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Digital Ink On Billboards 272
cdneng2 writes "The New York Times has this article on
a revolutionary new billboard. It uses digital ink, versus the typical CRT,
LCD, Neon, or Plasma displays that are so prominent on the newer billboards that
wastes electricity. From the article: 'By creating a paste made of tiny helix-shaped particles that can be minutely manipulated with electric charges to
reflect light in highly specific ways, Magink
can produce surfaces that look like paper but behave like electronic screens,
rendering high-resolution, full-color images without ink - or, as Magink
executives like to refer to the process, with digital ink.' The billboard
can display images at 70 frames per second." You can find more articles on the billboard technology on the Magink website.
Why oh why... (Score:5, Funny)
The day advertising and the military merge, we'll be in a world of hurt. They'll end up creating a pop-up that kills, I tell ya.
Re:Why oh why... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why oh why... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wake up dude. That last 3 US wars (Iraq, Afganistan, Iraq) have been full-on media circuses.
Re:Why oh why... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Desert Fox? (Score:2)
I thought the porn industry was leading the way. (Score:2)
Re:a pop-up that kills (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Why oh why... (Score:3, Insightful)
> Porn...
What, you mean to tell me that porn doesn't depend/use advertising for its own existence?? No...I couldn't believe it!
Porn has stopped using new innovations (and pushing for more) compared to a few years ago. It essentially only advertises like mad (hasn't stopped), and of course sites cross-advertise for each other...
(As a side note: I'm sure the military "use" porn too...
John Anderton! - I have a new cola for you! (Score:3, Interesting)
Now with RFID technology, adds can be specifically directed at individuals. Brrrr.
Great! (Score:2, Funny)
Or I could just make a lifesize picture of Morgan Webb.
Re:Great! (Score:3, Funny)
Jeez...all these ideas...
Movie Theater
...Replace the Projector/Whiteboard combo for presentations! Ma
Game room (Smash Brothers, DDR, Midnight Club 2, blah blah...)
Computer Display (UT2k3, photo editing, woo!)
Re:Great! (Score:4, Funny)
revolutionary? not yet. (Score:3, Interesting)
combine that with a flash disk or some other form of solid state store and a transmeta or via c3 cpu and you've removed the three biggest power draws on a laptop.
essentially, i'd like a laptop that could do 24 hours w/o ac power.
oh, for older stories on /. about this, see here [google.ie].
Re:revolutionary? not yet. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:revolutionary? not yet. (Score:2)
You do realize that all of these technologies do require power when the screen changes, right? So if you're doing video you're consuming power. This may be one reason it's called "digital paper", not "low-power video". And, as such, the chief applications will be replacing static paper displays with mostly-static digital paper displays.
Re:revolutionary? not yet. (Score:2)
and i think fuel cells can be recharged.
Re:revolutionary? not yet. (Score:2)
Actually, that's essentially what makes a fuel cell different from a battery. You just keep supplying fuel to the fuel cell and it keeps producing electricity. So, no, you can "recharge" them as in rechargeable batteries. You "re-fuel" them like you do with your car. The most likely way that will happen for consumer electronics is buying hydrogen cartridges. Whether or not that is cheaper than the electricity you use to recharge batteries
My three-year old does this ... (Score:5, Funny)
Wahed out... (Score:2)
More targeted (Score:2)
It has the appearance of an LCD with it's poor viewing angle.
This is entirely the point. If only one driver can see the ad at a given time, the billboard owner can sell more targeted advertising space based on the make and model of the car approaching the billboard.
Besides, LCD viewing angles have got a lot better over the past years. Even in mid-1999, when Rose-Hulman was putting together Acer TravelMate 721TX laptop bundles for its incoming freshmen, the viewing angles were wide enough not to cause
e-books (Score:3, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I haven't RTFA'd yet. Better go do that now.
Re:e-books (Score:2)
A billboard provides an idea first market for this tech: It needs to change on a semi-regular basis (but not quickly), allows high initial cost (as long as the long-term cost is within limits), and is moderately protected from harm (at least, compared to a book). This lets them get the tech out and in the market.
Durability will rise and price will go down. For now, this is a good market to fund development from.
whitepaper stats (Score:5, Informative)
Print quality image
Combining 5mm pixel pitch, an RGB color model with 4096 colors, and a superior contrast ratio of 14:1, magink digital ink technology achieves an extremely natural look that very much resembles the look of printed images on paper.
