Pixel Qi plans to begin mass production of its low power, high contrast 3qi displays next month. Pixel Qi’s technology allows a screen to be used in two modes. In full color saturation mode, you’d be hard pressed to spot the difference between a Pixel Qi display and a normal LCD. But in an ePaper-like high contrast mode, the color display uses significantly less power which helps prolong battery life. And the display is also easy to read outdoors or in other brightly lit conditions.
Pixel Qi founder Mary Lou Jepsen, who was also one of the lead designers of the original OLPC XO Laptop, has been showing off glimpses of the company’s 3qi screens for months. But with mass production just around the corner, it shouldn’t be too long before we start to see the displays show up in actual netbooks.
The company isn’t just focusing on netbooks. Pixel Qi is also developing and HDTV that operates with less than 10 watts of power. That’s about 10 times less energy than most HDTVs use, and it’s designed to make high definition TV displays available and practical in places with limited access to power. At just 10 watts, the TV could be operated by battery and charged with a solar panel or crank.
While the 3qi computer screen should be coming soon, there’s no word on a launch date for the HDTV.
via SlashGear
What’s even more exciting is that Mary Lou told me that 3qi screens can be retrofitted into standard 10-inch netbooks that use 40 pin LDDS connectors in about 10 minutes.
Can you said Merry Hack-a-thon Christmas if she sells just the screens?
You might be able to stuff one in but unless the rest of the system supports the alternate modes you won’t gain a lot.
The good part is that since most netbooks are built around one of only a couple of video chipsets that just might not prove to be a serious problem.
But look at the later story posted today where Intel is still trying to crack the 10W barrier for a complete CPU+GPU+Controllers+RAM package. Put one of these guys on a smartbook and I’ll line up to buy one. Imagine little three cell batteries powering a system all day.
Link to 2 different blog posts on Pixel Qi’s Mary Lou Jepsen’s bog of NEW side by side comparison photos with other screens – here:
https://www.pixelqi.com/blog1/