Pixel Qi Introduces a DIY Kit 74
jones_supa writes "Pixel Qi has just revealed their DIY kit for netbooks, planned to be out near the end of Q2 — sounds like June. This makes it possible to retrofit a screen to one fully readable in direct sunlight. In her blog, Mary Lou Jepsen says: 'It’s only slightly more difficult than changing a lightbulb: it’s basically 6 screws, pulling off a bezel, unconnecting the old screen and plugging this one in. That’s it. It’s a 5 minute operation.' She also talks about the 'laptop hospital,' a service depot started by kids in Africa."
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Yeah because grammar skills are exactly the same as electronics skills! Also, your interpreter seems to be buggy, since you mistook an undefined identifier for a language grammar error. ;) ;)
If I would judge the technical skills of the Slashdot crowd by its social skills and manners, I would assume that they all use AOL.
P.S.: I know someone will find an error in the grammar of this sentence. If you do so, go ahead, and answer me in my own native language: Luxemburgish! Good luck with that! ;)
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It's Luxembourgish (Lëtzebuergesch), you insensitive clod! (spelling, not grammar :-)
But don't let anyone nag you about your language skills - or your spelling skills. You should see some of my misplaced accents in my written French. It's like "I didn't really write that, did I?"
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See. There is already an error in it: I wanted to say: “...in the grammar of this comment”.
Slashdotted? (Score:2)
Slashdotted before a first-post. That's unfortunate.
Re:Slashdotted? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hosted on yahoo servers. That's more than unfortunate... it's sad.
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coral cache
http://pixelqi.com.nyud.net/blog1/2010/03/07/diy-pixel-qi-kits/ [nyud.net]
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Re:Slashdotted? (Score:5, Informative)
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Naw, all you have to do is tack your comment onto one of the ones that's on top, and it'll get modded +5. Of course, that requires you to say something that people agree with. The good news is that it doesn't have to be particularly insightful... :'}
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Time will always be the more importan factor. Though I would like to see a single 6 Score to the comment that recieved more mod points in the first 24 hours.
ignoramus (Score:3, Funny)
Re:ignoramus (Score:4, Informative)
It's in B&W without backlighting / in the sunlight. It's in full color with the backlight on and at moderate to low ambient light, and somewhere in between as you reduce the backlight level and increase the abient level. Which is pretty good, considering that most laptop screens are fairly unusable in direct sunlight.
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Nah - it's full color and fast (good for video). If you use it as a drop in replacement for your existing display then what you're getting is the ability to use your laptop in full sunlight where your current screen would be all washed out.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/the-pixel-qi-display/ [wired.com]
As opposed to those of us with regular notebooks? (Score:2, Interesting)
No thanks, but I'll wait for when it can be done as a replacement for TN screens of larger sizes (14", 15", (17"?)) and proves to be better at quality than *-IPS panels.
Netbooks might be a proof-of-concept, but notebooks of larger sizes and higher quality would be a better application.
Re:As opposed to those of us with regular notebook (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't a generic LCD display - that's not their market.
The big deals with the Pixel Qi display is that:
- It's totally usable in full sunlight
- It's full color and fast (OK for video)
- It has a reflective e-ink mode
- It's low power
It's really geared towards:
1) eBook readers that want color and video support
2) Laptops/netbooks intended to be used outside (which tends to mean smaller form factor)
They use the same production line as traditional LCDs though (there's lots of articles / videos on them if you Google), so they'll certainly be able to produce larger sizes if they want to.
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With you on this - mostly because I don't have a netbook.
What? You want to replace a TN-quality display with something that's better than the best on the market? And that's stand-alone display market - there are NO laptops on the market today, that has an IPS-display. There aren't even any that have MVA/PVA displays. Why the hell not settle for replacing it
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I've heard claims that 15.4" and 17" MacBook Pros have IPS displays.
Also, ThinkPad X201 Tablets have PVA displays.
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Mind that the iPad has IPS, proving that small IPS panels can be built profitably. The iPad might be a non-general-purpose device, but it puts Lenovo's arguments against it to shame.
As for the Thinkpad (X201/etc.) panels, is that just for tablet models, or is it for all of them?
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The iPad doesn't qualify as a netbook/notebook. You said it yourself. And to be honest, I really want an IPS display on a notebook, but for some reason all manufacturers have seemingly decided "fuck it, we'll do cheap over good", which is completely stupid. There IS a market for expensive laptops in the business segment.
You can't do proper image manipulation on a TN-display - the colours are all wrong. That means you can't sell that laptop to people who do photo-work, be it professionally or in their spare
Guess I need a new screen to see them (Score:1, Offtopic)
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A similar link (Score:2, Informative)
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welcome to
only slightly more difficult than changing a light (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah. To change a lightbulb you have to change five screws and a bezel. What's one more screw?
