To Onyx: Stop using e-Ink! Use ClearInk instead!

[Hrafn]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

First patent (when at MIT) in 1996 on the basic technology (white particles in microcapsules with dark fluid). E-Ink incorporated in mid 1997. First commercial display was in 2007, with the improved Pearl in 2010, Carta in 2013 and Carta HD in 2014.

So ten years from incorporating to first commercial product for E-Ink.

In comparison, LiquaVista started in 2006, and appears to have now been shut down (after 12 years) without ever releasing a commercial product.

So from incorporation in 2012, ClearInk has a few years yet before they should be written off.

I would suggest that E-Ink were facing very different market forces that both forced them and allowed them to develop slower -- the former being the lack of a market, until they themselves created one, the latter being the lack of competing technologies. This does not mean that ClearInk cannot succeed, but does mean that 'threading the needle' will be difficult, and likely to become more so with each passing year.

Does a viable niche exist between E-Ink and LCD? Maybe. But each improvement on cost, clarity and power consumption on either side shrinks that potential niche just a little bit more.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Hrafn

Does a viable niche exist between E-Ink and LCD? Maybe. But each improvement on cost, clarity and power consumption on either side shrinks that potential niche just a little bit more.

I don't think there's a viable niche between E-Ink and LCD. I would expect a better low-power reflective display technology to entirely replace E-Ink displays.


E-Ink didn't come into a completely fresh market area. There were already low-power reflective displays, but they just weren't very good. E-Ink pretty much killed reflective LCD displays except in the very lowest priced items.

[mdp]

Originally Posted by Hrafn

E-Ink [...] the lack of a market, until they themselves created one

Originally Posted by Hrafn

Does a viable niche exist between E-Ink and LCD? Maybe. But each improvement on cost, clarity and power consumption on either side shrinks that potential niche just a little bit more.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I don't think there's a viable niche between E-Ink and LCD. I would expect a better low-power reflective display technology to entirely replace E-Ink displays

We had an up to dire need for solving the problems patched by this technology, independently of its existence: they [E-Ink] found a market.

And to solve the problem of visualizing data, talking about niches seems to assume that «E-Ink and LCD» are amply satisfactory technologies. They are not.

• LCD is absurd to use: it fights against environmental lighting. Conceptually, we had done better with paper. OLED is already much smarter, preserving the blacks as "off" - the effect is already much more fitting to expectations (and it is probably close to being the after-dusk technology) -, but still falls in the category of the "[we had no better than] torchlights".
• E-Ink's EPD has plentiful limitations: not just the low refresh rate, but also that the amount of energy to change state is substantial.

I am not sure that these technologies still allow linear improvements.

Now, the current evidence of the long-term direction is towards * heightened mobility and the need to access information anytime (so anywhere), and * increased use of video as a format to spread information - while multi-source information remains (on the erudite's desk more books remained open, in the centuries) the paradigm (ALT+TAB, Hypertext). Existing widespread technologies fall short, for either reason.

Natural-light friendly, high refresh, color, efficient smart low power consumption, good visual quality: this is still missed, and this is the goal. Of course, who gets the better placement on this vectors and on the implicit ones (cheap etc.) eats up the rest in function of the intended use.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by mdp

Natural-light friendly, high refresh, color, efficient smart low power consumption, good visual quality: this is still missed, and this is the goal.

Absolutely. And I thought it would already be here.

[Hrafn]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I would expect a better low-power reflective display technology to entirely replace E-Ink displays.

1. All color reflective technology to date has worked through placing a colorising filter over B&W technology. Given the inherent complexity of baking multiple colors directly into the the reflective layer, this is unlikely to change any time soon.
2. This means that any color reflective technology, for the foreseeable future will be inferior to B&W in terms of resolution, clarity and cost.
3. There is a large market for eReaders for reading predominantly text-based books, particularly genre fiction, that is better met by a higher resolution, clearer, cheaper B&W display than a lower resolution, less-clear, more expensive color technology.
4. This means that this B&W-dominated niche will continue to exist for the foreseeable future.

Will displays continue to improve? Most certainly. But the tightening R&D budgets mean that E-Ink's dominance is unlikely to be dethroned any time soon (building a better product costs).

E-Ink didn't come into a completely fresh market area. There were already low-power reflective displays, but they just weren't very good. E-Ink pretty much killed reflective LCD displays except in the very lowest priced items.

Existence of technology does not equate to existence of a (substantive) market. The Wright brothers invented powered flight, not commercial air travel (their occasional marketing stunt notwithstanding). The existence of a substantive/'mass' market generally requires a mature technology, as well as considerable effort in marketing it.

Also, I misstated, slightly. It was not so much e-Ink creating the market as Amazon creating the market using E-Ink's technology. Compare sales levels before and after the advent of Amazon-EInk, and I'd be very surprised if they were not multiple orders of magnitude different.

