[chainwax]

I personally love this. I have a pretty strong distaste for bright screens everywhere and rather like the look of e-ink screens. I'd love a future where we move away from putting up LCD panels on every surface we can advertise on.

[PaulRobinson]

Consider whether advertising at all should be everywhere, not just the brightness of it.

In Brazil, one town banned all advertising hoardings (back when they were just posters), and observed multiple changes in how people felt about the space, including the fact that they were hiding entire favelas ("shantytowns"), that many locals were not really aware of.[1]

It's been a while since I subscribed to Adbusters magazine[2], but I do believe in their central premise that advertising, whether it be in public spaces or online, is harmful to mental health and society, because it perpetuates an unhealthy consumerism, and it distorts truth.

So, I say, don't just make advertising a bit more subdued than an LCD (but not as sustainable as recyclable paper which was fine for a long old time): let's just get rid of it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adbusters

[ToucanLoucan]

I wish I could up this far more than once. Instead of “sustainable” waste, how about just do without ads? Everyone hates them, their effectiveness is murky at the absolute best, and even non-emissive ones are intrusive and obnoxious. We don’t need these things anymore, if I want a new gadget, or lunch, or whatever, I don’t look out at fucking billboards, I pull out my phone and google for nearby businesses or for the gadget I’m after. Public space ads were a shit solution for product discoverability when they were invented, and today they’re completely fucking irrelevant. Most ad tech is to be honest, it’s just an entire industry built of people and companies pretending it’s 1955.

[mazambazz]

You don't need to look at a billboard at the time that you want to buy something related for it to work.

The mere-exposure effect (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect>) is all that is needed.

If ads were "completely fucking irrelevant" then companies wouldn't be spending the large amounts of money that they do on it. I agree that ads are a nuisance, but they're not going to be easy to simply get rid of, as long as money is involved. And considering how tightly coupled finance is with policy nowadays, I find it highly unlikely legislators would pass bills banning public advertisements. Especially when sometimes the government itself is the one getting paid to promote goods and services.

Finally, the issue is also defining what constitutes an advertisement. How do you draw the line between advertisement and free speech? If, theoretically, a very passionate citizen, enjoyed a product so much that they simply wanted to publicly express their satisfaction with it, posted a sign of that expression, does that constitute an advertisement?

If it does, and gets removed, then I'm afraid that's no different than some dystopian form of censorship.

If it doesn't, then it would be trivial for companies to continue advertising, because then every ad could just be re-framed to be the personal expression of an individual.

[latexr]

Another one.

https://archive.ph/2024.07.26-042606/https://www.bloomberg.c...

[HelloMcFly]

I agree with the idea, but I guess this is just one element of life I've accepted that we've lost as a society. I just don't have the energy for every fight. I knock on doors for civil rights, I put on outdoor gear to do wildlife population counts or invasive flora removal, I don't have the energy left for another cause.

[PaulRobinson]

Sure, but it takes a village, and all that. If polling data shows voters resent advertising across their town, you'll find that becomes a key part of messaging and canvassing for votes, so just saying something might be enough.

And we can work together: I don't have time to knock on doors for civil rights or go count lesser-spotted newts, so I'll thank you for what you're doing to make our society better, and I'll go do some lifting on this bit, 'k?

[sho_hn]

I think seeing more public spaces shift away from emissive displays and putting more emphasis on quality lighting again would definitely be interesting.

What mainly limits the applications for this tech is that full-color refresh is very slow and very ugly, so it prefers static content. For public spaces this could mean a greater emphasis on graphic design quality as well, since you'd probably only want to refresh out of sight of customers, e.g. outside of business hours.

The problem is that puts it into a pretty narrow band of application of displaying information that only changes infrequently, but often enough to offset the high cost of the panels vs. just having someone put up a new print. Overall my gut feeling is that the economics just aren't quite there yet without some more effort put into changing the equation.

For examle - I think that E-Ink should actually kind of try making the refresh experience have its own aesthetic. Right now the refresh on the Spectra panels looks like the panel is having a seizure. If they could make it look cool (e.g. doing it a fancy geometric pattern or something), it might make it OK to refresh while being seen.

[Karliss]

Considering that I see giant >50 inch vertical LCDs screens used as advertisement boards in bus stops and every 100m along street. Same places that previously had rolling advertisement lightboxes swapping between printed ads every couple of minutes. So i would say there are quite a few places where ads are already past the point and the cost analysis isn't E-ink vs printed poster or rollup lightbox, it's E-ink vs >50 inch LCDs.