Compatibility to outdoor lighting environment
magink's digital ink display billboard is reflective of incident light and requires no integrated illumination. Light that falls on the display from either the sun or external light sources is actually beneficial to the visibility of the image. A beautiful image is maintainable under the full range of daylight conditions.
Low energy consumption
magink display does not require any power to maintain an image: the image is held under power-off conditions. Only when replacing one image with another does the display require punctual application of power in order to set the new image.
Since energy is needed only for refreshing the image and since magink's digital ink reflective display does not require back lighting, power consumption is low yielding less energy consumption, less heat dissipation and a longer mean time between failure (MTBF).
Re:whitepaper stats (Score:5, Interesting)
magink's digital ink display billboard is reflective of incident light and requires no integrated illumination. Light that falls on the display from either the sun or external light sources is actually beneficial to the visibility of the image. A beautiful image is maintainable under the full range of daylight conditions.
I have to admit, this idea is attractive to me, though i'm scared at the fact that i'm actually for a form of advertsing technology.
My issue is this... near where I live on I-5 there is a huge graphic display billboard. Not sure if it's plasma or LCD or what, but it's one bright sucker It's so bright infact that driving tward it highlights every nick, scratch, bit of dust on my windshield. The reason I invested in a new windshield infact was due to this ultra bright computer generated sign from hell, esp since they don't automaticly dim the sucker based on accurate "sunset/sunrise" times (based on my observation only).
Now, it's good I replaced my old tattered scrached up windshield, but I shouldn't have to just because of a stupid sign who's technical design by it's very nature requires so much light it's a hazzard to people driving.
Re:whitepaper stats (Score:3, Funny)
What's sad is the fact that you need something to stare at while you are stuck in traffic in order to maintain your sanity. If they could find a nice balance between a full color dynamic display I'd be perfectly willing to let it exist without complaints.
My use of the word *hazzard* is in reference to "the dukes of hazzard" as it blinks brightly at the wrong time causing people to steer
Wallpaper? (Score:3, Interesting)
Would it work as a large TV monitor? The frame rate is up to 70/sec, so the question, again, is resolution.
Re:Wallpaper? (Score:2)
200 pixels to the meter (Score:2)
5mm wide pixels means 200 pixels to the meter. This means that a 5m by 4m display would have about the same pixel count as the 1024x768 pixel display I'm typing this on. Widen it to 7m by 4m, and you have a movie screen.
Re:Wallpaper? (Score:4, Informative)
This link [eink.com] mentions resolutions in the range 120-150 dpi, but AFAIR one of the first EInk demo screens had about 300 dpi resolution (as a laser printer)
Re:Wallpaper? (Score:2)
Re:Wallpaper? (Score:2, Insightful)
Tile based rendering (Score:3, Interesting)
Based on that DPI, at the size of a billboard, i don't know of any videocard in the world that could drive something like that.
OK, one video card probably couldn't handle this resolution, but imagine video cards in a Beowulf cluster. Give each blade the job of driving 1024x1024 pixels' worth of the image, and you have implemented a parallel method of image rendering that is commonly called "tile based rendering".
A question (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess I am a CRT snob, but I remember an IBM technology demo showing 400DPI. It was loosely based on LCD technology. It was backlit. Of course it did not have the refresh rate that this sign has.
Also notice those page sized tiles in the prototype.
Looks like this technology is heading our way fast.
Re:A question (Score:5, Insightful)
There seems to be no reason why they couldn't scale the technology down to PC size. But I think they have targeted the big-ticket applications for their first market - not a stupid idea. If they can replace "million dollar" displays with "80,000 dollar" ones, there are some *big* shot term profits to make the money to fund the mass production line to manufacture cellphone displays at the millions/month level you need to get the costs down.
Re:A question (Score:5, Informative)
Horses for courses - if you really want an emissive display, go for the current technologies of LCD or plama. This is something difffernt and, potentially, better. I took my laptop into the garden yesterday - and had great difficulty reading it because of sunlight. This would get easier to read with more light.
Humans are creatures of light; emissive displays are creatures of dark. Putting the two together requires compromises: avoid directt light sources, fear reflections. Turn the light down and your screen becomes more readable but fine print documentation becomes less readable. Turn lhe light up and the screen washes out as the fine print comes into focus. With absorbtive displays, the two become visible together. And reduced power consumption has got to be good. This might make e-books worth having. Battery life greatly increased, because power only consumed when you move the page (system can completely power down between button pushes), readable in a bright light.
