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The Rise and Fall of Pixel QI

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Re: The Rise and Fall of Pixel QI

#11

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

raphinou wrote: post #4
peatmoss wrote: post #2

Damnit. This was one technology that just kills me never acheived any market success. I had bought an OLPC through the buy/give program and sent the OLPC to my neice (after I poked around at the device—I was VERY curious about the device). The part that was truly flooring to me was the screen. It was much faster than e-ink and, for the time, quite high resolution in its grayscale mode. As I read through this article,…

I also hoped it would bring screens readable in solar light to the market. I still miss it regularly and am always surprised not more people want this!

It looks like it is already solved with just very high brightness on regular screens. Using a flagman phone, I can't remember a single time using it in the past when the sunlight was a problem.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Pixel QI

#13

Post by nitrogen »

Nursie wrote: post #5
robotbikes wrote: post #3

So this is the first I heard of DPL as a GPL equivalent for hardware but it doesn't appear any commercial manufacturers want to get behind it. How feasible is the usage of this technology from a non-commercial/ hobbyist perspective ? It would seem that manufacturing the displays would obviously require an advanced factory so it is probably not realistically something that people without capital and advanced knowledge…

This reminds me of the questions "back in the day" (2005 and earlier?) before LCD screens becames affordable. Lots of people wanted to know how to repurpose laptop screens as generic monitors when the laptop died. Unfortunately I think the answer was always "it's complicated, non-standard and not worth it" Things may have changed since then, I just wanted to share...

These days you can buy the adapters on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=hdmi+lcd+controller+boa...

Re: The Rise and Fall of Pixel QI

#14

Post by lsc »

com2kid wrote: post #6

The problem is that Amazon has a virtual monopoly on the e-reader market. If Kindle doesn't adopt a given technology, it won't be commercially viable in the US. With no competitive market place for e-reader products, consumers buy whatever good enough technology Amazon sells. There might very well be a high end screen tech that people would pay for, much as how Apple discovered people are willing to pay for higher re…

>If Kindle doesn't adopt a given technology, it won't be commercially viable in the US.

For the people who don't buy their e-books from amazon, I think the market is quite competitive. I mean, if you are reading PDFs, unless you like really small type or spending a lot of effort converting, you are going to buy one of the myriad A4 sized e-readers from various vendors. Most of the gutenberg readers I know use an off-brand e-reader if they buy new.

>With no competitive market place for e-reader products, consumers buy whatever good enough technology Amazon sells.

I own a handful of high-end e-readers, many of which run android. How come none of those android devices, for instance, my A4 sized Sony e-reader, run the amazon app available in the play store?

I suspect that it's mostly that the Sony, in spite of being a much better reader for PDFs than my oasis, is simply not a better device for reading books that are formatted for the kindle.

(I'm not saying that there isn't a problem... I'm just saying that the monopoly is almost entirely in the convenience of the kindle book store. Agreements with publishers. And I am claiming that there is much competition for the (much smaller) market for e-readers for content outside the amazon kindle e-book ecosystem)

Re: The Rise and Fall of Pixel QI

#15

Post by lsc »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #9
com2kid wrote: post #6

The problem is that Amazon has a virtual monopoly on the e-reader market. If Kindle doesn't adopt a given technology, it won't be commercially viable in the US. With no competitive market place for e-reader products, consumers buy whatever good enough technology Amazon sells. There might very well be a high end screen tech that people would pay for, much as how Apple discovered people are willing to pay for higher re…

This might be an anecdote, but I am an avid consumer of e-reader-like products, and me not having bought (even though having had researched thoroughly) any pixel QI products has nothing to do with Kindle. I have bought 8 e-readers during the years and none of them were Kindle. In this year it is so easy to do research about any available products, and order any available products, that it is hard to compete only by b…

do you know of an e-ink device that runs a fairly standard and up-to-date (google play store compatible) version of android? such a thing would be pretty useful for me.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Pixel QI

#16

Post by Nursie »

nitrogen wrote: post #13
Nursie wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of the questions "back in the day" (2005 and earlier?) before LCD screens becames affordable. Lots of people wanted to know how to repurpose laptop screens as generic monitors when the laptop died. Unfortunately I think the answer was always "it's complicated, non-standard and not worth it" Things may have changed since then, I just wanted to share...

These days you can buy the adapters on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=hdmi+lcd+controller+boa...

Oh wow, well that's a bit of a change :)

Re: The Rise and Fall of Pixel QI

#17

Post by rbanffy »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #11
raphinou wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also hoped it would bring screens readable in solar light to the market. I still miss it regularly and am always surprised not more people want this!

It looks like it is already solved with just very high brightness on regular screens. Using a flagman phone, I can't remember a single time using it in the past when the sunlight was a problem.

For How long can you use you phone in direct sunlight? Mine is readable when it sets itself to full brightness, but that will eat away the battery really fast. A transreflective screen will use less battery in direct sunlight.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Pixel QI

#18

Post by askvictor »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #11
raphinou wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also hoped it would bring screens readable in solar light to the market. I still miss it regularly and am always surprised not more people want this!

It looks like it is already solved with just very high brightness on regular screens. Using a flagman phone, I can't remember a single time using it in the past when the sunlight was a problem.

Even in the highest brightness on a recent AMOLED phone, if the sun is shining on it directly (i.e. sun is over your shoulder), you can't see the contents of the screen, in large part due to the reflection on the very shiny screen (which needs to be shiny for maximum brightness). In these circumstances you need to position your phone into your shadow (maybe you do this instinctively and don't notice)

And that says nothing of the battery consumption (pixel qi tech switches off the backlight in 'outdoor' mode so power draw is even less)

Re: The Rise and Fall of Pixel QI

#19

Post by eltoozero »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #10
freekh wrote: post #7

My biggest dream is a big epaper or pixel qi screen to do development on. The bazillion nits is killing my eyes...

It sort of exists, if you can manage with some small screen (there is no 22 inch screens like that). Here is a 13.3 inch e-reader which you can also setup as a secondary screen (HDMI input), and connect to any computer as an extra screen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J3oemOfPlk or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCnPMKvXWas So you are getting both a fully-fledged e-reader and an extra screen.

An Android based e-reader no less, the form factor is wild and the price point is super high but damn, this is cool.

Re: The Rise and Fall of Pixel QI

#20

Post by nicoburns »

peatmoss wrote: post #2

Damnit. This was one technology that just kills me never acheived any market success. I had bought an OLPC through the buy/give program and sent the OLPC to my neice (after I poked around at the device—I was VERY curious about the device). The part that was truly flooring to me was the screen. It was much faster than e-ink and, for the time, quite high resolution in its grayscale mode. As I read through this article,…

I was personally hoping for something to come fmor Qualcomm's Mirasol tech.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/15/12/15/apple-has-taken-o...

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