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2024 • HARDWARE AI

GG E-INK

Screen time redefined. A calm, multimodal AI companion for active childish curiosity.

IoT E-Ink Cloud Run Multimodal AI
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PART I: THE PROBLEM 02 / 09

The Dopamine Pathway

Short-form video is rewiring children's brains. Research correlates high-frequency screen refreshing with damaged dopaminergic pathways, leading to reading disabilities and attention deficits.

The 35yo Parent's Dilemma

"I need 30 minutes of professional time, but I don't want to hand my child an 'iPad Lobotomy'."

Safety Rails

The open internet is dangerous. Parents will pay premium for a "Walled Garden" of healthy content.

PART II: THE SOLUTION 03 / 09

"Grandpa Guru"

Elevator Pitch:
A Kindle Webapp that uses picto-interactive fiction to build vocabulary. A "Soft Screen" alternative to flashy tablets.

Pedagogical AI
  • Adaptive Vocab: Senses child's level.
  • Grandpa Persona: Wise, patient teacher.
  • Encyclopedia: "Why is the sky blue?" answered safely.
Why Kindle?
  • Low Refresh Rate = Low Dopamine Spike.
  • Focused Environment (No notifications).
  • Healthy Development.
PART III: TECHNOLOGY 04 / 09

Serverless Brain

Keeping the hardware "dumb" allows for robust safety guardrails in the cloud.

  • Client: Lightweight WebApp optimized for E-ink refresh rates.
  • Cloud: Cloud Run processes logic + Vision.
  • Safety: Strong LLM system prompts prevent inappropriate content.
// Cloud Run Handler
export async function analyze(req) {
  const { image, audio } = req.body;
  
  // 1. Transcribe Audio (Whisper)
  const question = await stt(audio);
  
  // 2. Vision/Logic Analysis (GPT-4o)
  const answer = await vision.generate({
    image,
    prompt: `Persona: Grandpa Guru. Explain to a 5yo: ${question}`
  });
  
  return { text: answer };
}
PART IV: HARDWARE 05 / 09

Why E-Ink?

Feature, Not Bug
"E-ink is slow. It forces a pause. It feels like paper. This physical delay reduces the dopamine spike found in high-refresh LCD screens, fostering patience."

Battery Life: Because the screen consumes zero power when static, and the compute is offloaded to the cloud, the device can run for weeks on a single charge.

PART V: RESULTS 06 / 09

Engagement

Battery

3 Weeks

Standby time on 1500mAh.

Latency

~4s

End-to-End response time.

Cost

<$50

BOM (Bill of Materials).

PART VI: VISUALS 07 / 09

Prototype Vision

Kindle Prototype running Grandpa Guru

Grandpa Guru Concept running on Kindle

APPENDIX 08 / 09

Technical Stack

Display

Waveshare

2.13inch E-Ink HAT.

Controller

ESP32 / Pi Zero

WiFi & Camera handling.

Backend

GCP Cloud Run

Stateless container for AI logic.

STATUS: PROTOTYPE

"Technology should amplify our connection to the physical world, not replace it."

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© 2024 Ashar Rai Mujeeb

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Full writeup below

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GG (Good Game)

STATUS: PROTOTYPE • PLATFORM: IoT / CLOUD RUN • YEAR: 2024
Hardware E-Ink Multimodal AI Education
📟
PART I: THE IDEA

Screen Time, Redefined

We face a crisis of attention. Children are glued to dopamine-loop screens that overstimulate. "GG" (named after the gaming term "Good Game", but also hinting at "Good Gadget") was my attempt to build a device that fosters active rather than passive engagement.

The device is a simple, rugged E-ink tablet with a camera and a microphone. No browser. No social media. Just a window to curiosity.

PART II: USER EXPERIENCE

Multimodal Interaction

The core interaction loop is physical:

  1. See: The child points the camera at a leaf.
  2. Ask: They press a button and ask, "What kind of leaf is this and why is it red?"
  3. Learn: The device sends the image and audio to the cloud. A multimodal model (GPT-4o) identifies the leaf (e.g., a Maple leaf in autumn), explains the color change using anthocyanins (simplified for a child), and displays the answer on the paper-like screen.
PART III: ARCHITECTURE

Cloud-Native Hardware

The hardware is "thin." It barely does any processing. It captures media and wakes up the radio.

The "brain" lives in Google Cloud Run. This serverless approach allowed the device to have incredible battery life (weeks on E-ink) because it only fully wakes up for seconds to transmit data. The backend orchestrates the STT (Speech-to-Text), the Vision analysis, and the TTS generation (optional).

"Technology should amplify our connection to the physical world, not replace it."

Why E-Ink?

E-ink is slow. That's a feature, not a bug. It forces a slower pace of interaction. It reduces eye strain. And crucially, it doesn't emit the blue light that disrupts circadian rhythms.