Pixel Qi and Mary Lou Jepsen in Popular Science article

[jankovicgood]

http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/articl...-paper-forever

Interesting article about the technology of Pixel Qi and the life of Mary Lou Jepsen.

For instance, it’s as much a myth that LCDs cause eyestrain because their backlights shine into your eyes like a flashlight as it is that reflective screens like E Ink’s are easier on the eyes just because they reflect light. “Light is light,” says VCD Sciences display consultant Lou Silverstein, a fellow of the Society for Information Display. “Your eyeball can’t tell whether it’s reflected or transmitted.” LCDs and E Ink look different because of the way E Ink reflects light. Its pigments sit at the surface and scatter light in many directions, just as paper does. LCDs and even other reflective screens direct light only at certain angles, so the look isn’t quite as uniform as paper. Jepsen says her team has employed a number of tricks to improve the angle of reflection on the 3Qi, but because it’s still an LCD, it will never look quite as much like print as E Ink.

[kjk]

The eyestrain was never just from light shining in our eyes-it was from the flickering of the fluorescent tubes used in early backlights that bothers many people. I'm sure OLED and LED-backlit LCDs have less of an issue-but as the article notes, a lot of how people perceive it is subjective.

(Great article btw!)

[Polyglot27]

Thanks for putting the link for this article on MR. I have nothing but admiration for Mary Lou Jepson. What a life! I really hope that her screen gets beyond the testing stage and starts appearing on the next generation of Netbooks.

[Sweetpea]

I still wonder what's the real difference between the PixelQi screens and transflective screens that already have existed several years.

That’s because in Jepsen’s screen, ambient light can substitute for backlight, bouncing off the mirror-like material that Jepsen has added to each pixel to reflect shades of black and white.

If I turn off the backlight of my PDA completely, the light (indirect light that is) bounces off a mirror-like material that is behind the screen. And when I turn on the light, it goes through this layer as it is semi-transparent. Both times I have a perfect reading surface, with full colour.

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I still wonder what's the real difference between the PixelQi screens and transflective screens that already have existed several years.

An evolutionary improvement is all. A transflective display in a traditional sense is not hard to obtain from adding a reflective layer to a standard transmissive display. Pixel Qi is more an optimization that involves manipulation and rearrangement of the LCD's layers as well.

I have not yet seen a Pixel Qi screen in person and cannot comment on its capability relative to other screens. Supposedly it's optically superior.

Of course, some people may not notice any difference. After all, some people think that EPDs look like paper.

[Sweetpea]

That's what I thought...

Same principle, only better. So, if there was a device with 8" or larger, with this screen, I'd buy it. Lock, stock and barrel, including the bait, hook, line and sinker! (unless it's an apple device..)