every 15 mins) wake up the device, refresh the screen via VNC, then power off or switch into very low power state running only the timer?
This would be a great addition to small dev boards like the raspberry pi, beagle bone, or galileo since it mentions it doesn't even need to run off of its own power source. It scrolled nicely and seemed to refresh the screen well in the videos. This would also come in handy for console monitors.
Agreed, but the Raspberry Pi does not conform to the USB specification because it can not deliver more than 100mA-150mA over its bus. I wonder how much this screen will draw.
I was first intrigued, but when I saw the price I couldn't really see it being all that useful. It is possible to buy a 4K display with a similar 150dpi resolution for less.
So the only advantage I can see here is lower power consumption?
This is really the killer feature as I see it. Instead of external light making screen content harder to see, it actually makes it more visible. I think there are plenty of uses for this technology.
Current displays are a huge power hog because they have to compete with/outshine ambient light. With this technology, we use ambient light to make the display content visible, instead of trying to outshine it by cranking up the backlight.
I wish E-Ink would get more attention because of this. Forget power consumption as the killer feature...it would look more natural and you wouldn't be shining a bright light in your face all the time.
I'm pretty sure a generation from now kids will not be able to comprehend that we once used additive light displays. It's really a poor reflection on the way markets work that the "good enough" of backlit displays has stifled the correct way to do it for so long.
And readability. And only using power when making updates. Using a max of 2.5W instead of 100W is a big deal. You can now power a monitor from your laptop or phone.
Also, think about how things tend to work in the electronics industry. DVD players were $1000 in the 90s.
They dropped in price because they were being built and sold in huge volume; I don't really see that happening with this product. E-ink readers (and by extension screens) were very promising five years ago, but then the iPad and Android tablets came along and pretty much wiped that whole market out overnight, disregarding readability and power consumption because apparently that's not as strong a sales argument as people thought it would be.
I'd still like a screen like this though. I gathered I can convert my old Kindle to an external screen with some custom firmware, I might do that.
My conjecture: Kindle sales is part of a ecosystem sale, rather than standalone sale. There is definitely a segment for E-Ink display, but as a standalone desktop seller it might be hard.
Nice, a bit pricier than I would like but it certainly has appeal. I use tablets as off monitor reading stands for their high dpi screens. Personally I think a 300 ppi version of this screen would be just killer, even if it didn't do all the fancy scrolling and you just threw up pages on it which could stay there with no additional power applied.
I'd love to try using an IDE such as Eclipse on such a screen. I suppose IDEs can have an e-ink mode where instead of colors, they use multiple fonts, italics, bold fonts, and other decorators to highlight syntax.
Unbelievable. This site forces people to communicate like they're being watched by their professor, and it still passive aggressively bans people who merely dissent once and a while.
Just wait until an alternative site emerges. One that doesn't have a concept of crimethink for the sake of "preserving the community".
Apart from the point in the first video when they click on a link and you can still see the smudge of the text column on the newly cleared screen. A close look at the text column while scrolling makes it look dirty compared to the rest of the screen as well.
Huh? There's nothing inherently monochrome about emacs or vi/vim. Both support colour syntax highlighting, and I'd be surprised if the vast majority of programmers using those editors weren't using it. Certainly everyone in my workplace who uses vim (including me) does. (Don't know about Acme).
E-ink theme would do, most IDE's give you extensive code formatting / theming options; replace the standard colours with bolds and underlines and such and you're good to go.
A few years ago I used to pine for an E-Ink (or later, a Mirasol) display so that I could have sunlight-visible portable computing, but sadly the iPad basically wiped that market away.
While the standalone monitor is neat, I think the biggest use-case would still be for a portable/outdoor terminal. That being said, with MEMS-IGZO devices finally coming from Sharp/Qualcomm (Pixtronix) this year (they've been showing it off since 2013 [1], but have announced a 1H 2015 release in JP [2]) that boasts some impressive specs [3]: 220ppi, 120% NTSC color gamut, 8000:1 contrast ratio, 50% power consumption of an LCD. It is also sunlight readable and has switchable low power/low refresh grayscale and color modes.
