Pixel Qi announced it is busy creating a battery powered HD tv!

[Dylrob]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Last I heard they were losing tons of money and laid off half their staff.

Well they are a non-profit group. Funding is always an issue.

The point was that this technology has seen mass production and release. It's not just vaporware.

Originally Posted by emellaich

Yes, you are right that it should be easy to design around. However, I would suggest that there is no appropriate off-the-shelf designs. You could just plop them in a netbook, but I'm not sure that really gets the sweetspot of the market. You could put them in an existing e-book hardware form factor, but again, I think these units bring other things to the table and you would probably want a different arrangement of buttons/software -- possibly to play video, for example.

The closest ready-to-go designs might be some of the tablet PC designs. Perhaps newly energized using Pixel-Qi, Windows 7, and multi-touch. However, realistically I expect to see new form factors and thus, new designs utilizing these. And these new designs will take some time. Just look at the evolution of the TechCrunch tablet as an example of the time it takes.

Being able to use an ordinary netbook in daylight should itself be a huge step forward. I don't see much wrong with the conventional clamshell design to be honest. Making it a convertible tablet PC might be nice, but then again it adds the demand for a touch screen. And most manufacturers would resort to a crappy brightness eating resistive screen since they're cheap.

[ProDigit]

Another thing to think about is that Mary Lou Jepsen (hope I spell it right) said that in the beginning there was absolutely zero change in manufacturing compared to a regular LCD screen.
With all the revisions I think she had to take back those words, as they already mentioned using different layering system on their PiQi screens, including adding a touchscreen layer by default,as well as reducing the thickness of the screens.
Perhaps it's even possible to make them of plastic instead of glass, so they'd be a little more tolerant to bending (glass breaks faster).

That on itself (the different layering they use, and the built in touchscreen) has to imply that at least 'some' change had to be done on the original design of the LCD screen.

I still expect a lot of netbooks to be manufactured with the newer Atom.
I just read on tomshardware the following:

MSI has said that Intel will officially launch the next iteration of its Atom processor at CES 2010. While Intel is keeping pretty quiet on a specific release date, MSI insists Pine Trail will take center stage in Las Vegas this coming January.

In my mind the perfect combo will still be a Win7 netbook, with this newer Atom processor, and a Pixel Qi screen.
If the manufacturers are of the same thought, they probably will have the first netbook batches ready by February or March (since there's not too much to change compared to a regular netbook).
That would be 6 months down the road, but who knows?

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by Dylrob

Well they are a non-profit group. Funding is always an issue.

The point was that this technology has seen mass production and release. It's not just vaporware.

Being able to use an ordinary netbook in daylight should itself be a huge step forward. I don't see much wrong with the conventional clamshell design to be honest. Making it a convertible tablet PC might be nice, but then again it adds the demand for a touch screen. And most manufacturers would resort to a crappy brightness eating resistive screen since they're cheap.

I live somewhat close to their Taipei office...I should go harass them sometime.

I'm also hoping for interesting things involving PixelQi, but I'm a little skeptical about what early implementations will be like. I guess that depends on who their first big customers are. As a concept, I think it'd be wicked to see a netbook with not only a pixelqi screen for general consumption of reading content, but also an independent controller/OS for ultra-low power ebook reading.

I am quite curious about the appearance of text in the reflective mode. I'm not too hopeful, since it doesn't appear to exceed ebook reader electrophoretics. However, it would interest me significantly to see how it fares next to an M218a or Jetbook, and whether OS-adjustable text AA can make delicate serif typefaces usable.

In any event, I don't think they're really aspiring to one-up electrophoretics in monochrome display quality, but rather in all-around versatility (too bad though, still hoping for a silver bullet [not to be confused with a gray one]).

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

I am quite curious about the appearance of text in the reflective mode. I'm not too hopeful, since it doesn't appear to exceed ebook reader electrophoretics. However, it would interest me significantly to see how it fares next to an M218a or Jetbook, and whether OS-adjustable text AA can make delicate serif typefaces usable.

In any event, I don't think they're really aspiring to one-up electrophoretics in monochrome display quality, but rather in all-around versatility (too bad though, still hoping for a silver bullet [not to be confused with a gray one]).

It doesn't look to me like they have any advantages in a strict eBook market (higher power, lower contrast). I think their screens are more suitable to notebooks, etc.

[ProDigit]

There are ARM powered netbooksavailable. They get about 10 hours of battery life under light use. With a screen like this,it could result in upto about 15 hours of use; a bit in the likes of the Iliad.

[Barcey]

I think they'd make an excellent display for the Apple tablet. Can I start a new rumor?

[ProDigit]

Originally Posted by Barcey

I think they'd make an excellent display for the Apple tablet. Can I start a new rumor?

Their website does not mention being connected to apple,but it is a possibility,because they do mention they have projects running thich they are not allowed to speak of.