Browsed aliba and price difference between those rollup lightboxes vs similar size outdoor LCD advertisements wasn't that big ~$200-$400 for lighbox and maybe $400-1000. Wouldn't be surprised if advertisement companies can also ask more money for ads on digital screens compared to printed ones. Payoff period might be shorter than you think. But it would be nice to hear from someone in business who knows more accurate numbers.

As for refresh ugliness in case of advertisements it might be considered a feature even without fancy effects -> blinking attracts attention. And once you unavoidably turn your head to take a look at what's blinking in the corner of your eye the add has already changed. As long as it isn't too frequent maybe once every 3-5 minutes it will probably be considered acceptable. The giant LCDs with annoying videos area already sufficiently big eyesore.

[Lutger]

Movement is as much a visual pollution as light is. I find it very, very distracting. That is perhaps a cognitive defect on my part. The fact that e-ink screens will be relatively static is only a good thing in my book.

Another complication might be that e-ink by itself is not visible in the dark, though it isn't a problem to add lights. However, that could again be a benefit.

Personally I would love a ban on ALL advertisement in public spaces, even print. Some brave politicians have done it on a city level, and the citizens just love it. Banning moving images and lights for advertisement would be a compromise, e-ink screens could then still be allowed.

[dspillett]

> Movement is as much a visual pollution as light is.

I find more so, especially when it happens in my peripheral vision. It can be irritating enough for me walking past overly animated displays in shops, I bet it could be dangerously distracting for some drivers (who aren't always giving as much attention to the road ahead as they should be anyway) going past street or shop window signs.

> though it isn't a problem to add lights.

Does backlighting eink work? I think all the hand-held displays I've experienced have been lit from the sides. That is probably practical though: the old posters-on-a-roll setups seen in highstreets were often lit that way and with modern bulbs it wouldn't consume as much power these days.

> Banning moving images … e-ink screens could then still be allowed.

I would be wary of that loophole. I've seen some impressive displays of quick refresh rates for e-ink, so playing distracting video content would be perfectly possible assuming those techniques scale to this size, and if advertisers can do it they will whether it is good for anyone else or not.

[Telemakhos]

> I find it very, very distracting.

The human brain has cognitive subsystems devoted to detecting motion that seems non-random, that is, that seems to move with deliberate purpose contrary to other motions like leaves or ripples. It's important for predation on both sides—for the predator or the prey.

That's also exactly why advertisers love it and will continue using it. They will buy any politicians who look likely to ban moving images or lights.

[jfim]

It's not only you. Movement in general is a preattentive feature, meaning that it gets processed subconsciously and appears to "pop out" in an image.

[zimpenfish]

> information that only changes infrequently, but often enough to offset the high cost of the panels vs. just having someone put up a new print

Bus advertising. According to people I worked with back in 2010 that were working on LED panels for buses[0], changing the vinyl advertising on a London bus took something like 3 days. Which is a long time for a bus to be out of service.

An e-ink panel is a great solution - lightweight, zero power use until it needs changing, and the refresh rate doesn't really matter.

[0] Didn't succeed because LED panels at the time were big, low-res, bulky, and extremely power hungry.

[michpoch]

> changing the vinyl advertising on a London bus took something like 3 days

That sounds like wrapping a whole bus with an ad. Hardly something an LED or e-ink display could replace.

[toast0]

There's a mix, a quick search took me to https://londonbusadvertising.com/ which shows wraps, which aren't going to be replaced with a display. But also rectangle panels which could be replaced with displays.

Those panels might very well be vinyl for outdoor durability, but I don't see why they'd take 3 days to swap out, unless it's a scheduling/transport issue, for example a bus operator needs to drop off day before, so the ad company doesn't have to schedule around when the drop off happens, and the bus operator picks up the bus the day after, because they don't want to schedule around when the ad company finishes; now your one hour swap is a multi-day production.

A full wrap, could be a 3 day process though.

[anigbrowl]

I'd love this to be banned. Not only is it a visual eyesore form the street, it devalues public transport's brand, and in many cases it makes it hard for people inside the vehicle to see where they are.

[TeMPOraL]

I love our buses in Kraków, Poland. They mostly don't carry any advertising on the outside, but when they do, it's advertising the fact that the bus is fully electric, zero-emissions, and part of the new all-electric fleet. It's low-key, aesthetic, and basically advertising public money being well-spent on improving QoL for citizens.