Remember LED watches, as mocked in Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy? LCDs (non-lit) wiped those out almost overnight, because using power for a continuous, slowly changing display is ridiculous.
Don't expect new displays to be identical to old - evaluate and exploit their differences. If you analyse them, both CRTs and LCDs are rotten displays - but they are the best we have got, so we use them everywhere. Sometime soon someone is going to come out with a good absorbtive display - maybe this one, maybe another - and that will spread like wildfire.
Re:A question (Score:2)
Of course, as AlecC has pointed out, you'd want to light the display from the front, not the rear. As it is going to look pretty much like a traditional paper-and-paste billboard, it can be lit in the conventional way. Daylight performance should be pretty good too.
I need another distraction (Score:5, Funny)
How am I supposed to get ready for work!?
Re:I need another distraction (Score:3, Insightful)
One is that a billboard ad is seen by people in passing. If you glance up from your car and take in a tenth of a second from an animated ad you may miss the whole point. A static ad at least has the brand logo on it at all times, which means it impinges on some part of a viewers mind.
The second reason is that angling for animated ads would probably put Magink out
Re:I need another distraction (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I need another distraction (Score:2)
defaceing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:defaceing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Magnetic fields? I'd be more worried in what happens when teenagers spray paint these things, as they tend to do.
Or thinking more specifically about my area (Detroit), how does this billboard handle a couple of handgun shells unloaded into it?
Re:defaceing? (Score:2)
It requires no power! Not good... (Score:3, Funny)
Does it mean that, when my boss comes into my room and I'm watching pr0n, just turning my laptop off in panic will leave a big pr0n screen still visible?
Not good, not good...
Your Message Here, in a Flash (Score:2, Informative)
By MICHEL MARRIOTT
IN an industrial building on the Jersey City waterfront, workers busily printed supersize images for building facades and billboards intended to paper even the most casual viewer with brand awareness. Suspended near the rafters were full-color images of the youth tribes of Gap and giant emblems of National Basketball Association teams; on a far wall a portrait of a Seagram's vodka bottle hung two stories high.
In another corner, near the executive offices of N
Thank you captain obvious! (Score:2)
HOLY SHIT, I would have never made that connection, it's completely counter-intuitive, and definitely not something that jumps right out at you.
Their Web site says that the system... (Score:5, Funny)
Is this really the best choice for something that thousands (or tens of thousands) of people will see each day as they drive down the highway?
At the PATH [pathrail.com] terminals in New Jersey, they have "PATHVision" displays. They run Windows. For a long time, virtually every day, pretty much half of the terminals were displaying an error dialog or worse. I also think I saw one of their ticket vending machines displaying a BSoD.
I really wish that companies who come up with stuff this cool would not depend so heavily on Windows. Imagine driving down the highway and seeing a gigantic, 50-foot-wide Blue Screen of Death. If my experiences with the PATHVision monitors were an example of what is to come... well, it could happen!
Here [bloomu.edu] is what happens when airports depend upon Windows...
Re:Their Web site says that the system... (Score:3, Funny)
You know what, I'm sure I'd follow that billboard's lead and crash too. (Not quite directly of course, laughter vs. software failure and all that)
Re:Their Web site says that the system... (Score:2)
Re:Their Web site says that the system... (Score:2)
Specs (Score:3, Insightful)
5mm =
The smallest frame size is 1m x 2m, so that would be 200 x 400 pixels, bigger than a Palm Pilot and bigger in pixel count but less square than a Zaurus.
4096 colors is low compared to a modern PC.
Re:Superior Contrast ratio? (Score:2)
Response Time & Dot Pitch? (Score:2, Insightful)
Thats all very well but what are the response times like? Practically all LCDs have a 60fps refresh time, but with a respone of 30ms or more, fast moving images would look horrid, leaving lots of streaks. The article doesn't mention the dot-pitch specs of these digital ink screens either, I'd like to see what sort of resolution and at what size these things could produce. If it had a fast enough repons
Re:Response Time & Dot Pitch? (Score:2)
'Refresh rate : approximately 2 seconds'
2 seconds is more like the response time I heard last time I looked at this sort of technology
Re:Response Time & Dot Pitch? (Score:5, Informative)
Also you may be wondering about TVs and their response time, T.Vs and Monitors (CRT) don't have a response time (or more to the point its the same as the refresh) because on a CRT screen the previous frame is not remembered as the "pixels" on a CRT so to speak, need to be constatly energised to display anything, so the second that the cathode ray stops hitting the phosphor the image dissapears, thus no reponse time.