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Not much apparently. If a five year old girl can do it, maybe you can too?! ;-)
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That's correct, the OLPC is built substantially differently from every laptop you've worked with. :')
Seriously, the CPU and the screen are on the same side of the hinge. The only wires that go through the hinge are a connector for the keyboard and the connections for the battery. It's full of win, except for the choice to use OpenFirmware instead of LinuxBIOS.
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Yet, most people are scared to change their laptop screen. It's only slightly more difficult than changing a lightbuld: it's basically 6 screws, pulling off a bezel, unconnecting the old screen and plugging this one in. That's it. It's a 5 minute operation.
Most people are scared to change their laptop screen because its so easy to break the bezek, which has strange little hooks and may be glued on at points so that it cracks and breaks.
I've taken apart laptops and I think they do things just to make us break it. Frankly I'm surprised my current thinkpad has the audio jacks on a daughter board that can be replaced (although you have to take apart the whole base part of the laptop to get it off.
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Dust? (Score:1)
What about the problem of dust getting inside while changing the screen? Few people have the clean-rooms necessary to get factory-quality results. Sure, it'll take five minutes to change the screen, but it'll take three more hours of repeatedly taking the bezel off, spraying it with a can of air, and putting it back on to remove the inevitable particles getting in.
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A modern laptop screen is a sealed unit which you would replace entirely - open the bevel pull out the screen, put the new one in, close the bevel. The front of the screen is exposed to the outside anyway so it would be exactly the same as dust getting onto it in normal use.
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No, you haven't had to get "into the layers of the LCD" for many, many years. It's a sealed unit, and a commodity one at that. Remove old panel, put new panel in.
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All of the laptop screens I've disassembled have included the LCD panel, lighting tube, backlight reflector and diffusor assembly in one main assembly, so it may just be a matter of opening the case around the screen, popping a couple of cables off and swapping it.
She was joking (Score:4, Funny)
ya-who? (Score:1)
How is the image quality compared to regular LCDs? (Score:2)
I haven't seen any tests on this. I don't doubt it'll match a regular TN screen in all ways, but how do they compare to the better IPS, MVA, PVA technologies?
From what I understood about the PixelQI displays, they should be as easy to make as regular displays, so it ought to be possible to get them in high colour and viewing angle versions as well.
What kind of business model do they have? (Score:2)
Seriously, their technology must be something all display manufacturers are after. So why have they to offer something like that which will be only of interest for geeks?
As far as I know there is nothing amiss with this displays. They are great, cheap, easy to produce and offer nothing but advantages. There's no reason they shouldn't be able to sell this technology to everyone building netbooks or notebooks or desktop displays. But there's not a *single* device you can buy with this display. What's going on
Re:What kind of business model do they have? (Score:5, Interesting)
And there are a few downsides. I'm assuming that they are still more expensive than a plain LCD screen. But from what I can remember from the CES videos, there's a distinct yellowish tint to the display (in color/video mode). It was very much as if it was all printed on newsprint. Now, nothing wrong with that for what the screen does, but I cannot see manufacturers pushing out a yellow tinted display across all their lines. There would be... backlash.
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They don't *have* to sell the stuff to geeks. The reason that they are such heroes is that despite not having to sell the stuff to us, they've decided to do so anyway, even though we will no doubt be a major pain in their collective asses. Because they think that laptops shouldn't be black boxes.
Old technology (Score:2)
Why notebooks in general don't come with transflective screen options is beyond me. It's an old and proven technology used on most PDAs and many smartphones now and the color gamut is actually pretty decent; perhaps not enough for color matching but excellent for gaming, movies, and the like (not to mention basic word processing, coding, etc. tasks). They are perfectly readable in all lighting conditions including direct sunlight, with full color reproduction. It is true that contrast and color gamut do suf
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This isn't an ordinary transflective screen.
On a transflective screen, external light goes through the color filters twice, as they're in front of everything. On this, the color filters are between the backlight and the actual liquid crystal setup. Therefore, with the backlight off (or with ambient light that overwhelms the backlight,) the contrast is equivalent to a (quite excellent) monochrome display - but it IS a monochrome display at that point.
what about two screens? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you could manage to mount the new screen to the outside of the netbook with a touch screen mod and switch the connections between the internal and external screen. It might be able to create a netbook/tablet. I know i'd find that useful.
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The idea of a netbook where you can switch between an internal & external screen solution and have stylus/touch screen capabilities already exists.
http://www.asi.com.au/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=12bFjcDUlLQ%3D&tabid=182 [asi.com.au]
I have one of these, it's not bad for what it's designed for,
Humanity at its finest: (Score:5, Insightful)
This group of girls armed with screwdrivers starting taking apart the laptops and reseating the cables. Sometimes they'd change out a screen, or a speaker. They learned about the hardware of their laptops. They got to see what was inside. They got better and better at fixing things by learning as they went.
