
Kindleberry Wireless: A Portable Outdoor Hackstation - rvagg
http://maxogden.com/kindleberry-wireless.html
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iuguy
It's an interesting hack. I do wonder whether or not it's a little over-
engineered. When you look at the costs of all the kit versus maybe an older
OLPC type computer off ebay I'm not sure how well it stacks up.

Then again, it's probably pretty good in sunlight and despite the refresh rate
issues considering idle time in an editor it might be a very good use of the
e-ink screen. And as I said, it is a nice hack. Certainly better than most
raspberry pi posts I've seen.

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bergie
The issue with an OLPC is that the keyboard is terrible. And battery life at
least didn't use to be much better than with netbooks.

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iuguy
Sorry I had a brain fart, I meant UMPC and bluetooth keyboard. No idea where
OLPC came from.

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bergie
This is taking concepts like my current 'Android workstation' to the extreme:
<http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/working-on-android/>

That said, I can certainly see the appeal of a device with a week-long battery
life and a sunlight-readable screen for some sort of 'hacking retreats'. I
could imagine writing something big on the Trans-Siberian Express with a
similar rig.

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ch
Nice hack. I would have liked to see some power draw measurements on this. The
LiPo battery is a good source of power, however if the draw is low enough, a
portable solar power source would allow for indefinite usage (perhaps even
charging the LiPo, which would be used as a night time power source only).

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kayoone
Its an awesome hack but i dont really see the benfit vs some ultrabook with a
matte screen. Batterylife is worse sure, but most probably you wont be sitting
somewhere without power for more than 4-5 hours anyway.

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ch
Perhaps you need to think of this hack as something that is useful not in the
case of when you are stuck in a place for only 4-5 hours, but instead
something for when you deliberately plan to be off the grid for more than 4-5
hours.

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fiatpandas
Such a fun idea. And I had no idea miniature USB-powered routers existed...
definitely added to my wish list. I'm saddened to say that I haven't put my Pi
to creative use since receiving it a few months ago.

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noonespecial
If you buy this one(1) and load OpenWRT(2) on it, you can probably pretty much
skip the RasPi, plus you can stick a 3G stick in the side and be online
anywhere.

(1) [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=33-704-127&#...</a><p>(2)
<a href="http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-mr3020"
rel="nofollow">http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-mr3020</a>

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pierrebouchet
I'm convinced that e-ink displays will become ubiquitous in a not-so-far
future.

A e-ink screen is a great idea for a workstation aimed at text editing, be it
writing emails or programs or even using spreadsheet software.

I spend most of the day in front of a screen blasting light into my face and I
find it very aggressive. I'd be ready to pay a good price for a 20"-ish e-ink
display that i could plug into my PC.

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geon
He says the setup means terminal only. I'm not familiar with the Kindle, but
there is a browser "built in". Perhaps it is very awkward to switch between
the terminal and other apps, but it should be possible to do webdev with a
server on the Raspberry and test in the Kindle browser.

~~~
replax
i am not sure if that is possible actually, since the kindle's browser's
connection is routed through amazon's servers to optimise the webpage for the
kindle and to compress it. therefore it might not be possible to access local
pages on it. although there could certainly be a hack allowing this.

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DanBC
The refresh rate problem possibly has a neat solution from computing history.
Surely those people using punched card and paper tape have some ideas that
could be useful?

Maybe instead of updating the screen every keypress it could update every time
Enter is pressed?

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hmottestad
E-ink screens can do incremental refresh. <http://youtu.be/OKCDXwCmPUA?t=15s>

Though not with proper grey-scale rendering.

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iamtherockstar
I _loved_ the screen of the OLPC XO laptop. I know we're really pushing for
high resolution/Retina displays, but when it comes to laptop and mobile
screens, usability in portable/mobile situations is desirable.

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riobard
Someone should definitely do a Kickstarter project just to make such a screen.

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Kerrick
Such a screen exists [0], but it's only available in raw form [1] or in
overpriced, underspecced, undersized laptops [2].

[0]: <http://pixelqi.com/> [1]:
<http://www.makershed.com/Pixel_Qi_display_p/mkpq01.htm> [2]:
<http://www.cloversystems.com/SunBook.htm>

