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June 3, 2009 1:47 PM PDT

Sexy hybrid LCD/e-paper display seen in the wild

by David Carnoy
  • 4 comments

There's been some buzz this week around Pixel Qi's 3qi display technology, which integrates e-paper attributes with LCD to create a versatile and potentially very energy-efficient screen. The idea is that with a flip of a button you can go from a traditional high-resolution color LCD experience to a low-power black and white mode to an even more energy-efficient e-paper mode that allows you to easily view text in bright sunlight.

This week the technology was demonstrated at Computex in Taiwan, and it seems very impressive. If these types of displays can be produced cost-efficiently, they may revolutionize the notebook and e-reader market. We're probably at least a year away from seeing devices with Pixel Qi's 3qi displays, but at least the company has some promising prototypes to show off and John Ryan, Pixel Qi's COO and vice president of sales of marketing, claims the technology is more mature than you'd think.

Check out the video and feel free to comment on how revolutionary you think this is--or isn't.

Additional reading: PixelQi puts three displays in one

(Source: Techvideoblog.com via Engadget)

April 23, 2009 3:45 AM PDT

PixelQi puts three displays in one

by Erica Ogg
  • 1 comment

SAN JOSE, Calif--You have to be able to see a screen before you can use multitouch gestures on it.

Mary Lou Jepsen PixelQi

Mary Lou Jepsen holds an OLPC at a green gadgets conference last year.

(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)

Here at the Interactive Displays 2009 conference, while the rest of the budding touch-screen industry talks about the best way to incorporate multitouch into expensive handheld gadgets, Mary Lou Jepsen is working on how to make computer displays readable in the sunlight--on the cheap.

Jepsen--co-founder of One Laptop Per Child--is now heading up display start-up PixelQi, which makes low-cost, highly efficient displays for low-cost laptops like the XO from OLPC.

"The future of portables is all about the screen," she said. Jepsen believes the ideal display for a device is one that communicates directly with the motherboard, which PixelQi is working on. "Think of screen like a chip on the motherboard: it can massively lower power consumption and (increase) battery life and create a much better visual experience."

Her main concern is computers that get shipped to children in the developing world, where laptops that don't take a lot of power, and are readable in sunlight are "must haves." Eventually they should incorporate the best touch and multitouch technology.

"The screens shouldn't be TVs," she said.

Her company's first product, 3Qi, arrives in the next month. It's, as she puts it, three different kinds of displays as one: a low-power black and white mode, an e-paper mode, and a high-resolution color LCD TV mode.

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