Idea: e-ink Poster

I’ve noticed that many companies are paying an enormous expense to have animated advertisements. They pay for huge billboard-sized signs bright enough to be seen during daylight. Previously, the hardware for this kind of thing was only affordable by sports arenas, which made money back on the investment with advertising to the captive game audience. But, it’s not just billboards, as restaurants now also put their menu up on large flat-screen televisions, despite the fact that the menu really doesn’t change very often. I guess they see the recurring cost of electricity for both the monitor and computer that drives them as less than reprinting of the menus.

Wouldn’t it be better to have a large e-ink display? They don’t require much power, don’t need to be lit, and most ads still don’t animate very much. Just put some image file on a usbstick, plug it into the e-ink poster, and run for a month or so on batteries (or solar power). Seems like this is far less costly, I’d expect the market to explode once someone manufactures such a poster.