braunboffel

> Modos is working on a 60fps e-ink monitor

Fundamentally, my opinion is all these things trying to move electrophoretic ink fast are misguided. You end up using so much energy trying to move particles that are inherently designed to be bistable. If you want to play a video, you're better off using material physics that was intended to be fast from the start, not trying to force a material that's intended to be slow to fight itself.

Stuff like "We need 50,000 people interested in being a part of creating an open-hardware e-ink ecosystem". This seems like trying to drum up a kickstarter. The modos founder, Alex Soto, what's his track record? Googling seems to show him making ridiculous claims like "To make matters worse, the E Ink Corporation holds the patents for its e-ink technology and only licenses its technology to large manufacturers making availability or mass adoption difficult."

I would love to see him explain that in detail with concrete facts.

Patents were never the issue, there was one crazy comment on HN a few years back claiming that it was and somehow it became a mindworm that kept getting repeated. You can prove this to yourself by asking anyone that repeats the claim of patents being the issue, what patent specifically they mean. Invariably they can't answer or say "all of them". The real issue is volume and scale of production and the physics of the technology not being suitable for a broad enough range of solutions to hit the volume needed to get to a higher scale.

RPM? You think the ink rotates?

> I'm surprised the eink patent holders are seemingly content to lose their patent in time instead of licensing it and making real money

and I'm surprised I keep reading such claims on HN and everytime anyone ask which patent you're referring to, you get no concrete answer. It is like saying "microsoft holds lots of patents on operating systems" and that's why operating systems are so terrible and everyone is still using windows.

> We just need exciting products now.

Will you be working on such a product? :-D

> the laws of physics do not stop anything from moving more than 14 times per second,

Sorry, but this is like saying the laws of physics do not stop you from moving from Mars to Earth 14 times per second. In fact, they do. The same is true of moving ink particles within a high density high viscosity physical medium and getting them to stay at a specific location once you're done moving them.

Also "almost never use the whole screen at once" makes no difference since the rate of movement of ink is the same even if you were only trying to change 1 pixel.

> most of the screen refresh algorithms etc are Eink IP

Please help the rest of us understand what you mean. What specific algorithms are you referring to?

> so they keep the cost low by not innovating on responsiveness

Could you clarify who the "they" is? The way you write "not innovating on responsiveness" sounds very confident. Do you have a background in electrophoretic particle physics or industry expertise which is why you're saying that? Just want to make sure this isn't like some case where a commentor is saying "the only reason we haven't established a homeland on Mars is because rocket companies are not innovating".

"The world of e-paper displays is one of the most undocumented you can find: this is the unfortunate side effects of patented technologies, as there is a strong incentive to avoid disclosing useful information, with the effect of slowing down software progresses towards programming these kind of displays. "

That's a startling remark to make. I mean, like if I wanted to control OLED display waveforms, there's not exactly a massive stash of documentation about that. It is just that nobody really needs to since OLED drivers are hugely commercially successful that standard controllers drive them perfectly whereas the niche market for black white slow panels ends up with things less than satisfactory. I'd love to see evidence for claims like "slowing down software progresses towards programming these kind of displays".

Ok, so you're unable to provide evidence. Got it.

> Now some hacker is gonna respond complaining about Onyx not respecting some GNU license or other meaningless stuff, but the fact remains that they are cutting edge in eInk. Expensive though.

Please clarify what you mean by "not respecting some GNU license or other meaningless stuff" ? What exactly is meaningless?

Please also explain what you think "they are cutting edge in eInk" is based on. Thanks.

> Case in point E-ink technology, still extremely expensive due to corporate choices that favoured "milking" over "scaling".

You say that with such confidence like as if it is a well proven fact. Care to share your evidence that it is not a simple case of a niche product with low volume?

> I do recall that patents/trademarks/tech are owned by E-Ink inc., and one of the biggest reason for the cost is them gouging the market? That mechanism can keep high prices for a long time.

recall? gouging? You mean you have data showing is not just simple volume issues?

> The main reason there isn't is because e-ink tech is controlled by a company with a strict and expensive licensing arrangement

When? Where? How? Is this based on your direct experience? Please share some evidence so that your claims can be verified.

eink doesn't use rotating balls. You're confusing eink with gyricon from Xerox. That product died ages ago.