Color eink: maybe now they really do it?

[ps67]

I have seen this video about Eink color and I like to share here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1BAYfzCzu4

[Marinolino]

https://goodereader.com/blog/electro...-color-e-paper

" E Ink and Wacom have just unveiled a new breed of color e-paper. It does not have a name yet, but the two sides are going to market this new technology to other major players in the game. Wacom has disclosed to Good e-Reader at Connected Ink 2019 about the new technology and it will be in a series of products in late 2020 and target the digital note taking or e-note sector.
...
These new E Ink screens will start to undergo mass production in Q2 of 2020 and will be ready for finished products in Q3 2020. This means that we might finally see color e-paper used by major companies such as Boyue, Onyx Books, Sony and SuperNote. Wacom said all of the big guys will be using their tech and already have a series of hard confirmed orders.
... "

Eink

CLEARink ! CLEARink !!!

[binaryhermit]

Citing goodereader as anything but an unreliable site... Just saying.

And for what it's worth, all other things being equal, I'd say eInk has a better chance to come out with color epaper screens that make it into mainstream ereaders than clearink due to being the dominant company in the epaper screen market,

[Quoth]

Colour eink has been possible since the resolution got good. You need four pixels in a block for each pixel.
It's not viable without a bright front light because:
1) If the dye filter was perfect each colour subpixel PHYSICALLY and MATHEMATICALLY only has 1/3rd of the light.
2) Real dyes are not perfect. You lose about 4/5th of the reflected ambient light.
3) The best layout isn't R G B, but
G B
R G
or similar blocks. So you need 600 DPI, or else a 300 dpi screen is only 150 DPI. A linear RGB layout would give 100 x 300 dpi or else an underlying 900 x 300 DPI is needed.
4) Why is colour printing not dim? Because it uses C Y M K subtractive mode. So does colour photographic film, though it started using R G B. The Lumière Autochrome was the first commercially successful colour process in 1907. It used a layer of random coloured (R G B) dots in front of the emulsion. The images were dim as have been demonstrated coloured eink. Colour photography did exist from the late Victorian era once they had plates sensitive in the red. It was very specialist.

A lot of the power on LCD is the backlight. You have losses in the LCD, the glass conductive areas, the two polarisers and the dye filters. Early ones used R G B stripes, but now the
G B
R G
or similar layout is often used. The OLED /AMLED is almost always the square block rather than stripes.

Mirasol is the only static low power colour technology that I've seen. Qualcomm wants too much in royalties, and often they double dip, they like a percentage of the total product ex-factory price. There was a reader using it with two brands, one in China and one in Korea, connected with bookshops. You see them at a very high price on eBay occasionally. It was a flop. I don't really know if the problem is cost or quality. The quality is very poor compared to LCD, though it can just about do video.

I've been hearing every year for about 12 years that colour eink is about to be released. Well it was and almost no-one is using it as the front light is less efficient than LCD backlight or OLED. It's nearly useless with ordinary indoor ambient light.

The fact is that ereaders are a niche. Most ebooks are read on phones and tablets. The eink is ideal for the dedicated reader of novels. Colour isn't needed. The cost is already high compared contract phones or a $60 tablet. Anything that dramatically cuts battery life (x5 brighter front light, i.e. about 125% setting based on 25% needed for poor ambient light levels) or increases cost can't compete with LCD tablets.

Originally Posted by Marinolino

Wacom has disclosed to Good e-Reader at Connected Ink 2019 about the new technology and it will be in a series of products in late 2020 and target the digital note taking or e-note sector.

Not for the ereader market. Sony don't make ereaders now. Their Electronic paper (10" & 14" approx) are for annotation of PDFs. Expensive corporate products that can't even do ebooks. PDFs are not ebooks.
Such products work better with a Wacom digitiser than using only touch (you need resistive anyway as Capacitive & IR are only good for a touch GUI, too low resolution for handwriting or sketching).

No mention of ereaders by Wacom. The ereader bit is pure speculation by Good eReader.

[binaryhermit]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

No mention of ereaders by Wacom. The ereader bit is pure speculation by Good eReader.

What would a goodereader post be without a healthy dose of PIDOOMA though?
(pulled it directly out of my (something))

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

What would a goodereader post ... (pulled it directly out of my (something))

There is a reason I don't bother with GeeWiz / Gadget / Space / Science Hype Blogs since about 2008. Or HiFi reviews since late 1980s. AI marketing since 1990s. Or mainstream media reviewing Apple / Microsoft / Google / Amazon products.

Or Mobile. Like um, 6G is the thing! I used to design comms systems. Almost everything in the media ever written on 3G, 4G and 5G is nonsense.

[mikij1]

I will never understand those who say that color epaper is not necessary. I would die for an ereader in which to be able to read comics, magazines, my technical books without damaging my eyes... and I think millions of students think the same.
Imagine hundreds of millions of students in this world replacing their paper books with a single color ereader (12-13") to study...

It is not interesting, it goes!
does a backlit display do the same yes... NO.

Hopefully goodereader approaches for once and soon we will see these devices on the market.

