New screens promise 40-hour notebooks
If you’re the type of person who is constantly forgetting to put their gadgets on charge, you’ll be itching to get your hands on a laptop based around Pixel Qi’s new technology.
According to Yahoo, Mary Lou Jepsen ? previously the head of Intel’s display division, and then later chief technology officer at Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child ? is hoping that her newly-formed company will revolutionise the laptop industry.
Rather than concentrate on improving the technology behind the battery ? hairy work involving worrying chemicals and always gaining the tiniest percentage improvement with each generation ? Pixel Qi is looking to use display technology developed as part of the One Laptop Per Child program to dramatically reduce the amount of energy a laptop needs in order to run ? and the company is talking about devices capable of running between 20 and 40 hours without a recharge.
Jepsen believes that the inventions her company is working on “go well beyond the [One Laptop Per Child] screen that we are developing right now,” and claims that the low power draw of the new screens is such that “we can enable an increase of 5-10x battery life between charges compared with a standard notebook.“
The displays ? which will include ultra-low power LCD ranges for notebooks and netbooks alongside colour electronic paper screens for e-book readers ? are likely to start shipping later next year.
Hoping that the technology will have proven itself the next time you’re looking to upgrade your laptop, or is anything more than a ten-hour runtime a waste? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
