No.2525[Reply]
If we ever meet aliens, ones that can see with eyes similar to our own, eink will probably be important for interspecies communication. I remember watching a video a while ago that said that different mammals have different levels of photoreceptivity so the point at which persistence of vision makes flashing images feel fluid is different. For humans, it seems to vary a lot and depend on light levels; 24 FPS on a projector is comfortable to view for most people, 50Hz or 60Hz on a CRT TV was comfortable to view, but below 75Hz on a CRT monitor was uncomfortable, and so on. I vaguely recall that cats had a persistence of vision shorter than humans so they required a higher "frame rate" source to view it properly, otherwise it just looked like flashing nonsense that left them disinterested. Dogs had a higher persistence of vision and so required a lower frame rate than humans.
So, basically, it's the duty cycle of the source that affects whether it's comfortable to view or not, I suppose. At any rate, that's why I think eink or similar displays would be important: they are physically moving ink within capsules to create an image, and so there is no refreshing of the page to view it. As such, hypothetically, both humans and aliens would be able to read from such displays equally well. Although... If they're like dinosaurs and their vision is based on movement then both are probably insufficient. I'm not really sure how you would create a "motion display" short of vibrating pixels somehow or something idk.
2 posts and 1 image reply omitted. Click reply to view. No.2538
That's an interesting point, I suppose it's essentially paper that can change its contents on demand. In that scenario it'd make sense for people to start developing full-on tablets rather than just e-readers. Color shouldn't be a problem, right?
>>2537I thought the same... "aynk"
No.2539
>>2525Interesting thought! Have never considered how aliens might not be able to view animated media made for humans because of a difference in photoreceptivity.
The perception of color would be another and probably bigger concern since there is even more potential for differnces in capability to measure and interpret wavelenght of light. Within the human species, the divergence in the perception of color as seen in different types of color-blindness is already significant enough to be something to take into consideration when producing visuals. It would probably a good bet to use black-and-white for high contrast and using tech like eink for communication might actually be a good idea.
No.2559
>>2542Yeah, the latter makes sense for something static with image rotation at a fixed rate, while the former sounds good enough for dynamic portable stuff. It's not like 4k 120fps video is required for diplomacy, if anything it's audio that would be most important.
Oh, actually, that'd raise an identical problem too, wouldn't it? You'd have to figure out a range that works for both parties and especially doesn't hurt anyone, that could be trickier to solve. Hmmm.
No.2560
We have some pretty fast refresh rates for monitors now so we probably would not need anything like that, it's an interesting thought though.