Video: 20-minute Interview with Eink at IFA 2011

[Barty]

Originally Posted by Jen Barlow

There are a number of excellent questions on this board. We would like to respond to them. Given the duplication in the questions across a number of similar boards, we would encourage you to navigate to our Facebook page where we have responded to these and a number of other questions that you may be interested in.

https://www.facebook.com/media/album...45410395552132

I have a question (sorry I have no Facebook account): can the background be made white or at least close to it? It seems you haven't made significant progress in this regard.

[Dulin's Books]

Pearl is definitely whiter than the original consumer eink display. its also a bit whiter than Vizplex

[Bratzzo]

https://www.facebook.com/notes/e-ink...45410395552132

Does E Ink use micro ants(sic) in their technology?

- There has been a lot of discussion about E Ink technology and micro ants. We would like to clarify that the black and white particles are moved in the microcapsules through the use of an electric field. E Ink has not engineered genetically modified miniature ants to physically move the particles in the capsules. We would also like to thank Charbax for a great job and having a sense of humor.

[Halo]

That was a great and facinating video. Thanks for making it, Charbax. The eink guy really knows his stuff.

I liked the look of a 9.7" screen, but was drooling with desire when I saw the color eink screen. If I could get an ereader with a 9" color eink screen, I think my dreams will have come true!

[anjirlly]

Might this video reach a broader audience were the thread to be re-titled "How Eink Works and Where the Technology is Headed"? I would also suggest to the moderators that the video is significant enough to merit space on the home page.

I tend to avoid watching videos because the information payoff for time invested is usually too low (compared to skimming text). So even though the video appeared here on 9/4, I didn't see it until yesterday while visiting The eBook Reader blog, where a more revealing title piqued my interest ("20 Minute Interview with Vice President of E Ink Reveals Interesting Details").

[mac]

Why RGB filter on triton? Maybe a CMY is better or not?

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by mac

Why RGB filter on triton? Maybe a CMY is better or not?

Almost all digital images and documents store colours in RGB format, so using a different system to display the colours wouldn't gain you anything, and maybe lose you some colour space.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by mac

Why RGB filter on triton? Maybe a CMY is better or not?

RGB because it's an additive system - turn on all three RGB and you get white.

If, instead of a filter over the top of an eInk screen, each pixel had a vertical stacking of controllable colour elements, a CMY scheme would be the one to use, as then it would be a subtractive scheme (like printers inks).

It's not a question of convenience of the source formats, but just concerned with whether you're generating your colours by adding light together to make colours and eventually white or subtracting from white light to make the colours and eventually black.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

RGB because it's an additive system - turn on all three RGB and you get white.

If, instead of a filter over the top of an eInk screen, each pixel had a vertical stacking of controllable colour elements, a CMY scheme would be the one to use, as then it would be a subtractive scheme (like printers inks).

It's not a question of convenience of the source formats, but just concerned with whether you're generating your colours by adding light together to make colours and eventually white or subtracting from white light to make the colours and eventually black.

In a sense, the current filters are subtractive, in that they subtract everything but either red, green or blue from each coloured pixel. Of course, the light from separate filtered pixels is added back together again by the eye to produce other colours. Could not the current system be replaced by fixed filters that are cyan, magenta and yellow instead of red, green and blue? I think it could, but I guess it wouldn't really be CMYK because it doesn't overlap the CMY components to get proper subtraction. The mapping from RGB to the new system would also be different than the standard RGB->CMYK mapping. Anyway, this is what I had in mind when I said it didn't make sense to use it in place of RGB. You're right that it wouldn't really be CMYK anyway.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by rkomar

ICould not the current system be replaced by fixed filters that are cyan, magenta and yellow instead of red, green and blue? I think it could, but I guess it wouldn't really be CMYK because it doesn't overlap the CMY components to get proper subtraction.

An interesting idea. I was going to dismiss it out of hand, but thinking about it further, it might result in a brighter display, with better contrast between black and white, and brighter colours.

The black would be the same - all pixels off.
The white should be brighter.
With RGBW filters, you get two pixels full red (RW), two pixels full green (GW) and two pixels full blue (BW). (The white pixel counts as full red, green and blue all at once.)
With CMYW filters, you get three pixels full red (MYW), three pixels full green (CYW) and three pixels full blue (CMW). That should be 50% brighter, and only 1/3 less bright than without the filters, instead of 1/2 as bright.

And, with appropriate driving software, it should still be able to display a good colour range, including Red, Green and Blue, as to get Red you'd just need to turn on Yellow and Magenta, for example. It would change the range of colours available - darker colours would be possible on a RGBW filter, I think, than on a CYMW filter. But only being able to have brighter colours when contrast is such a problem would be a bonus, I think.

I suppose eInk must have considered this? Or perhaps I'm overlooking something obvious that would stop it working.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I suppose eInk must have considered this? Or perhaps I'm overlooking something obvious that would stop it working.

The fact that you would get the colors with filters, perhaps?

In the RGB system you need bandpass filters which are easy to make. But how do you suppose the filters for the CMY system should be?



Let's say that you want to get a cyan filter. You can't make a filter that transmits just blue and green. You can make a filter that transmits just cyan, or try to filter out red, but you run into a little problem, because of the wavelengths that the eye is sensitive to:

[mac]

Acording with the figure above, the same problem is now with red color and RGB filter.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by mac

Acording with the figure above, the same problem is now with red color and RGB filter.

How is it the same problem?

[5thWiggle]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

If, instead of a filter over the top of an eInk screen, each pixel had a vertical stacking of controllable colour elements, a CMY scheme would be the one to use, as then it would be a subtractive scheme (like printers inks).

http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...DN/20100090930

Too late to patent it.

[mac]

Sorry Sil_liS, I want to say that in jetbook color the red colors are like brown colors, and cyan colors are blue-grey.