[mdp]

Originally Posted by Hrafn

color reflective technology [...] through placing a colorising filter [...] for the foreseeable future will be inferior to B&W in terms of resolution, clarity and cost [...] There is a large market for eReaders for reading predominantly text-based books, particularly genre fiction [...] this B&W-dominated niche will continue to exist for the foreseeable future.
[...] E-Ink's dominance is unlikely to be dethroned any time soon

I don't think anyone is betting on Triton's basic variations.
The argument, as I read it, would be that "Fiction readers are already plentifully satisfied by EPD - EPD will remain the dominant choice for them". Which is good - and of course no technology which is useful in some context should vanish.
But those lucky sons-of-a-saddle, oh I remember when I myself devoured fiction too, sweet were the times, represent a component of all the "mobile readers", roughly countable in billions.
It is probably worth mentioning that the choice is not univocal: one has LCD, OLED, EPD, paper...

Originally Posted by Hrafn

The existence of a substantive/'mass' market generally requires a mature technology

The judgement of "maturity" is somehow subjective. But anyway here in the big topic the bet is not on the stock market (on the sales of Displays Inc.), it is on the advantage of availability to the individual "early" adopters.
(Edit: well, there are really both bets. Myself, I am interested in getting my own device.)

[andyh2000]

Originally Posted by Hrafn

1. All color reflective technology to date has worked through placing a colorising filter over B&W technology. Given the inherent complexity of baking multiple colors directly into the the reflective layer, this is unlikely to change any time soon.

Not strictly speaking true. EInk (the company) have their "Advanced Color ePaper" - apparently only just commercially available (https://www.theverge.com/circuitbrea...er-acep-kindle) and only for signage type applications but it is proper colour. Then there are the three colour displays (black, white and yellow or red) e.g. https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/inky-what that also use actual coloured particles for the third colour.

They're both very, very slow to refresh but they are real coloured 'inks' rather than using a filter.

Andrew

[DaleDe]

All of the E Ink color systems are described in our wiki.

Dale

[Matilo]

Originally Posted by Hrafn

...
Existence of technology does not equate to existence of a (substantive) market. The Wright brothers invented powered flight, not commercial air travel (their occasional marketing stunt notwithstanding). ...

E-Paper Display Market 2022| CAGR of 37.5% to 2022 | Key Players are E Ink, Cambrios Technologies, Amazon, Clearink Display,Inkcase, LG , Plastic Logic and Samsung.

Electronic Paper Display Report, published by Allied Market Research, forecasts that the global market is expected to garner $4274 billion by 2022, registering a CAGR of 37.5% during the period 2022. North America dominated the global market in 2015, accounting for a market share of over 34%.

https://www.openpr.com/news/1394355/...d-Samsung.html

[mdp]

Originally Posted by andyh2000

Not strictly speaking true [...] "Advanced Color ePaper"

Hrafn seems to have picked only the topmost, "simplest" solution, and which actually made it to e-readers, with static filtering.
For that matter, also Mirasol/IMOD is fully feasible, distributed and ingeniously using complex technology: micromirrors.
Of course filtering is not the only way.

[mdp]

CLEARink now has Lenovo as a backer.

These are very good news.

[Philippe D.]

Originally Posted by mdp

CLEARink now has Lenovo as a baker.

These are very good news.

Yeah, good bread ahead.

[mdp]

Originally Posted by Philippe D.

Yeah, good bread ahead.

Sorry, I was in mobility and the comfort of the phone interface makes me express like Officer Crabtree. I corrected the original post. Good Moaning again.

Anyway, yes I hope we will get good bread indeed.

According to Elizabeth Sutton (Idboox), L. invested 10 mil.

[Jason90]

Originally Posted by mdp

CLEARink now has Lenovo as a backer.

These are very good news.

This has to be the first real piece of positive news that we are actually going to be getting a reflective colour product released!

After all the years of hype and disappointment in Liquavista (turns out they could never get it to market) this has me excited again that we might get the dream display many on here have been waiting for!

However I have been following Clearink on youtube for the last two years and they are not hitting their release timescales as they wanted a product out initially by early 2018,then they said by end of 2018 so things don't seem to be going super well for them so hopefully they actually release something this year as apparently they are releasing a Chinese 'educational' tablet first.

If it turns out half as good as their claims for final production then I'll be importing day one no matter the cost

They have only ever shown one prototype display at the different display trade shows and I'll admit it did look underwhelming but they keep saying the display will improve dramatically when put into actual production so we will wait and see.

[andyh2000]

Having been bitten by the Jetbook Color debacle I'm not believing colour eInk is viable in a reader until I can hold it in my hands in real world conditions.

Andrew