Technabob » electrostatic

E ink Crams Screen into Tip of Snowboard

Shane McGlaun — Sat, 21 May 2011 12:30:05 +0000

E ink has some cool tech, and its screens have turned up in everything from eReaders to watches over the years. The cool thing about its screens is that they have tons of contrast and are easy to read in direct sunlight. They also use little power so the battery in the device using the E ink screen can last longer.

At SID 2011, a new concept design for a snowboard with an E ink screen in the nose was spied by the guys at Engadget. The screen is really cool and big enough that the user could read it while doing all those crazy tricks snowboarders like. The screen appears to have a compass, temperature gauge, clock, and an altimeter built-in.

I am betting that based on the email icon and the signal strength indicator that the screen would connect to the users smartphone for the connectivity needed to show the dynamic content on screen. The screen can be changed from black with white font to white with black font. There is no word on price or if this will ever come to market, but I can see people really liking the device.

[via Engadget]

Blinking E-Ink Name Badges on the Way. Why? Why Not?

Technabob — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:18:43 +0000

The only thing more unnecessary than a name badge that says “Hello, my name is…” is one that blinks. Sorta like the old HTML tag that most of us had the good sense to stop using about a decade ago.

Thanks to the fine folks at Korea’s Neolux, we’ll soon be staring at blinking badges that use the same E-Ink technology you might find in a book reader, or a superfluous ad in Esquire.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

No word at this point when the E-Ink name badges will be available for purchase, and I suppose that’s a good thing. If anyone can think of a good use for these, let me know.

[via E Ink Info]

Phosphor E-Ink Watches: Kind of Like a Kindle That You Wear on Your Wrist and Doesn’T Read Books

Technabob — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:55:38 +0000

These modern digital watches don’t use LED or LCD screens. Instead, they use E-Ink screens to tell the time.

Phosphor’s E-Ink watches have a bold modern design, and feature highly readable electrostatic displays.

The Phosphor DH01, DH02 and DH03 all feature a display that combines a dramatic modern numeric display for minutes, along with a simulated analog dial for the current hour. You can also swap the analog dial for a numeric one if you so desire.

The DC01, DC02, and DC03 calendar watches offer a complete monthly calendar on the watch face, with the time displayed above it. Like the other models, the diplays can be inverted from grey-on-black to black-on-grey to suit your fancy.

You can find the full collection of Phosphor E-Ink watches over at Watchismo. All models are priced at $194 (USD), and are available with black leather, polyurethane and stainless steel band options.

Cybook 3 E-Book Reader Price and Launch Date Revealed

Technabob — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 13:51:01 +0000

I’ve been seeing early pictures and rumors of this new electronic book reader floating around for a couple of months now, and now the final specs, launch date and price have finally been announced.

Bookeen’s Cybook 3 reader will hit shelves this September, with prices starting at $350 USD. The Cybook 3 is a super-slim electronic book reader that’s only about as thick as a magazine and weighs in at just 6.1 ounces. Powered by a crisp 6-inch 166dpi E-Ink electrostatic display technology, the device can display up to 8,000 pages on a single charge.

The Cybook 3 is compatible with Amazon’s Mobipocket book distribution technology, meaning that you’ll have access to around 50,000 books when the reader is released. The device can also read a variety of other non-DRMed content formats like RTF, HTML, PDF and PRC files without any conversion software. It can also handle JPG, GIF, PNG and MP3 file formats. Just transfer the files you want to read via USB, and they’re ready to go. In addition to a small amount of on-board storage, the device has an SD slot, so you can store a huge number of books for those really long journeys.

This is definitely one to watch for when it comes out this Fall.