It's not bistable, but is looking like a really good e-reader/tablet option. Personally, I'm still looking forward to the revamped SMI Mirasol [4] but that's probably years out... (basically, the perennial story of cool display tech)
While that Sharp tablet looks very interesting, I'd be wary of the fact that they also produce the AQUOS series. I'm currently using a Crystal and it is far and away the single worst touchscreen experience I've had (yes, the G1 did indeed boast more reliable touch performance).
I had it replaced once thanks to the fact that the hardware was known to be defective (well, known to Sharp and Softbank, at least; they didn't bother telling people) but both new and old suffer positively abysmal touch recognition and performance.
Sample size of one, of course, but buyer beware. I'd wait for feedback from the trenches before even considering a Sharp product in this category.
Hmm, I played around with one of those at Yodabashi the other day and it seemed fine. Did a quick search for some reviews [1] and none of them mention anything about the touchscreen being bad - seems like a standard 5-finger capacitive multitouch. I wonder if you just've just had bad luck. I searched for "bad" and "terrible" touchscreen and didn't find any results. If it was something widespread, it'd be all over the Android forums.
I'd really love to see a thin e-ink screen that you could place in front of a regular laptop screen. That way you wouldn't even have to switch devices you could just grab your regular laptop and go work outside in the sun for a few hours.
So kind of the way ink on paper adds black to make CMYK, the screen would add black to make RGBK? That would be awesome! I wonder how hard it would be to line up two independent displays? They'd need to be pixel perfect.
I have a Kyobo tablet with a Mirasol display, and while it is vastly underpowered and less than 6 inch display it's still pretty good for watching video on YouTube etc. in full sunlight. The only real drawback of the display is that whites can look silvery depending on how it, you, and the sun are angled.
It seems video interfacing remains an area of innovation, which means a) getting a new type of connector on every computer you buy, and b) huge confusion in the market for mere mortals (no, I don't know what a HDMI connector looks like, and I don't know either whether it is better or worse than displayport, thunderbolt, etc)
No standard for this use case, so it's going to need a driver of some sort or another. Also, be ready for it to be CPU hungry, as you're going to be without the benefit of any sort of graphics acceleration.
I've been looking for an e-ink like monitor for years. The bright light from todays screens has a strong hypnotising effect, that ruins your concentration and makes you more awake at night.
You can tone down the brightness/contrast for those, and/or install an application like F.lux that changes the colour temperature based on the time of day / season. I've been using that one for years now and I haven't had any problems with eye strain or sleeplessness. Note that I don't remember if I actually had problems with that before though.
I'd love to eventually see a low-end Chromebook built around one of these displays. You're already volunteering for a limited experience in exchange for convenience there, and I can see the battery life outweighing the negatives with the display. (And you probably have a phone or tablet with a higher resolution screen in your pocket/bag/whatever anyway.)
Obviously it's cost prohibitive right now, but as throwawaymsft said earlier it's very likely the price would plummet at scale. Clearly it would need to if the display is to find a market, and I expect they know that.
Similar devices are around for 3 years now. PixelQi offered 10" display compatible with most netbooks for $220. It even offered color backlight color mode.
In real life the benefits are not that great, screen is still polished glass and reflects everything.
saying pixel Qi "displays" were around or available is an overstatement. For a short while you could pick up the screen as a hacker kit. Just the glass and ribbon cable. It wouldn't be clear to build a housing and then make it run via USB, which is really the best way to use as a portable secondary monitor if you think about it. That and the screen quality was never really good. Dark mode was really silvery. I had the OLPC with the pixel qi screen and it was neither good as either screen, lit or not. Sadly they never became anything for the consumer. I'm not sure why either because they claimed they were in this great niche where they could pump out a lot of product because their build process was right inline with LCDs except for minor tweaks.
