The One Laptop per Child Foundation (OLPC) and Pixel Qi have signed a permanent and royalty-free cross-licensing agreement. As a result of the agreement, OLPC receives full license to all Pixel Qi â3qiâ screen technology, including 70+ patents in process and all current and future IP developed by Pixel Qi for multi-mode screens. The agreement also calls for Pixel Qi to receive full license to the dual-mode (indoor and outdoor) display technology used in the XO.
Liquavista is based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands and was founded in 2006 (a spin-out from Philips Research Labs). They have developed a new type of display technology that can operate in transmissive, reflective or transflective modes, has a great optical performance and is very efficient. Liquavista's display are based on the principle of Electrowetting (when a voltage is used to modify the wetting properties of a solid material). With Electrowetting displays, a simple optical switch is obtained by contracting a colored oil film electrically.
Johan Feenstra, Liquavista's CTO, was kind enough to answer a few questions we had. Johan joined Philips Research Labs back in 1999, where he co-invented Electrowetting displays and co-founded Liquavista.
Q: Johan, can you explain Liquavista's three product families?
LiquavistaBright: monochrome display with improved optical performance compared to existing readers, while providing a seemless UI (iPhone-like) or even videos.
LiquavistaColor: full-color reflective version with video rate, so also seemless UI
LiquavistaVivid: Hybrid version with a highly reflective, low power monochrome mode and a full-color mode with saturated colors. The color is made with so-called Field Sequential Color Mode, so no color filter, but a fast switching Red/Green/Blue backlight.
Update: we've got a video of the new prototype displays, see below
PVI is now showing 6" and 9.7" color E Ink displays for e-readers at a trade show in Shenzhen, China. The displays are demoing animated color clips, although the refresh rate is not fast enough for video. PVI has shown those screens to Amazon and Barnes & Noble, although they won't say whether there are any plans to use them in future e-readers.
PVI predicts mass-production to start 4Q 2010. The new PVI screens add an extra layer of color-filtering glass on top of a standard E Ink panel. The color screens consume more energy than monochrome ones. PVI also displayed new flexible displays, made from plastic which could make readers lighter and harder to break.
FPD China starts tomorrow, and ;AUO plans to show several SiPix e-paper displays. These will include 2" e-tags, 4.3" e-reader, 6" and 9" touch panels for e-readers, 6" foldable e-reader module and a 20" display for electronic bulletin boards.
E-Ink-Info was upgraded today (if anyone is interested, we upgraded to Drupal 6.x from 5.8). Most of the changes are infrastructure related so you won't notice much, but hopefully the site should be faster now, more stable and more secure.
If you do find any bugs, glitches or you have any comments, please let us know!
Delta Electronics will use Allied Material Technology (AMTC)'s 3.5" color-filter production line to produce e-paper panels. Delta decided not to build their own production line to save costs. They might lease the production line, or buy it.
Delta is using Bridgestone's technology to make the e-paper panels, and will also launch thier own e-reader in 3Q 2010. In the future they also plan to launch color e-paper displays.
Pixel Qi will offer DIY kits towards the end of Q2. Yeah, you'll be able to turn your laptop/netbook display into a Pixel Qi display yourself! They say it's rather easy: "Itâs only slightly more difficult than changing a lightbuld: itâs basically 6 screws, pulling off a bezel, unconnecting the old screen and plugging this one in. Thatâs it. Itâs a 5 minute operation".
I'm guessing that these will be 10" displays, so it'll only fit in small laptops... but maybe these are better as e-readers anyway.
Sri Peruvemba from E Ink has talked to PC Magazine, and he gives some very interesting information. He expects color E Ink to arrive soon, and devices based on this technology would ship in the beginning of 2011. This color will be more like the color you would see in a newspaper, and not like an LCD display. We can expect more on this from E Ink at the SID show in May.
Sri also reveals that they are working on much-faster E Ink displays, but it can take around 2-3 years for such technology to show up in shipping products...
E Ink's CEO, Russell Wilcox has resigned from the company. PVI's CEO will take over as E Ink manager. Resull co-founded E Ink back in 1997 - and stayed with the company for over 13 years.
Rusell reveals that E Ink is expanding - and plans to hire 100 manufacturing workers in the South Hadley, and 50 scientists and engineers in Cambridge, US.
