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OLPC Spinoff Pixel Qi Merges E-ink With LCD

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the fun-things-to-keep-an-eye-on dept.

MaryBethP writes with some tasty prototype photos and info about the new OLPC spin off "Pixel Qi" that is combining the best of e-ink and traditional LCD displays. "The screen can work as a traditional backlit LCD when indoors, can have that backlight disabled to be perfectly visible outdoors (shown after the break), and, as its pièce de résistance, can be toggled into an energy-efficient 'epaper' mode. How exactly the company is fitting these seemingly disparate slices of technology into a single 10.1-inch screen is something of a mystery, but we're guessing much will be answered next week ahead of a planned product launch by the end of the year. Color us intrigued."

23 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Wait. What? by Bruiser80 · · Score: 3, Informative

    On a laptop it is :-)

    "Portable" computers used to have that 4" CRT on them back when they weighted 20 lbs. But as for the modern laptop, it's been LCD all the way.

    --
    Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in the mud. After a while, you realize the engineer enjoys it.
  2. e-Ink? by owlstead · · Score: 4, Informative

    As far as I know, e-Ink is a marketing name for a specific piece of technology using colored particles and static electricity. Somehow I'm not so sure that this is the technology used here, it looks more like different ways of handling an LCD than a layer of e-Ink. I would not know how you could make a sheet of e-Ink invisible for the eye, and it seems this is required. The screen in the photo does not look like digital paper either.

    My money is on B/W LCD without (significant) back-lighting.

    1. Re:e-Ink? by Shagg · · Score: 5, Informative

      You're right. People get the terms mixed up all the time. E-Ink is the name of a company that markets a specific implementation of epaper technology (electrophoretic display). There are other technologies that also qualify as epaper (including variations on LCD, which is what Pixel Qi uses). As far as I know, Pixel Qi has nothing to do with e-Ink. Lots of people just get confused and thing e-Ink == epaper, which is not true.

      --
      Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
    2. Re:e-Ink? by Shagg · · Score: 2, Informative

      I think the distinction here is that e-ink is only one type of e-paper (although probably the most well known at this point because of the Kindle). Pixel Qi is not using e-ink, they are using a form of LCD. It's a completely different technology.

      --
      Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
    3. Re:e-Ink? by Thaelon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So what you're saying is not all in-line skates are Rollerblades(tm), not all adhesive medical strips are Band-Aids(tm), and not all vacuums are Hoovers(tm)?

      You are correct, but good luck with that.

      --

      Question everything

    4. Re:e-Ink? by psocccer · · Score: 4, Funny

      Or that search company...what's it called? Gloople? Gorgon? Giggle?

      I don't know, maybe you should google it?

      --
      Free Online Woodworking Resources Directory
    5. Re:e-Ink? by owlstead · · Score: 2, Informative

      One does not need any energy to be functional, only a refresh now and then. The other one can probably run at quite a few hertz, making scrolling and moving pictures a possibility. One is using normal color absorption and refraction. The other on uses absorption and reflection. One has clearly a glassy look to it, the other one looks like real paper. One can be used with back-lighting and may be combined with normal LCD, the other not. One may be bend, the other probably not.

      Sure, they are both gray scale (not B&W) and use no/little back lighting so both can be used for reading eBooks. But the differences between the two technologies are huge.

    6. Re:e-Ink? by Timmmm · · Score: 2, Informative

      They're more different than that. To use a car analogy, it's like saying "not all cars are 4x4s".

  3. Re:Wait. What? by linzeal · · Score: 5, Funny

    Generation X is dead and their cathode ray tubes are dead, long live the twittering tweens and their lcd screens.

    --
    An Education is the Font of All Liberty
  4. Re:Wait. What? by snl2587 · · Score: 2, Informative

    For laptops? Yeah...though I guess that should technically say "active-matrix liquid crystal display".

  5. Re:Wait. What? by nine-times · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yes, they are when compared to things like OLED or electronic ink. And whatever the hell these people are doing.