If you want to say they've existed you they have since maybe 2005 / 2006. Doesn't mean they have been accessible to anyone for mainstream use. This chnese e-ink display could get traction but they need to cut the price in half. the best innovation on e-ink lately is the yotaphone. Makes the most sense, solves problems and is accessible in price.
The pricy Sony 13" Digital Reader (plastic e-ink display) has a web browser, so it can be used to display some web pages and function as a pseudo-monitor. It weighs 358 grams / 0.79 lbs. Android clones are expected later this year, when Sony's exclusivity period on the new lightweight e-ink screen expires.
Emacs, a tiling window manager, a low-powered processor, and lots of RAM in a 2-in-1 form factor e-Ink device is pretty much my dream machine. Sadly, I am a tiny and ignored market segment.
The problem, at least for me, is that 13" is about the minimum screen that I'm willing to consider, and this is the second display of that size that I've seen (the first being Sony's Digital Paper, which is currently prohibitively expensive for me). I'm hoping that the price on this will come down into my range once the tech gets proven out a bit, though if it ends up getting positive reviews I might not wait.
A monitor like this would be the end-all-be-all for my
scientific workflow woes. The paper du jour on the e-ink and the journal and ipython on what I call "the lightbulb" (read: TFT).
I have already been fantasising about and doing
a spot of research into building one on my own by using an
Arduino (I wouldn't need as high a refresh rate as this little marvel) and one of PervasiveDisplays'[0].
I gave up convinced there was no sane way to actually
connect this contraption to my laptop, and the USB solutions
mentioned below do not instill hope.
Flux minimizes blue light but not total light hitting your eyes. Even with it, backlit displays tire the eyes and inspire wakefulness far more than front-lit surfaces.
(semi-offtopic) Isn't there some kind of glass slab that turns any light emitting display into a color e-ink like display? Isn't there a theoretical model at least?
There isn't. You can try sensing the incoming light with some kind of transparent light sensor matrix, like MIT's BiDi screen [1], which enables mimicking a diffuse reflector (i.e. paper) under ambient lightning, but there's no linear material that will do that.
Unless you have a rubbish backlight, I don't see how an LCD panel can flicker? (actually I can see why, turn of dynamic contrast, and crank the brightness up, turn off energy saving. That'll stop the PWN on the backlight)
The refresh rate of a panel is not what it can display, the only real practical effect is on screen tearing. (I worked for a VFX company, trust me I've tested it.)
Even really fast displays take 5 ms to get from grey-white-grey.
I'm talking about the PWM, and if you need to use PWM at 100% , for some it would be much too bright.There are some options to correct it(contrast, or apps like flux), but they usually really hurt color reproduction.And sometimes even them don't lower brightness enough.
Maybe there is a market among Harry Potter fans? Seems good enough to build a gallery of animated paintings. That would be an awesome demo for Dasung Tech.
This will keep its picture while the power is off, right? So it could be a black and white 'canvas' that you hang in your lounge and change the picture every now and then.
I wanted a display like this for years. In fact, I even did a lot of research to build my own. The biggest hurdle was getting a manufacturer to sell me a big-enough panel at reasonable cost. Absolutely nobody wanted to do anything less than 1k units (understandable, I guess), and I wanted only a few units.
I hope they will make larger versions too. The refresh rate on this display is pretty impressive, but I would be happy even with much slower refresh rate. My needs are humble, I use Unix and Plan 9, and most of the time I write programs in acme. I don't need scrolling, and I certainly don't need color.
I love how easy it is to read (for me) text on an e-ink display and how little fatigue I get. Retina displays significantly improved the experience on regular displays, but it's still significantly behind in the eye-strain department.
