pixel-qi-outdoors

Pixel Qi’s Mary Lou Jepsen has posted the first photos of the company’s new displays which use far less energy than typical LCD screens. The screens offer two different modes, a backlit mode with full color saturation, and an ePaper mode that uses less energy and doesn’t require a backlight. The ePaper mode also makes the display significantly easier to read outdoors in bright sunlight than most computer displays.

The picture above shows a screen that’s been hacked to fit onto an Acer Aspire One laptop in ePaper mode outdoors. After the break, you can check out an image showing two screens. One is in full color mode, while the other shows the ePaper mode in a different light.

Pixel Qi will be demonstrating these screens at several upcoming trade shows. In the not too distant future we may see them appear in low cost ultraportable computers like the OLPC XO Laptop. It remains to be seen whether they’ll find their way into consumer oriented netbooks like the Acer Aspire One and Asus Eee PC, but it’s clearly possible for the screen to work with those computers.

pixel-qi-colors

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11 replies on “First look at Pixel Qi’s outdoor readable screens”

  1. And it looks like it’s matte too!
    WANT!WANT!WANT!WANT!WANT!WANT!WANT!WANT!WANT!WANT!

  2. Meet Mobility team is going to CompuTex Show – they should contact the Pixel Qi folks and see if they can get one of those private viewings (and video it so that it becomes a public viewing)… and would be good if Jkkmobile got a test version, to put into various netbooks to MOD them and see how the battery use changes (before and after numbers).

    I really like the concept that thesescreens could be someday put into an Xcore86 based system with AA battery, touchscreen, HP 2140 size with backlit keys on keyboard on/off option, – as that Xcore86 stuff from NorhTec (see Gecko Edubook) claims to run on only 1.2 watts of power. So? One wonders what could be done with this tech these days to get the battery to run longer and longer. I wonder if the Gecko Edubook rated at 4 hours if matched with Pixel Qi (claiming up to 5 fold increase in battery use), we could see as much as 20 hours of use per battery charge (and use cheap, easy to find, AA batteries that some by Everyready can charge in 15-20 minutes these days)?

  3. “In the not too distant future we may see them appear in low cost ultraportable computers like the OLPC XO Laptop…”

    If I remember well, the OLPC XO already has a display similar (if not the same). Is Pixel Qi founded by the creator of the OLPC display?

  4. This + “SoC Atom” + Thinkpad X61 style casing/keyboard (with possibility of using extended Thinkpad batteries just as well) = I’m getting such netbook the first day I can.

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