MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - E-Ink tablet with full motion video and color?

delphin · 06-14-2011, 08:03 AM

The only real way to achieve this within the current technology is with a dual screen 'flippy tablet' with a standard backlit TFT LCD screen on one side and a eInk screen on the other.

I thought of this one day when I picked up my Sony PRS-650, which has a Proporta folio style cover, and opened the cover wrong-way-round, so I was looking at the back of the reader.

The proporta folio style cover has both front and back covers, with the reader connected at the spine like the pages of a standard book, so it can be opened either from the front cover or back cover equally easily.

This made me think - 'What if you had screens on BOTH sides, and used the magnets in the front and back covers (the ones that Sony typically uses only to hold the covers closed) with Hall effect sensors in the reader, so it could sense which way the ebook had been opened to automatically activate the appropriate screen.

It's easy to keep the standard arrangement of having the spine of the book on the left side, by the simple expedient of having the screen image on the rear side inverted from the one on the front.

The cover sensing magnets could also be used to put the reader in standby power saving mode automatically when both covers are closed, so there are other advantages to this scheme, but for those that prefer their tablet without covers, flipping around screen images with an onboard gyro-orientation sensor is pretty standard stuff for tablets, so that is another alternative.

So, what you would have would be a nicely bound book that you open from one cover to access the TFT LCD side for reading indoors in dim light (or for multimedia), or from the opposite cover, reveling the eInk screen, for reading outdoors.

Not quite two eBook readers for the price of one, because that extra screen would add a little to the cost, but the CPU, Memory, and other electronics could be used to drive both screens, so there are some significant savings vs. having two completely separate devices.

Kind of the new-age techno-equivalent of the old 'ACE Doubles' SF Paperbacks.

06-14-2011, 08:03 AM	#10
delphin Evangelist Posts: 434 Karma: 346901 Join Date: Dec 2010 Device: SONY PRS-650	The only real way to achieve this within the current technology is with a dual screen 'flippy tablet' with a standard backlit TFT LCD screen on one side and a eInk screen on the other. I thought of this one day when I picked up my Sony PRS-650, which has a Proporta folio style cover, and opened the cover wrong-way-round, so I was looking at the back of the reader. The proporta folio style cover has both front and back covers, with the reader connected at the spine like the pages of a standard book, so it can be opened either from the front cover or back cover equally easily. This made me think - 'What if you had screens on BOTH sides, and used the magnets in the front and back covers (the ones that Sony typically uses only to hold the covers closed) with Hall effect sensors in the reader, so it could sense which way the ebook had been opened to automatically activate the appropriate screen. It's easy to keep the standard arrangement of having the spine of the book on the left side, by the simple expedient of having the screen image on the rear side inverted from the one on the front. The cover sensing magnets could also be used to put the reader in standby power saving mode automatically when both covers are closed, so there are other advantages to this scheme, but for those that prefer their tablet without covers, flipping around screen images with an onboard gyro-orientation sensor is pretty standard stuff for tablets, so that is another alternative. So, what you would have would be a nicely bound book that you open from one cover to access the TFT LCD side for reading indoors in dim light (or for multimedia), or from the opposite cover, reveling the eInk screen, for reading outdoors. Not quite two eBook readers for the price of one, because that extra screen would add a little to the cost, but the CPU, Memory, and other electronics could be used to drive both screens, so there are some significant savings vs. having two completely separate devices. Kind of the new-age techno-equivalent of the old 'ACE Doubles' SF Paperbacks. Last edited by delphin; 06-14-2011 at 07:48 PM.