> I wanted a display like this for years. In fact, I even did a lot of research to build my own. The biggest hurdle was getting a manufacturer to sell me a big-enough panel at reasonable cost. Absolutely nobody wanted to do anything less than 1k units (understandable, I guess), and I wanted only a few units.
This guy claiming access to 13.3" panels, and he quoted me $2800 for a single 13.3" dev kit along SDK when I PMed him several months back.
The refresh rate on that monitor looks absolutely fantastic. I am wondering why the development of e-ink displays isn't pushing to get rid of it and implement it some ultrabooks / chromebooks. Would make for some very long lasting battery time.
182 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 139 ms ] threadI experimented with a monochromatic color scheme for my F# projects. Basically, I wanted the code to look like a page from a beautifully typeset math book. It got pretty close, but for want of italics, which VS does not support.
But, it would be nice if VS supported italics, various font weights, and small caps.
I'm playing around with rich IDE typography right now (but with color), it especially pops out at higher DPIs.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/liveprogramming...
Another thing that I tried was to extract each font variant into a separate file, and then to force VS to use those explicitly for different code element types, but that didn't work.
Got an RSS feed to make it easy to keep up with your articles?
It doesn't have to be fantastically high res, it doesn't even need to do color well or have a good bit-depth, having 2 or 3 bits of RGB is good enough.
EDIT: using four spaces to indicate quoted text means mobile users have to horizontally scroll the line of text in order to read it.
http://imgur.com/v9gbR6m
Interesting study but by no means conclusive and has a few flas as they only measured 6 female participants reading 300 words at a time on each device.(10 inch ipad, two sony e-ink devices of 6 inch variety)
Number and sex of participants might not be that crucial here but 300 words at a time seems very low amount.
Anecdotally, I can read just fine and quickly on a most glossiest of LCDs for a few minutes.
If I have to read for an hour or longer give me e-ink screen any time.
Staring at a light producing screen all day then not staring at one could still be a good move.
2-Buy a good quality screen.
3- Adjust the brightness of it so it is always the same of the surroundings, so your eyes do not suffer from constantly adjusting.
4- For every 50 minutes of work, relax 10 minutes. That means closing your eyes if necessary.
5- Exercise regularly. People ignore how important is blood circulation for your eyes.
Works great for me!
It might not be the most versatile of displays but use of this should really be in the "right tool for the right job" mindset.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/11/how_to_hack_sony_rea...
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150434
So the only advantage I can see here is lower power consumption?
Current displays are a huge power hog because they have to compete with/outshine ambient light. With this technology, we use ambient light to make the display content visible, instead of trying to outshine it by cranking up the backlight.
Also, think about how things tend to work in the electronics industry. DVD players were $1000 in the 90s.
I'd still like a screen like this though. I gathered I can convert my old Kindle to an external screen with some custom firmware, I might do that.
The keyboard on the old model I have is good enough for typing down thoughts, there's just nowhere to write unless you add comments to a book.
I'd love to try using an IDE such as Eclipse on such a screen. I suppose IDEs can have an e-ink mode where instead of colors, they use multiple fonts, italics, bold fonts, and other decorators to highlight syntax.
Yeah, and apparently no need to go to the black state required on current e-ink screens?
Unbelievable. This site forces people to communicate like they're being watched by their professor, and it still passive aggressively bans people who merely dissent once and a while.
Just wait until an alternative site emerges. One that doesn't have a concept of crimethink for the sake of "preserving the community".
YES, but sadly you can see afterimages, or image burn on the screen, I hope they have some self erase/calibration procedure buildin.
All great monochrome editors.
Plenty of exceptional programmers use mono. One wonders if it is a cause or an effect.
But it is nonetheless "a great monochrome editor"
While the standalone monitor is neat, I think the biggest use-case would still be for a portable/outdoor terminal. That being said, with MEMS-IGZO devices finally coming from Sharp/Qualcomm (Pixtronix) this year (they've been showing it off since 2013 [1], but have announced a 1H 2015 release in JP [2]) that boasts some impressive specs [3]: 220ppi, 120% NTSC color gamut, 8000:1 contrast ratio, 50% power consumption of an LCD. It is also sunlight readable and has switchable low power/low refresh grayscale and color modes.