5-11 years old. Not told by anything to do so but in their own interest. Sorry, but that’s humanity at its finest. :)
If I learned one thing about our abilities, it’s to simply assume you can do it. I see so many people who say and think that they can’t do this and can’t do that.
We all are incredibly intelligent. Everyone can fix electronics. Everyone can write software. Everyone can learn quantum physics!
It’s just a matter of allowing oneself to assume that one is able to do it. And then do it.
That one rule, worked for me my whole life.
Ministers of Education had a tough time believing that these girls could fix the hardware, so they would visit - to see it with their own eyes - and start thinking differently about maintenance of hardware.
And here we see that exact mindset of “we can’t”. Just as most people here would assume a 5 year old girl couldn’t fix a computer. Let alone one from a 3rd world rural area. :)
Turns out that’s bullshit!
Man, if everyone could just see the tiny box of social conditioned pointless rules that he is caught in... “You can’t do that! Only rich good looking men get girls! Obey! Buy, buy, consume and buy! You are ugly! There is another side, that is against you! Believe! You must do this, and must not do that! ... ”
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I used to believe everyone can learn quantum physics. That is what I literally said to people.
Then I started tutoring at a community college, and got hit with a big reality bat.
For a lot of these older people, they have an incredibly difficult time remembering to do the same thing to both sides of an equation. And don't even get me started on them figuring out how to manipulate negative numbers for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. *shudder*
The best they can do is try to memorize lists of rul
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A dirty secret that most educators know is there are people that can manipulate abstract symbols and those that cannot. If you confront someone that cannot do this with a problem that requires it, no matter how hard they try to do it, they aren't going to be able to.
This does not appear to be learned skill but something the brain is either capable of or not.
This used to be pretty unimportant in the grand scheme of things. It became more important around the beginning of the 20th century, but was a pretty
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Well, they are old. That something different. Your learning rate naturally falls with the age. Give them some drugs that raise the learning rate again, and see it do wonders. ^^ You know: The good stuff. ;)
Also for many people, it’s a really long walk from where they are to being able to think freely.
I know because I know how deep in the delusions I was. I was extremely introverted and always though I were the loser. Well, since I redefined what I am, I’m literally getting random strangers in th
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I have never wanted to mark anything "troll" more than this in my life.
If you can't see how propogating the goals of an educational system which filters its customers through provacation rather than observational is the very trap leading teachers like yourself to fall into that mindset then you'll be shunning the place honesty in communication forever after. The only reason to believe it is true is in order categorise your own self, after which the only honest point you have to make is that you have refuse
Nobody ever thought to tell them they couldn't (Score:2)
Bravo!
Some Questions (Score:1)
Okay, so when will people be able to buy these things for their own netbooks, and how much will they cost?
Will the screens be compatible in all netbooks? (I know there is a resolution standard but unsure if there is a standard panel size.)
How would you switch between the 3 screen modes? You'd need a dedicated switch that your netbook doesn't have, or a special driver (hopefully there would be a Linux version) to select your mode.
I'd love to have one of these screens to replace the glossy display in my curr
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It's not 100% clear but it looks to me like the article is actually about the OLPC, given that 1) the word "Netbook" appears nowhere in the article and 2) the involvement of Mary Lou Jepsen.
Another non-story/crappy headline.
Sign me up (Score:3, Interesting)
I purchased four XO-1s when they originally came out a couple years ago. I gave away two, boxed one for posterity, and am still using one for browsing (Opera) and note-taking (Zim) when I'm at conferences. I still get heads-turns and kids inching over to take a look over my shoulder everywhere I go.
The XO-1 has an early version of the Pixel Qi screen, and it is extremely functional. I'm still amazed every time I'm reading an ebook on the subway, and walk from the deep darkness of the subway tunnel into blinding, direct sunlight, and the XO-1 display is still completely readable.
The XO-1's processor, however, is quite slow, and that becomes a pain in the neck for browsing. A decently-performing netbook doesn't cost very much these days, but the screens are a disappointment. I'm really looking forward to snagging a Pixel Qi DIY kit, buying a cheap netbook, and fixing up my ride.
Bring it, Mary Lou!
It takes more than this to make an XO (Score:2)
It takes more than this display to make a machine as power-friendly as the XO. XO's wifi is provided by an external module with its own power management, and its processor is less power-hungry than any x86 on the market today. I still know of no one producing a product today based on the Marvell meshing AP in the XO, though if I am lucky enough to be wrong, I'd certainly like to know who is doing it. The processor situation will rectify itself shortly, and anyway, the XO is slow. I don't think I'm alone in
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I don't think I'm alone in wishing for an OMAP4-based Linux netbook.
While a bit smaller then a netbook, the http://www.open-pandora.org/ [open-pandora.org] is as close as you can get it for an OMAP4 based linux netbook right now (well, in 2 months, when it gets released)