Re:Response Time & Dot Pitch? (Score:3, Informative)
What I think you meant to say was that the response time of a CRT is much smaller than the response time of an LCD.
The way a CRT works is that the ele
Re:Response Time & Dot Pitch? (Score:2)
Bah. (Score:2)
I thought this was going to be something that was cool, like eink [eink.com]. Maybe there's more to this they don't talk about, but I've seen displays that look like this at the local theater.
The ones I've seen look like real-life versions of vertical banner ads (coincidentally enough). Just a big LCD-ish display, whatever the actual technology. They're somewhat eyecatching in that they move, but... when it comes down to it, it's just an ad. Big deal.
Of course, I can think of more interesting uses for the syst
I can just see it all now (Score:3, Funny)
Seriously. Good intention, bad idea. At least it'll give hacker groups the ability to show their views to the world.
Re:I can just see it all now (Score:2)
This isn't the first computer controlled advertising display. E.g. McD's and Coke ads in Piccadilly Circus, London.
Expect this to appear in living rooms soon (Score:5, Insightful)
- 10-bit color (4096 colors) will become 16-bit and then 24-bit.
- 5mm pixels will become 1mm and then 1/10thmm
- the borders between the pages appear 1 pixel wide, and will thus vanish
- cost of $8,000 will drop to $2,500, then $500.
Yes, looks good!
Re:Expect this to appear in living rooms soon (Score:4, Informative)
10 bit equals 1024 colors
12 bit equals 4096 colors
Globals like on "Earth Final Conflict" (Score:2, Interesting)
A PDA that you can scroll the screen out to a decent size and when finished scroll it up and back into your pocket.
Thank you Lord for SciFi leading the way in Development of technology
I am a part time Sci-fi fan, you full time addicts must have some more examples Dont try to think outside the square - Instead realize there are no lim
Re:Globals like on "Earth Final Conflict" (Score:2)
Speaking of neon. . . (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm just thinking that if it's so much like paper, then that's one of the ways paper billboards are enhanced for better nighttime viewing.
Cartoon images could potentially be quite intense. Think of, for instance, the Simpsons done this way.
But as cool as this is, I still think that in the long-term we're going to see effiecient, mass produced, high powered lasers dominate the outdoor display market and perhaps other display markets as well. But since high powered lasers are still a very long way from cheap at this point, this is a cool near-term solution.
Distraction... (Score:2, Interesting)
Screw Billboards (Score:5, Interesting)
If this were advanced sufficiently, I could then even play bf1942 on this once I realized said female was imaginary and never came over in the first place.
Re:Screw Billboards (Score:3, Funny)
Even technology has its limits.
Re:Screw Billboards (Score:2, Funny)
So was the female in your room imaginary, or was the fact that she was "coming" in your room imaginary?
I hate to say this, but maybe you could stand to surf maybe just a little pr0n on your wall-screens. As an educational tool. Just remember to erase it or the presence of the female will also be imaginary.
The sexing of toads is expressly prohibited within the bounds of this post.
Ah, now I understand... (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, perfect for my car (Score:5, Funny)
hmmm... passive illumination, 70fps... (Score:2)
It would work great on the polygonal slab-sides of an M1-Abrahams tank...
Just think... you look down the street and think that the pepsi-cola vending machine looked a little distorted, but it could just be the dust and heat... and then a voice crackles over your radio "Hammer 34... in position..."
which is when you notice that there are a set of treads incongrously sitting under the pepsi cola mahine and most of a bus stop.
On the other hand if tanks could hide
Re:Ah, perfect for my car (Score:4, Funny)
I can have messages flash on the back telling that moron driving 30 in a 50 what I think of them
if he is going slow, and is behind you... you might want to display "sorry, I'm driving 30 in a 50 zone... I'm a moron, please pass me".
Re:Ah, perfect for my car (Score:3, Funny)
Did you ever consider that the only reason this "moron" is driving so slow is that you are in his way?
That's actually useful, guy... (Score:3, Interesting)
In the winter, the car body goes black and the windows stay clear, keeping the inside warm and reducing the snow and ice buildup.