(I may be wired weird; I'm also happy when I see signs on stuff saying it's been financed by Local Program X, Subprogram Y, with support from EU Program A, Subprogram B, Function C, blahblah. Unfortunately not everyone cares to make those look aesthetically, given that the information is only placed because it's a condition of the grant, but it usually looks OK and IMHO sends a positive message.)

EDIT:

Trams here have been seen carrying exterior ads for private businesses every now and then, less so now than in the past; these days, it's mostly either default coloration or some temporary "this train is new and awesome" ad.

Bus stops, however, are another matter.

As for internal screens, sometimes ads find their way onto the "bus TV" and "tram TV" displays. Most of the time, it's a mix of tourist trivia, air quality report, PSAs (safety warnings, transit etiquette), and transit org's own ads (showing off new eco-friendly fleet, job ads). There's a separate set of screens that show a map (OSM!) and the route with upcoming stop markers, but unfortunately, half the time they're broken - either the map or route indicator is frozen, or they get desynced from each other, or reality. Voice announcements seem to be a separate system and are usually reliable, though every now and then they desync from reality too.

I sometimes wonder who's maintaining this and if they'll take a volunteer (or part-time contractor) to help them keep the indicators working.

[nottorp]

> I may be wired weird; I'm also happy when I see signs on stuff saying it's been financed by Local Program X, Subprogram Y, with support from EU Program A, Subprogram B, Function C, blahblah.

Do they also carry the name of the local politician who runs the program? That should raise some eyebrows...

[guappa]

In copenhagen all the internal screens show ads instead of the next stop.

It's very useful to get lost.

[zimpenfish]

> That sounds like wrapping a whole bus with an ad.

They were talking about the standard landscape side panels. Didn't make much sense to me either but that was why the bus companies were throwing money at them to get LED panels working (aside from the financial bonus of being able to book multiple ads for the same bus, obvs.)

(As an example of how efficient TFL's advertising swapping was - there was a poster at Deptford Bridge DLR advertising a Gorky exhibition in 2010 that wasn't changed until late 2017/early 2018. And all that involved was opening the street-level case to put in a new poster!)

[rbanffy]

Not one, but it can be covered in screens. This has been demoed in cars for some time now.

[dspillett]

> Bus advertising.

If what I see on busses around here (York, UK, and occasionally other cities) is anything to go by, bus-side advertising is dying on its arse. Most of the busses I see are carrying adverts for sales that ended months ago of films “in cinemas now!” that stopped playing on the big screen a year or more ago. If bus-side adverting were in a healthy state I'd have thought new content would have replaced those long ago.

[m463]

wonder if temperature and durability will be issues on the side of a bus...

[zimpenfish]

> wonder if temperature and durability will be issues on the side of a bus...

They were in 2010 with the panels we had running in New York. I think at any one time, >50% were off the road with issues (dirt, vibration[0], temperature, power supplies, etc.)

[0] e.g. the CF cards holding the OS would eventually just work themselves out of their slots.

[achow]

> ..that puts it into a pretty narrow band of application of displaying information that only changes infrequently

On the contrary I would imagine that 99% of information displayed in outdoors is static in nature and does not need something in the range of 24fps.

After all once upon a time 100% of the world's outdoor displays were static, and things were fine. Time Square should not be a benchmark.

[anigbrowl]

full-color refresh is very slow and very ugly

Non-problem in my view. Today's 'ugliness' is tomorrow's nostalgia.

[Animats]

> I think seeing more public spaces shift away from emissive displays and putting more emphasis on quality lighting again would definitely be interesting.

What's the point of running the display on a battery if you need power for the "quality lighting"?

[echelon]

> I personally love this.

The tech is awesome, but the E-Ink company is holding it back.

We would have had large and cost effective displays well over a decade ago if E-Ink (the company) didn't patent patrol the technology. It's impossible to do anything in this space without touching their patents, and so independent of their direct involvement and licensing, there's no third party innovation or competition happening.

These displays have had so much promise, but they've taken decades to evolve into diverse shapes and sizes. And they still cost an arm and a leg relative to other display technologies.

Other commentary:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26173409

[AshamedCaptain]

Why is this _always_ repeated? Where are these patents? Where are the examples of eInk going against their competition??? Because you have a _myriad_ eink-like technologies from many other companies, most of them literally better than eink, that were available but were abandoned after they failed in the market.

