gadgets.boingboing.net— E-paper cover a "stupid gimmick"? No way, Brian. Esquire's animated 75th anniversary cover is the flashing, squawking future of magazines.
Aug 3, 2008View in Crawl 4
Not much can be done; this isn't a big array of pixels, it's a few specific words and shapes that turn off and on. Sure, maybe make it blink faster or different, but forget about changing the content. Very misleading.
Addendum:I pulled off the silver backing and you can see how the wires run to the various cell areas.Basically you can etch in some other cells (I am stenciling out one that says "Digg" and another that says "Make:".Just use an exacto and carefully trace out your design down thru the cells. This will make the design look clear from the front. Then run power into the areas you want to have flash between black/white/grey.I can't imagine I was the first to figure this out with the Esquire magazine e-Ink screens.From there you can just cross the connections to those areas and they light up/turn black/grey.From this I ascertain that you could make a very pixelized full screen (Nintendo style) by etching out individual cell areas and running power to each one.Pretty basic. You're not going to get much for animation but I can get the Digg and Make: logos to flash.
Closed AccountAug 3, 2008
WTF is esquire and why should we give a s**t?
innocentsinnerAug 4, 2008
I can't wait for more horizontal rules and 'under construction' gifs.
zarexAug 4, 2008
Not much can be done; this isn't a big array of pixels, it's a few specific words and shapes that turn off and on. Sure, maybe make it blink faster or different, but forget about changing the content. Very misleading.
Closed AccountAug 4, 2008
Failure: Your incorrect quote.
maximumcheddarAug 4, 2008
"The order of the words will change", "It's the same e-paper that's inside Amazon's Kindle e-book reader"Doesn't sound like it's a custom array
redleader36Aug 4, 2008
Great Scott!
Closed AccountSep 10, 2008
Addendum:I pulled off the silver backing and you can see how the wires run to the various cell areas.Basically you can etch in some other cells (I am stenciling out one that says "Digg" and another that says "Make:".Just use an exacto and carefully trace out your design down thru the cells. This will make the design look clear from the front. Then run power into the areas you want to have flash between black/white/grey.I can't imagine I was the first to figure this out with the Esquire magazine e-Ink screens.From there you can just cross the connections to those areas and they light up/turn black/grey.From this I ascertain that you could make a very pixelized full screen (Nintendo style) by etching out individual cell areas and running power to each one.Pretty basic. You're not going to get much for animation but I can get the Digg and Make: logos to flash.
amazingsteveSep 24, 2008
The way they made this sound, it was going to be amazing. It's actually pretty weak sauce. Have a look at the tear down here:<a class="user" href="http://hacknmod.com/hack/hacking-the-esquire-e-ink-cover/">http://hacknmod.com/hack/hacking-the-esquire-e-ink ...</a>
rigormortisrobOct 1, 2008
cdahlkvist, let's see some pics of your work! I'd like to know if you've had any success creating new cells and to learn from your experiences.