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posted by janrinok on Thursday March 19 2020, @07:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the almost-magic dept.

7.5-inch e-ink display is powered completely by NFC:

NFC (Near Field Communication) is usually only used to for quick text transfers, like a tap-and-pay transaction at a register or a quick data transfer from an NFC sticker. A company called "Waveshare" is really pushing the limits of NFC, though, with a 7.5-inch e-ink display that gets its data, and its power, from an NFC transfer. The $70 display doesn't have a battery and doesn't need a wired power connection.

E-paper (or e-ink) displays have the unique property of not needing power to maintain an image. Once a charge blasts across the display and correctly aligns pixels full of black and white balls, everything will stay where it is when the power turns off, so the image will stick around. You might not have thought about it before, but in addition to data, NFC comes with a tiny wireless power transfer. This display is designed so that NFC provides just enough power to refresh the display during a data transfer, and the e-ink display will hold onto the image afterward.

NFC's power transfer works just like wireless phone charging: the reader (probably your phone) generates an RF field to transfer power to the passive NFC object. NFC stickers (and any other NFC device) have a sizable spiral antenna to harvest the RF signal, just like a wireless charging coil. The amount of power you can transfer over NFC depends on the design of the object and the reader, but Waveshare warns that some phones might not put out enough power. If your phone doesn't work, the company recommends an NFC board that puts out 1.4 watts of power, but Waveshare also shows the device working with a pretty old Android phone, a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge from 2016.


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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday March 19 2020, @09:52PM (7 children)

    by Freeman (732) on Thursday March 19 2020, @09:52PM (#973311) Journal

    I've looked at them, but until recently I didn't have a need to change as my old SimpleTouch was still hooked in to B&N. Somewhat recently, they discontinued access. So, now, I'm left with side-loading or buying their new one, that doesn't have stellar reviews. Really, I love the SimpleTouch form factor, the side buttons for turn pages really work well. There's nothing particularly wrong with my current one, so I may be stuck hoping that B&N survives long enough to put out another decent ereader. In the end, I may end up trying Kobo, though. They may not have an sd card for loading either, but at least it's plug into your computer, drag and drop.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2020, @11:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2020, @11:41PM (#973338)

    It's probably above your target price, but I really love my Kobo Aura One. You need a big pocket to put it in, but the 7.9" 300DPI screen is great to read from. Waterproof, wifi, and reads everything. Pay the extra and get the 'Sleepcover'.

    The newer Forma model also looks nice but I haven't seen one in real life yet.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday March 23 2020, @12:23PM (5 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday March 23 2020, @12:23PM (#974392) Journal

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobo_Inc. [wikipedia.org]

    Kobo does have a marketplace boasting 6 million legitimate ebooks and audiobooks, including some free titles.

    You may also be able to "lend ebooks" from libraries:

    https://help.kobo.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017677053-Borrow-eBooks-from-the-public-library-using-your-Kobo-eReader [kobo.com]

    You can find plenty of places for illicit ebooks, Library Genesis [wikipedia.org] being one. Calibre [wikipedia.org] can be used to manage the transfer of ebooks to your device.

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    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 23 2020, @03:01PM (4 children)

      by Freeman (732) on Monday March 23 2020, @03:01PM (#974430) Journal

      I indeed may give kobo a go sometime, but probably not sometime real soon. While it's interesting to note that Library Genesis exists, I'm not looking for shady sources.

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      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday March 23 2020, @03:15PM (2 children)

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday March 23 2020, @03:15PM (#974442) Journal

        It's cool in the shade.

        Also, I would like to see some color e-ink already.

        https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/e-ink-and-wacom-have-just-unveiled-a-new-type-of-color-e-paper [goodereader.com]

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        • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 23 2020, @05:17PM (1 child)

          by Freeman (732) on Monday March 23 2020, @05:17PM (#974483) Journal

          That is really interesting and would have me excited, but every time I think Wacom, I think $*. Wacom is high-end, expensive tech / brand, because Wacom. Seems like I'll be waiting another 10 years to see, if an affordable solution comes out.

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          • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday March 23 2020, @07:36PM

            by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday March 23 2020, @07:36PM (#974550) Journal

            These new E Ink screens will start to undergo mass production in Q2 of 2020 and will be ready for finished products in Q3 2020. This means that we might finally see color e-paper used by major companies such as Boyue, Onyx Books, Sony and SuperNote. Wacom said all of the big guys will be using their tech and already have a series of hard confirmed orders.

            AFAIK the company known as E Ink [wikipedia.org] supplies 100% of the screens used by the e-reader/e-paper industry, including Amazon, Kobo, and Nook.

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      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by deimtee on Tuesday March 24 2020, @09:56AM

        by deimtee (3272) on Tuesday March 24 2020, @09:56AM (#974871) Journal

        If you just want to read, I recommend one of the big screen Kobos, Aura One or Forma. About as awkward to carry as a thin 'Trade' paperback, waterproof (60min @ 2m), really nice backlight and they read everything except amazon drm. Use calibre to break it and they can read that too. Drag and drop as a usb storage device, or manage it through Calibe or Kobo software
        Huge book storage and a long battery life. Nice choice of fonts and type sizes. If you want to get into it you can over-ride the e-books builtin style with your own prefs for font / size / margins.
        The cpu might be a bit underpowered for web surfing, but that doesn't matter for reading. The screen updates as fast as you could flip a page. My main complaint would be that there isn't a way to easily resize graphics.* At 300 dpi many diagrams, maps, and pics are too small to easily see. It can do nice graphics, but it's really designed for text.

        Their advertising claims that they surveyed a lot of book readers and built their wishlist device. As a long-time prolific reader I can believe it, they didn't compromise on any reading feature in order to do other stuff.

        *this may have changed. Mine is 4 years old and I haven't updated the software. I really should do that.

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