One example I particularly liked is Mirasol, who was abandoned despite being owned by Qualcomm out of all companies (HIGHLY unlikely to be scared by a patent troll, considering Qualcomm could be arguably described as a patent troll themselves).

It's simply ridiculous to think that eInk would torpedo their own technology out of incompetence/malice/whatever yet these ideas keep being parroted here without _any evidence whatsoever_ as if it was gospel from the gods.

The real reason, of course, is that this technology is hard (plain physics), and that there's little investment because most consumers could not care less. The supposed advantages of eink are paper-thin at best (contrast sucks and keeps getting _worse_ after each generation, and that is without taking into account the color ones), customers have a hard time distinguishing it from other technologies such as reflective/memory LCDs (which practically beat them in every metric you can think of, even power usage -- except for long enough periods of idleness which are not of interest to any consumer), and at the end of the day most people will choose a backlighted LCD over all these alternatives anyway...

See Garmin, which started with reflective LCD watches for outdoor usage, and the moment they experimented with a plain old fugly backlighted LCD they decided to replace most of their series, _even the ones for primarily outdoor usage_, with backlighted LCDs (e.g. Fenix 8). Customers just buy shiny flashy screens more, what can you do about that?

eInk survives because they're actually one of the cheaper techs, which is the only reason talking about "billboards" is even remotely plausible, and even then they're having a hard time.

[gamblor956]

There's a lot wrong in this comment.

Eink B&W screen contrast has been improving dramatically with every generation, but there was a significant backward step in the jump to color eink screens (due to how the current Kaleido technology works). The Gallery technology does not suffer this lack of contrast, but the trade-off is that screen refresh times are slower than 1st generation e-ink panels.

Garmin still uses reflective LCDs, even on the Fenix 8. The AMOLED is a separate SKU.

Eink is superior to transflective LCDs in terms of power use as it only needs to be refreshed when content changes; an LCD must be refreshed multiple times per second. Only bistable LCDs can display an image without power but this comes at the cost of resolution and contrast.

[AshamedCaptain]

> Eink B&W screen contrast has been improving dramatically with every generation,

No: https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2021/01/20/contrast-on-e-i...

Ever since Carta it has been stuck at 15:1 and it is trivial to see that e.g. Remarkable has better contrast than the newer (B&W) Kobos.

As I said, this has _nothing_ to do with the color screens where the contrast is even further reduced, _even_ in Gallery (by eink's own specsheet, as well as by plain observation on a newer remarkable color).

> Garmin still uses reflective LCDs, even on the Fenix 8. The AMOLED is a separate SKU.

No. The _reflective LCD_ one is the one which has become the different SKU (it is now called the 'solar'; the main series now all use backlight), and guess which new SKU is neither stocked nor displayed on stores. It used to be that "Epix" was the AMOLED version of the Fenix, but now it has replaced the mainstream Fenix. As a fan of the reflective LCD garmin watches (since the 1st generation Fenix), the writing is on the wall.

> Eink is superior to transflective LCDs in terms of power use as it only needs to be refreshed when content changes; an LCD must be refreshed multiple times per second.

However eInk requires _significantly more_ power when refreshing than an LCD, not to mention a more complex controller, while at the same time the power required for refresh by a memory LCD is practically negligible. So, as I said, unless your usecase involves the eink panel staying static for _days at a time_, LCD will win.

And no customer really wants a screen that is only refresh once every week; it defies the point of a screen. I could even say the same of a "dynamic" billboard. There's a reason even price stickers at shops use LCDs.

Is there nowadays at least some eink watch that can surpass the battery life of the reflective LCD Garmin watches? (measured in months even with at least one screen refresh per minute). Note that many "eink" smartwatches actually use memory LCD, and not a eink panel, behind the scenes. (e.g. Pebble). Furthering my "users cannot even distinguish eink from reflective LCD" argument.

[gamblor956]

Ever since Carta it has been stuck at 15:1 and it is trivial to see that e.g. Remarkable has better contrast than the newer (B&W) Kobos.

