The tech company Aura announced Thursday the release of its new Aura Ink, a state-of-the-art e-ink digital display that finally allows consumers to experience the exact visual fidelity of a piece of paper, provided they have an available wall outlet and a registered user account.
The device is being hailed as a major breakthrough in the stagnant digital frame market, utilizing advanced electrophoretic technology to ensure the screen looks indistinguishable from a standard 5x7 matte photo printed at a local pharmacy. According to company executives, the Aura Ink successfully eliminates the harsh backlighting of traditional liquid-crystal displays, replacing it with the warm, familiar feel of a physical photograph that will occasionally prompt its owner to agree to updated Terms of Service before displaying their grandchildren.
For years, consumers have been forced to choose between the convenience of digital screens and the aesthetic beauty of a printed photo. With the Aura Ink, you get the absolute best of both worlds: a completely static, non-glowing image of your golden retriever, combined with the thrill of having to download a 400-megabyte firmware patch just to look at him.
Tech reviewers have already praised the Aura Ink for its painstaking commitment to looking like it doesn’t contain any technology at all. Early testers noted that when the device is placed on a mantelpiece alongside traditional wooden frames, houseguests are entirely unable to tell which picture cost the host $150, requires a companion iOS application to operate, and continuously harvests ambient metadata to optimize the cloud server.
The company has also emphasized the environmental benefits of the e-ink display, noting that the extremely low power consumption means users are burning only a fraction of a kilowatt-hour to accomplish what a piece of cardboard achieves for free. The frame reportedly features a revolutionary sleep mode that turns the screen entirely blank at night, perfectly mimicking the experience of a photograph that has been stolen by a burglar.
At press time, Aura engineers were reportedly developing a premium "Canvas" edition of the frame, which will utilize advanced internal haptics to simulate the experience of a photograph slipping slightly out of its matting, forcing users to pay a monthly subscription fee to re-center it.