4 ms·

I wonder why say, SoftBank, doesn't buy them and do what you're describing? Is there something commercial players realize about e-ink that the rest of us don't

by ahepp 6y ago

I wonder why say, SoftBank, doesn't buy them and do what you're describing? Is there something commercial players realize about e-ink that the rest of us don't? Or do they lack vision (seems unlikely under current market conditions)?

robinsoh 6y ago
I wouldn't have high expectations of SoftBank but it does illustrate one key point. Everyone noticed that SoftBank was willing to burn a couple of billion on stuff like WeWork. It is considered reasonable in the VC/private venture industry to take bets on AI/ML, internet services. If those companies fail, nobody is going to fire you even if you vouched for obvious disasters like WeWork. The same VCs would never even consider taking a stake in startups that do the incremental improvements in pieces of display technology like TFT or material science improvements. I work in the display industry and I can only smile when people say it is being held back by patents and stuff like that because the real reason is really about investment. > Is there something commercial players realize about e-ink that the rest of us don't? Or do they lack vision (seems unlikely under current market conditions)? What I know is that their technology is limited by the physics of moving large particles. Their volumes are not high enough to achieve high scale. There was another post that explained this very well by showing the multi-billion cost of a typical LCD factory. I think E-ink can only re-purpose existing LCD factory lines and they can't get good yields on their products doing that.
- refulgentis 6y ago
  I gotta be honest I'm on a completely different track than this thread: these displays are pretty bad! No one is choosing a 4096 color 2560x1400p 30" with a refresh rate thats so poor they won't share it - its surely measured in seconds.
  - brmgb 6y ago
    It's a large color screen with a good resolution, visible from any direction and under any light condition, and which can keep showing an image for an unlimited amount of times. With a battery and a gsm modem it could probably stay unattended for years as a billboard.
  - mstipetic 6y ago
    If the refresh rate was improved I would buy it in an instant. I would probably buy a monochrome one. Maybe the refresh rate would have been improved by now had they allowed more innovation in the space.
    - robinsoh 6y ago
      > had they allowed more innovation in the space. This has already been covered repeatedly. There's no "had they allowed". The problem is physics! Please read about electrophoresis. It is pigment particles moving physically in a fluid! If you make them move fast then they're not going to be stable. You can look at the past 20 years of electrophoretic products and you'll see that there's been pretty much 0 improvement in speed. Startups like Clearink even gave up on bistability meaning they decided we don't need the pigment to stick, we'll just continuously refresh it like LCD and look how the investor and consumer market treated them. Again, this "had they allowed more innovation" seems to be coming from people who have little to no knowledge of the industry.
  - legacynl 6y ago
    That wouldn't matter for passive information displays. The fact that it only needs power to change what is displayed makes them very useful in any system that displays something (semi)long-term. Think of roadmarkings, parking-space indicators, shop-signs, billboards, carbonmonoxide detectors, road-signals. I can figuratively come up with infinite amount of applications like this. Basically the only bad application is monitors/tvscreens/smartphone screens.
    - refulgentis 6y ago
      But they are used for that - up until my post this thread was bemoaning that IP law prevents them from being truly successful, i.e. in mass market consumer products
  - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
    The refresh rate is something like 40+ seconds. This 31" display module isn't a new release of their latest tech, it was released at the same time as their 31" monochrome display module 2-3 years ago IIRC and has been discussed previously on HN.

by ahepp 6y ago

robinsoh 6y ago

I wouldn't have high expectations of SoftBank but it does illustrate one key point. Everyone noticed that SoftBank was willing to burn a couple of billion on stuff like WeWork. It is considered reasonable in the VC/private venture industry to take bets on AI/ML, internet services. If those companies fail, nobody is going to fire you even if you vouched for obvious disasters like WeWork. The same VCs would never even consider taking a stake in startups that do the incremental improvements in pieces of display technology like TFT or material science improvements. I work in the display industry and I can only smile when people say it is being held back by patents and stuff like that because the real reason is really about investment. > Is there something commercial players realize about e-ink that the rest of us don't? Or do they lack vision (seems unlikely under current market conditions)? What I know is that their technology is limited by the physics of moving large particles. Their volumes are not high enough to achieve high scale. There was another post that explained this very well by showing the multi-billion cost of a typical LCD factory. I think E-ink can only re-purpose existing LCD factory lines and they can't get good yields on their products doing that.

refulgentis 6y ago
I gotta be honest I'm on a completely different track than this thread: these displays are pretty bad! No one is choosing a 4096 color 2560x1400p 30" with a refresh rate thats so poor they won't share it - its surely measured in seconds.
- brmgb 6y ago
  It's a large color screen with a good resolution, visible from any direction and under any light condition, and which can keep showing an image for an unlimited amount of times. With a battery and a gsm modem it could probably stay unattended for years as a billboard.
- mstipetic 6y ago
  If the refresh rate was improved I would buy it in an instant. I would probably buy a monochrome one. Maybe the refresh rate would have been improved by now had they allowed more innovation in the space.
  - robinsoh 6y ago
    > had they allowed more innovation in the space. This has already been covered repeatedly. There's no "had they allowed". The problem is physics! Please read about electrophoresis. It is pigment particles moving physically in a fluid! If you make them move fast then they're not going to be stable. You can look at the past 20 years of electrophoretic products and you'll see that there's been pretty much 0 improvement in speed. Startups like Clearink even gave up on bistability meaning they decided we don't need the pigment to stick, we'll just continuously refresh it like LCD and look how the investor and consumer market treated them. Again, this "had they allowed more innovation" seems to be coming from people who have little to no knowledge of the industry.
- legacynl 6y ago
  That wouldn't matter for passive information displays. The fact that it only needs power to change what is displayed makes them very useful in any system that displays something (semi)long-term. Think of roadmarkings, parking-space indicators, shop-signs, billboards, carbonmonoxide detectors, road-signals. I can figuratively come up with infinite amount of applications like this. Basically the only bad application is monitors/tvscreens/smartphone screens.
  - refulgentis 6y ago
    But they are used for that - up until my post this thread was bemoaning that IP law prevents them from being truly successful, i.e. in mass market consumer products
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  The refresh rate is something like 40+ seconds. This 31" display module isn't a new release of their latest tech, it was released at the same time as their 31" monochrome display module 2-3 years ago IIRC and has been discussed previously on HN.