Don't think this piece of news has been reported yet.

Philips has filed a patent for e-ink displays that stand a great
deal of wear and tear -- and that could be used for lane markings
that can be modified to suit traffic conditions:

http://www.newscientisttech.com/channel/tech/mg19325936.600-changing-road-markings-at-the-click-of-a-mouse.html

Sounds as if they got the concept of 'mobile reading' all mixed up ...

To change a center flow lane on the Roosevelt Bridge from Arlington, Virginia to Washington, DC they have a special vehicle to move the concrete dividers so that there is an extra lane inbound in the morning and an extra lane outbound in the afternoon. As I remember reading in the paper the vehicle cost about $500,000 US to build 20+ years ago and several hundred dollars a day to run. What a cost savings eink would be in that case. (The speed on the bridge at rush hour is never enough to require concrete dividers for safety.)

The fear I have of such technology is all of those small police departments that use speed traps to fund their operations from out-of-towners. It says 65 when you pass it and 35 when they write the ticket. Since e-ink looks so real it might even fool some of us.

I wonder how reflective these displays would be -- stripes and speed limit signs and such need to be pretty reflective to be much use in anything but good daylight conditions. http://www.sims99.com/forum/images/smilies/y_thinking.gif

Of course this does bode well for increased durability in future e-ink displays. :nice:

The fear I have of such technology is all of those small police departments that use speed traps to fund their operations from out-of-towners. It says 65 when you pass it and 35 when they write the ticket. Since e-ink looks so real it might even fool some of us.

Note to self: Do not offer RWood a job in my local police department.

Note to self: Do not offer RWood a job in my local police department.
No, write him a part in a fictional PD in your next book! :D

Seriously, though, I don't know how realistic it would be to use e-ink on highways on anything but regularly-changing signs. And with highway regulations (I've contracted with the FHWA for years), there would have to be a way to visually identify that sign as one that can change, as an advanced warning... and possibly additional non-changing warning signs before you read the changing sign. That's the way changeable speed limit signs are done around school zones, for example.

No one would be allowed by the FHWA to make a speed limit sign that looked exactly like a standard sign. If anyone did, and the public found out, politicians would be looking for new jobs (or safe houses).

Sounds like something with great potential for hackers to mess with:
* Change eInk highway speed signs to infinity symbols
* Play pong or breakout on the road by selectively updating the eInk strips
* Cause chaos by updating the road lanes every few seconds - now there's one lane, now there's three, now there's a statement: "Th1s r04d is 0wn3d by h4ck3rz!"
* Attach a video camera to the back of an eInk sign so it shows whatever is behind it. If the sign was using bright, colored eInk it would go invisible at the right angle. :rolleyes5

-Mythago

I'd love to see a crashtest between a reader and a semi. Not mine please! :laugh4:

Be careful about how seriously you take this article. Road and sign paint is highly reflective over a wide angle. While I haven't measured the paint, I am fairly certain it would greatly exceed that of E-Ink's technology; even after being baked, run over, rain and snowed on, and covered with dirt and solvents. Provided some miraculous survival technique allowed the electrophoretic strip to survive, it will still be compared to the paint's performance when being lit by headlights at a low angle some rainy night.

I'd love to see a crashtest between a reader and a semi. Not mine please! :laugh4:You have a semi? :wink:

:laugh4:

Road paint has tiny glass beads embedded in it (or at least it used to), to provide the necessary reflectivity. I think the paint on road signs has something similar. I guess one could have three layers of beads: opaque black, opaque white, and transparent, and for the "white" cells float the transparent beads above a middle layer of white beads, with the black beads at the bottom, then just move the black beads to the top for "black" cells. I don't know how well this would work in practice, even for a sign -- it seems to me that three layers would be quite a bit harder to manage than two. Or maybe the "white" beads in the current two-color system could be mirror-coated somehow. But given the substrate fragility problems reported for the iLiad, at least, I'd be skeptical about putting this stuff on a road.

I wonder what those markings would look like after a winter with tire studs here in Canada. They have to repaint all markings every spring.

Yeah, constant replacement/repainting of lines is a legitimate concern, given the punishment road surfaces get. That would have to be a LOT more expensive to replace than paint, so much so that I really can't see the point.