It's not bistable, but is looking like a really good e-reader/tablet option. Personally, I'm still looking forward to the revamped SMI Mirasol [4] but that's probably years out... (basically, the perennial story of cool display tech)
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGVKRTosykg
[2] http://www.sharp.co.jp/corporate/news/141006-a.html
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBkIRil7f_A
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMDaJB2y4vc
I had it replaced once thanks to the fact that the hardware was known to be defective (well, known to Sharp and Softbank, at least; they didn't bother telling people) but both new and old suffer positively abysmal touch recognition and performance.
Sample size of one, of course, but buyer beware. I'd wait for feedback from the trenches before even considering a Sharp product in this category.
[1] https://www.google.com/#q=sharp+aquos+crystal+review
It seems video interfacing remains an area of innovation, which means a) getting a new type of connector on every computer you buy, and b) huge confusion in the market for mere mortals (no, I don't know what a HDMI connector looks like, and I don't know either whether it is better or worse than displayport, thunderbolt, etc)
https://onyx-boox.com/shop/onyx-boox-m96-universe-97-inch-e-...
Something like this could be a very, very cool development setup for me. I'm interested if anyone has tried it and whether there are any downsides.
Obviously it's cost prohibitive right now, but as throwawaymsft said earlier it's very likely the price would plummet at scale. Clearly it would need to if the display is to find a market, and I expect they know that.
In real life the benefits are not that great, screen is still polished glass and reflects everything.
I would dearly love to have a laptop using a display like this, so I can write code in the park on nice days.
If you want to say they've existed you they have since maybe 2005 / 2006. Doesn't mean they have been accessible to anyone for mainstream use. This chnese e-ink display could get traction but they need to cut the price in half. the best innovation on e-ink lately is the yotaphone. Makes the most sense, solves problems and is accessible in price.
Once color e-ink displays are available, I'd move emacs over to it as soon as possible.
(I don't use colours though, my normal terminal setup is green on black)
http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/sony-digital-...
I have already been fantasising about and doing a spot of research into building one on my own by using an Arduino (I wouldn't need as high a refresh rate as this little marvel) and one of PervasiveDisplays'[0].
I gave up convinced there was no sane way to actually connect this contraption to my laptop, and the USB solutions mentioned below do not instill hope.
[0] http://www.pervasivedisplays.com/
They seem to be doing a bit of open-source advocacy, too: http://repaper.org
[1] http://web.media.mit.edu/~mhirsch/bidi/bidiscreen.pdf -- this prototype goes even further and can mimic the illumination of an arbitrary 3D object, actually. Quite amazing.
But some lcd makers solved this, like viewsonic in[1], so this niche is gone.
[1]http://www.amazon.com/ViewSonic-VA2455sm-SuperClear-Flicker-...
The refresh rate of a panel is not what it can display, the only real practical effect is on screen tearing. (I worked for a VFX company, trust me I've tested it.)
Even really fast displays take 5 ms to get from grey-white-grey.
I hope they will make larger versions too. The refresh rate on this display is pretty impressive, but I would be happy even with much slower refresh rate. My needs are humble, I use Unix and Plan 9, and most of the time I write programs in acme. I don't need scrolling, and I certainly don't need color.
I love how easy it is to read (for me) text on an e-ink display and how little fatigue I get. Retina displays significantly improved the experience on regular displays, but it's still significantly behind in the eye-strain department.
This guy claiming access to 13.3" panels, and he quoted me $2800 for a single 13.3" dev kit along SDK when I PMed him several months back.
https://www.reddit.com/r/hwstartups/comments/2e5o61/i_have_e...