This is false. Carta is the B&W family of eink Panels...The most recent one (the Carta 1300) has significantly improved contrast over the 2021 era panel, the Carta 1000. It's trivial to see that, and nobody looking at the most recent Kobo B&W would claim that it has less contrast than a 2021-era device. The Remarkable 1 uses a custom co-developed version of the Canvas panel which has reduced the thickness of the touchscreen layers and other layers above the eink panel, which is the primary cause of reduced contrast in e-ink devices (including the Remarkable 1). (Remarkable 2 uses a custom co-developed version of Gallery, which has greater contrast and amazing color but slower refresh times than Carta or Kaleido.) If you ever get your hands on the eink hardware itself, you would be amazed at how much contrast even the 1st gen panels have...and how much contrast you lose to all the layers that get added above the panels to make them durable and usable in handheld devices.

The _reflective LCD_ one is the one which has become the different SKU... and guess which new SKU is neither stocked nor displayed on stores.

Both the AMOLED and the Solar Watch are separate SKUs with the display in the name. There is no "base" Fenix 8 anymore. And on that note, the closest 5 Best Buys and REIs to me all stock both SKUs for immediate pickup.

So, as I said, unless your usecase involves the eink panel staying static for _days at a time_, plain old LCD will win by far.

This is also false. There have been a number of transflective ereader devices on the market. They get worse battery life and have significantly worse contrast (without backlighting) than their eink counterparts. Seriously dude, if tranflective LCDs got better battery life and had competitive contrast to eink panels, do you really think that every ereader company including Amazon would still be using eink panels over cheaper transflective LCD panels?

[AshamedCaptain]

> The most recent one (the Carta 1300) has significantly improved contrast over the 2021 era panel, the Carta 1000. It's trivial to see that, and nobody looking at the most recent Kobo B&W would claim that it has less contrast than a 2021-era device.

Well, I have linked an article making such claim. But how much has Carta 1300 improved the contrast, exactly? eink has stopped publicizing the contrast ratio on the public specs, just the marking BS that says the contrast ratio is improved (over what?), so I'm fearing the worst. I bet you it's still 15:1 (as Carta was on 2013) on paper or rounding-error level close to that, which explains why most users would see contrast as becoming worse.

> The Remarkable 1 uses a custom co-developed version of the Canvas panel [...] has reduced the thickness of the touchscreen layers and other layers above the eink pane

This is marketing BS. No such thing as canvas panel. It's Carta.

Also, RM1 has no other layers. Stylus input is wacom (below substrate) and there is no frontlight. On RM color pro they made stylus input capacitive AND added frontlight which may arguably have increased touchscreen layer thickness, leading to the perceived reduction in contrast. But ironically enough even eInk spec says Gallery has lower contrast than Carta (around 1:12 for Gallery 3), so no comparison is needed there. Unsurprisingly, all reviews say contrast has taken a hit.

> you would be amazed at how much contrast even the 1st gen panels have

The early panels were utter crap. There's a reason you couldn't not even put glass on top of them and things like "infrared touchscreens" were a thing on ancient e-readers (google for them, if you're curious). The improvements since ancient panels have been significant -- they used to have contrast ratios worse than 8:1, and Pearl and Carta raised that to 15:1. However, it is still ridiculous compared to contrast in most other screen technologies (even memory LCD can reach 20:1 https://www1.futureelectronics.com/doc/SHARP/LS013B7DH03.pdf). And has it improved at all in the last decade?

Not blaming eInk: there is a physical limit to contrast for their tech.

> Both the AMOLED and the Solar Watch are separate SKUs with the display in the name. There is no "base" Fenix 8 anymore

If you google, or if you click on the product, you or if you choose the cheapest one, or if you walk to a physical store... you will be offered the AMOLED one. It used to be that you had to go out of your way to get the AMOLED line. Now it's all in your face. I do not have product sales numbers but it's still rather obvious to me they're focusing on the AMOLED one.

> Seriously dude, if tranflective LCDs got better battery life and had competitive contrast to eink panels, do you really think that every ereader company including Amazon would still be using eink panels over cheaper transflective LCD panels?

Memory LCD panels are _not_ cheaper, and most definitely not at this size. I'm not even sure they are manufactured at such sizes, either.

ebooks are the only thing that defies the overall trend, maybe because e-ink practically defines the product line; but they are becoming even more of a niche market -- most people seem to have no problem doing their reading on a backlighted LCD iPad.

[grishka]

Shouldn't the first of those patents start expiring soon?

[guappa]

I think not having ads at all might be a better situation.

[Beijinger]

Sao Paulo?

[_blk]

I just have a strong distate for ads. Period.

Except the funny cat ones.

[taurknaut]

I'd love a future without advertisements.