    It seems to me the holy grail of displays would be something like full-color electronic ink with fast response times, paired with some kind of lighting scheme for when ambient lighting isn't sufficient.

  6. Re:Wait. What? by TimeTrav · · Score: 3, Funny

    You can have my Zenith console when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

    And get off my lawn!

    --
    [sig]you really dont want the answers, trust me[/sig]
  7. Two LCD matrices layered on top of each other? by Bruiser80 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The B/W e-paper and the high-contrast Color LCD - sounds like the color is used in both the backlit and non-lit versions, while the e-paper is used to get the high efficiency mode.

    I wonder what the refresh rates on each of these displays is?
    I'm guessing the refresh rate on the e-paper is way low if it uses so little power. Black to White in 250ms maybe?

    --
    Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in the mud. After a while, you realize the engineer enjoys it.
    1. Re:Two LCD matrices layered on top of each other? by Yvan256 · · Score: 2, Informative

      E-paper only requires power to change the display, not to keep the image shown.

  8. Re:Wait. What? by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 4, Funny

    Who said anything about cathode ray tubes? Get off my lawn and let me go back to my Teletype!

    --
    My blog
  9. Re:Summary is a complete ripoff! by clone53421 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Are we just copying and pasting now? WTF?

    Don't be ridiculous. If we'd just been copying and pasting, it would have looked like this (emphasis added):

    "The screen can work as a traditional backlit LCD when indoors, can have that backlight disabled to be perfectly visible outdoors (shown after the break), and, as its piÃce de résistance, can be toggled into an energy-efficient "epaper" mode. How exactly the company is fitting these seemingly disparate slices of technology into a single 10.1-inch screen is something of a mystery, but we're guessing much will be answered next week ahead of a planned product launch by the end of the year. Color us intrigued."

    --
    Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
  10. XO? by AvitarX · · Score: 2, Informative

    This looks to me exactly like the XO, but with a better color display.

    I was intrigued 2 years ago when i got my XO.

    Now it is simply what I hoped would happen, same tech, but with focus on image quality and resolution over inexpensiveness.

    On the XO, the wavy lines can become quite the hassle.

    --
    Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
  11. Re:Wait. What? by BetterSense · · Score: 2

    I still like nixie tube displays.

  12. Re:Wait. What? by Intron · · Score: 2, Funny

    Haven't you ever seen Fringe?

    I think giant letters floating in the air would make navigating Boston streets much easier.

    --
    Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
  13. Re:Wait. What? by Amouth · · Score: 2, Funny

    i still have one of the crt ones.. nice single color too

    --
    '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
  14. Most power is not used in LCDs.... by stardude82 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Looking at power consumption of LCD's by laptops as percentage of total power consumption it isn't much for most modern laptops (5-0.5 watts versus 50-20 whats for a system under moderate load) and its going down on average with LED backlights becoming more common. It Using this sort of black and white only mode only really makes sense for ultra low power system.

    That being said, it would be killer on a laptop with an embedded SplashTop.

  15. Pixel Qi - no E-Ink by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    While the Pixel Qi displays are (we believe) remarkable and can and will really serve as exceptional e-paper displays, there is no relationship to E-Ink. Not the company and not the electrophoretic technology that E-Ink uses.

    John Ryan
    Pixel Qi Corp.
    Taiwan

    (Filed as anonymous coward, because I *do* have a separate /. personal account.)

  16. nothing mysterious about it by jipn4 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's not "e-ink", which is an electrophoretic display, it's an LCD that can be run in two different modes: reflective and with backlight. When it's used with a backlight, the LCD elements are colored, and when used without, they are not colored. It's kind of a hack, but it's a useful hack. In terms of resolution, it doesn't actually help much, since you can do color antialiasing on a color LCD anyway. It's good for battery life, though.

    The OLPC screens already work that way. I'm not sure what they are announcing. Maybe they just needed a press release.

    The question I have is: when is there going to be an EEE PC with one of these screens? That would be really useful.