[riobard]

Could you please tell a bit more about the volume-side of story? Somehow I feel that E-ink is at this weird point on the cost/volume curve because it is a fundamentally flawed display technology: monochrome or a couple of dull colors at best, very slow refresh rate (with ghosting/leftover on partial refresh).

LCD/OLED displays were also very expensive initially, but because they're so much appealing universally, loads of money got poured into the industry to make them better and cheaper (mostly due to volume demand).

There's no such amount of money/interest in making E-ink better and cheaper :(

[robinsoh]

Please search my comment history for what I posted about electrophoresis and physics. I don't think they'll be able to get past the physical limitation. To summarize, you either move ink fast but end up losing bistability, or move ink slow, as it is currently. Most people don't realize electrophoresis has remained at about 700ms for an update over the last decade. Tricks like A2 sure with the Dasung, but nothing substantial.

As for the comment about "money/interest", see my comments about why a venture capitalist would have little interest in spending billions trying to create new display tech and fighting hard expensive physics problems when they could get higher rate of return by investing in another software service or ML/AI company. That said, Jeff Bezos spent hundred million or more on trying to get Liquavista working, Qualcomm spent lord knows how much on Mirasol. Great demos, but just couldn't get the process scaled or reliable enough to commercialize. Physics is hard. Physics is expensive.

[riobard]

Thanks a lot!

VC money is unlikely the source for this kinda of industrial research and bumpy road to scalability.

LCD/OLED panels got so cheap largely due to Korean/Japanese/Chinese government subsides. I doubt any of them will do so for e-ink.

[evandwight]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27831868

Seems to be a meaty thread if anyone else is curious.