[Deskisamess]

I would die for an ereader in which to be able to read comics, magazines, my technical books without damaging my eyes... and I think millions of students think the same.

I've read magazines on my iDevices for years, and use an iPad every single day. I've yet to "damage" my eyes. My vision has always been bad, and I get an eye exam every two years. My eye doctor has never said using backlit devices can "damage" normally healthy eyes.

I love e-ink, but it has a long way to go to reach the clarity of backlit screens for magazines and comics.

[frahse]

There is an old quote:

"All things come to him who waits."

Well maybe.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

...3) The best layout isn't R G B, but
G B
R G
or similar blocks...

...Early ones used R G B stripes, but now the
G B
R G
or similar layout is often used...

Just to add to FrustratedReader's interesting post the arrangement of the LCD panel RGB pixels in the above type pentile layout is convenient because the eye is most sensitive to green, that sensitivity because as well as its green cones the eye's red cones are also largely sensitive to green too whereas the blue cones are not. This means that if the panel pixels are arranged in a

BGBGBG...
RGBGBG...

pentile arrangement the G pixels can be made much smaller than the R and B ones, so increasing pixel density.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by mikij1

I will never understand those who say that color epaper is not necessary. I would die for an ereader in which to be able to read comics, magazines, my technical books without damaging my eyes... and I think millions of students think the same.
Imagine hundreds of millions of students in this world replacing their paper books with a single color ereader (12-13") to study...

I assume that you have not been exposed to learning in technologically advanced countries, else you would not make such claims.

In my own country, and I know in many others too, PCs, tablets, laptops and even phones are widely used for in class learning and for study. Most schools are fibre connected and interschool sharing of learning and live video over the internet is common, as is distance learning over the internet for children living in remote locations.

Of course, this is all with LCD or OLED display devices, so according to you they are all damaging their eyes. That would be regarded as a wierd idea to everyone involved.

[Quoth]

LCD & OLED do not damage eyes. Nor did TV CRTs. The bluer light of LEDs (OLED screen or LED backlight) might just keep some people more wakeful at night. There is some evidence that high UV (from the sun) might gradually affect the eyes. Sunglasses with proper UV filters are recommended.

The eink is more relaxing to read if your ambient light is good enough.
Colour eink would inherently need LED front lighting or very bright ambient light. It would also be lower resolution than the maximum possible monochrome screen, the same is true of OLED, LCD and CRT.

There has been a big thread on this.

Also the majority of B&W text only ebooks are read on phone/tablet/LCD/OLED and always have been.

I'm happy to use a 10" Tablet for PDFs and a Tablet or Laptop where I need colour. I'm not going to sit and read anything other than a text novel for more than a few hours. I might read a novel for 4, 6 to 8 hours, almost solid on eInk, using a good light, not the front light. I have Kindle PW3, Kobo Aura H2O original and Kobo Libra H2O with front lights.
I might read on my phone while waiting for a take-out.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by mikij1

I will never understand those who say that color epaper is not necessary. I would die for an ereader in which to be able to read comics, magazines, my technical books without damaging my eyes... and I think millions of students think the same.
Imagine hundreds of millions of students in this world replacing their paper books with a single color ereader (12-13") to study...

It is not interesting, it goes!
does a backlit display do the same yes... NO.

Hopefully goodereader approaches for once and soon we will see these devices on the market.

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

I've read magazines on my iDevices for years, and use an iPad every single day. I've yet to "damage" my eyes. My vision has always been bad, and I get an eye exam every two years. My eye doctor has never said using backlit devices can "damage" normally healthy eyes.

I love e-ink, but it has a long way to go to reach the clarity of backlit screens for magazines and comics.

My eyesight has always been excellent. Well until I turned 46 and then I started needing glasses for reading. My mother has Macular Degeneration and I see my Ophthalmologist twice a year and so far there is no sign of Macular Degeneration. That said, I have always read constantly. If I have a few minutes I will pull out a book and start reading. I have been staring and reading on backlit devices since I got my first computer. I also like to play FPS games online. I read on a Surface Pro. I read a lot and my Ophthalmologist hasn't seen any damage at all from reading or anything else. I do think that if millions of student thought as you do I might have seen some indication of that in the news or even from the Medical Establishment.
Apache

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

There is some evidence that high UV (from the sun) might gradually affect the eyes. Sunglasses with proper UV filters are recommended.

Some evidence? Macular degeneration, cataracts, pterygium and skin cancer (basal cell carcinormas and ocular melanoma) all have very solid links to exposure to sunlight. Heck, you can even have photokeratitis (corneal sunburn) from exposure to sunlight mostly from spending too much time at the beach or skiing with all the reflected light from the sand/snow. The snow form is affectionately(?) referred to as snow blindness.

You can have these triggered by UV sources other than the sun. Check "arc eye" for photokeratitis triggered by improper use of eye protection when welding.

[Quoth]

I guess "some" sounded too dismissive. Perhaps Irish vs Canadian emphasis.

Agree totally with what you say. Even one accidental welding flash you can be in pain that night.