In either case, I come out of the shopping center, push a button on my keychain, and the car's color starts flashing betw
Re:Active Camo? (Score:2, Funny)
"That seems to be an issue nobody addressed, but if it is this seems like technology the military could use to create active camouflage. Just take a pic of the view opposite the direction the vehicle is traveling and display it on the front and vice versa."
Hello Cloaking Device! Now if only they'd invent transporters...
journalists... (Score:2)
Of course, it seems serious when one explain acronyms like LCD. But mixing display and diode, even if errors does happen, is not good presage for the quality of the research in the article. Smell like corporate announcement camouflaged as news.
a New York-based display technology company whose name, Magink, is a combination of the words magic and ink
What is the level of the NYT reader? Even me, not native english speaker, had compreh
Re:journalists... (Score:2)
In other words: (Score:3, Insightful)
Dangerous? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you live in NYC, and have driven down the west side high way, there's a billboard, a tv billboard, which you see when you drive south around 23rd street in Manhattan. Am I the only one who gets a little distracted by these things? Anytime I pass by, I have to make a concerted effort NOT to have my eyes flit back and forth.
What about the ones in Times Square you may ask? They are MUCH MUCH higher up, out of line of sight for drivers. This one is about 3 stories high at about a few hundred feet away from the road. Ideal for drivers watching.
Lower Tech Changing Billboards (Score:2, Interesting)
The future is not set ... (Score:3, Insightful)
But imagine the possibilities.
A series of sci-fi books by Stephen Baxter [pushby.com] (The Manifold Sequence) describe technology like this.
They use flat, flexible view screens that can be used anywhere.
This is very exciting.
But of course it will be used for advertising...
Ads based on what you are listening to (Score:4, Interesting)
The most interesting variant uses a roadside scanner that detects which radio stations are tuned in on the various cars going by the sign. The system then aggregates the data on who is listening to what and decides what ad message to put up. If most people are listening to the game, maybe an ad for the local sports bar will appear. If a cluster of classical music listeners drives past, then an ad for season tickets to the opera might briefly appear.
There's no word on whether the system can tell which MP3 file you are listening to. Yet.
Re:Ads based on what you are listening to (Score:2)
Are you sure that this wasn't the April 1 edition?
--
Articles on the technology (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ads based on what you are listening to (Score:3, Interesting)
The material? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm curious about the "tiny helix-shaped particles." What the heck are they?
Re:The material? (Score:3, Informative)
This is essentially the paper.
The particals are coloured Red/Green/Blue on one side and Black on the other.
A static charge can cause a partical to rotate in it's position between the layers and show for instance either red or black.
Now just think of these as pixels and you get the idea.
May change the adverts we see in the future (Score:2, Insightful)
This was only available in black and white (well black and light grey anyway) but they were discussing how to do colour back then. This is mealy an extension of that technology.
This will be interesting for making redundant traditional billboards
if one of those things appears near me... (Score:2, Funny)
Easily overlooked part of the article (Score:3, Funny)
Lucky they mentioned that. At first I thought the name was a combination of the words "Ma" and "Gink".
TYFYA,
--#>SurturZ
i for one don't want this technology... (Score:2)
if i got a new flatscreen of this stuff for my computer, i'd lose my 'soothing green glow'!
Erasable Marker (Score:2)
Re:Signs signs everywhere the signs (Score:2)
Great, that means the cartel (Score:2)
Wait a minute, what do you mean there's no cartel? You mean people can self-publish [hackingthexbox.com] and get retail exposure (taking up a full display desk even) in actual shops? [foyles.co.uk] Call yourself an industry? Pah!
Re:Great, that means the cartel (Score:2)
For example Addison Wesley is owned by Pearson (PSON) which is publicly listed, i.e. not owned by SonyErricson/MicrosoftNBC/FoxSunTimes/AOLTimeWarn e r/Bertlesman/ParisSewageCompanyConnexUniversal.
Unless the Capitol group (11%) has anything to do with EMICapitol :-)
More worrying are the current attempts to strengthen a cartel in food, so that five
Re:Future is coming :) (Score:2)
ignore is human nature. Yes it could be done but most people (myself included) *like* having a stack of books they can browse through. It may well go some way towards
replacing disposable printed media such as the daily paper or magazines , but books? No , don't think so.
Re:Not just advertising (Score:3, Informative)
That's ok... (Score:2)
Re:Another regulatory opportunity... (Score:2)
oh...wait...that's the Democrats that are supporting those weasels...