GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

Research labs all over the world are working to improve the next generation of displays for computers, televisions, e-readers and commercial interfaces. Improvements to fundamental screen technologies by separate teams at Vanderbilt and Cincinatti point towards the low-power, quick-response screens of the future.

For the Cincinatti team, the key challenge for power consumption in screens is generating light. They sidestepped the problem of traditional designs by using a highly reflective surface in the screen’s subtrata that reflects ambient light rather than generating its own.

“What we’ve developed breaks down a significant barrier to bright electronic displays that don’t require a heavy battery to power them,” lead researcher Jason Heikenfeld said. He believes their new display can generate brighter, high-color-saturated devices equal to that of a conventional LCD screen with an energy cost comparable to the E Ink displays on devices like Amazon’s Kindle.

“Conventional wisdom says you can’t have it all with electronic devices: speed, brightness and low-cost manufacturing,” Heikenfeld said. “That’s going to change with the introduction of this new discovery into the market.”

Qualcomm’s new Mirasol screen technology also offers full-color and video at low power, but Heikenfeld claims his team’s new display technology is at least three times brighter than Qualcomm’s.

The Vanderbilt team’s claims are relatively more modest, but perhaps more easily incorporated into existing screen technology. The chemical lab led by Piotr Kaszynski thinks one path to a low-energy, quick-response display future is to change the chemical composition of our LCD screens.

Zwitterionic liquid crystals; credit Kaszynski lab

“We have created liquid crystals with an unprecedented electric dipole, more than twice that of existing liquid crystals,” says Kaszynski. This means the dipoles will require a lower threshold voltage (using less power) and switch between light and dark states much faster, allowing for a quicker refresh rate.

The new liquid crystals have a “zwitterionic” structure; their inorganic portions are negatively charged and organic portions are positively charged, but they carry a net electrical charge of zero. Zwitterions have long been thought to key to producing more efficient liquid crystals, but the chemical procedure to produce them in the proper structure was only discovered in 2002.

Top image by Jason Heikenfeld and Angela Klocke, University of Cincinnati

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

If you are willing to take a screwdriver to your computer, Pixel Qi’s low-power displays that can switch between color LCD and black-and-white screens could be in your netbook.

The 10.1-inch displays available through makershed.com look like standard LCD screens inside the room. But take them outside and they turn into low-power e-paper like display.

Pixel Qi first showed the screens in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The display called 3Qi operates in three modes: a full-color LCD transmissive mode; a low-power, sunlight-readable, reflective e-paper mode; and a transflective mode that makes the LCD display visible in sunlight.

Pixel Qi has started selling the displays directly to consumers though the company is also working with with PC manufacturers.

For now, Pixel Qi says it can guarantee the compatibility of the displays, which cost $275 each, with only two models of netbooks–the Samsung N130 and Lenovo S10. But the screen works in most other models, says the company.

Swapping out existing netbooks screens for those from Pixel Qi is a simple DIY tweak, says Pixel Qi founder Mary Lou Jepsen.

“Changing the screen of your netbook is easy, the process takes about 5-10 minutes using a small screwdriver. Its simple,” she wrote on her blog.

Users have to remove the front plastic bezel of the existing display in their netbook, unlatch the screen, plug Pixel Qi’s display in its place and snap on the screws.

But if you like to see what the process really is like, check out this video from Make magazine. The 10-minute long video shows how to remove the display off an Acer Aspire One netbook.

Seems like this will be a breeze to do at home and the results should be worth it. Pixel Qi screens consume 80 percent less power in the reflective e-paper-like mode, says Jepsen.

Photo: Pixel Qi screen/Priya Ganapati

[via Ubergizmo via Liliputing]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Got a netbook? Specifically, got a Samsung N130 or a Lenovo S10-2? Even more specifically, do you use it in and outdoors, but find it hard to read in the sun? We have good news! The Maker Shed will sell you one of Pixel Qi’s dual-mode displays as a straight swap-in for your existing LCD-panel.

The 10.1-inch screen runs in one of two modes. When indoors, or watching video, you use the regular LCD display, which will look pretty much the same as the one you already have. When you’re in to mood for some reading, or you are outside in bright sunlight, or you’re just running low on battery power, you can switch to the e-ink mode.

This disables the backlight and shows you hi-res, grayscale pixels, much like you’d see on the screen of the Amazon Kindle. Because it only uses power when updating the screen, it sips power.

There is also a hybrid mode, which lets the sun reflect off the back of the display assembly and back out through the color LCD. This both saves battery power and lets you view a normal color display outdoors.

The panel will cost you $275, which puts it out of the “merely curious” bracket but is still cheap enough for people who do a lot of outdoor computing. The Maker Shed store page also says that the panel will likely work in any netbook: the Lenovo and the Samsung are just the only ones so far tested and guaranteed.

And according to the Pixel Qi blog, which first described the plan to sell these panels separately from the company’s own notebooks, the swap-operation (swaperation?) is easy:

Its only slightly more difficult than changing a lightbulb: its basically 6 screws, pulling off a bezel, unconnecting [sic] the old screen and plugging this one in. Thats it. Its a 5 minute operation.

Available now.

Pixel Qi display [Maker Shed]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews