Earlier in the month, Pixel Qi's CEO Mary Lou Jepsen commented that their displays were going to be used in "specialized multi-touch tablet devices," and shown off at CES. It certainly sounds like she was alluding to this Notion Ink "smartpad," which SlashGear has an incredibly detailed low-down on.

For now, they're only showing off renders of the tablet, but it's enough to pique our interest. Crammed in that silver, MacBook Air-like physique is the aforementioned chip (which will give it a purported 48hr standby battery life, even better than first expected), A-GPS, a digital compass, accelerometer and proximity, and curiously ambient light and water sensors. There's even a 3.0-megapixel camera with autofocus, capable of recording video.

It'll be available in 16GB and 32GB SSD options, and will have an SD card slot too.

The transflective Pixel Qi display measures 10.1-inches, and offers 1080p resolution video playback. The rest of the device is 6.3 x 9.8 x 0.6 inches, and weight is listed at 1.7lbs. Connection wise, it has a USB, HDMI, 3.5mm jack and microphone input. With Wi-Fi b/g and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, it's triband on 850/1900/2100 UMTS/HSDPA.

Better wipe that saliva from the corner of your mouth, as we're not likely to hear much more about this Notion Ink creation until early January at CES, when hopefully the pricing will be confirmed too. [SlashGear]

We can now announce that the first units are going into specialized tablet devices with multi-touch. Increasingly these screens will be super-slim, but some customers prefer the standard thickness.

Pixel Qi will be at CES in Las Vegas in early January supporting our customers. We can't yet announce with whom we will be showing but hope to shortly.

Oh noes. Your client will be at CES? And they may not be interested in super-slim screens? Then that's not you-know-who, the company whose obsession with thinness is inversely proportional to their interest in CES. Too bad, but I still have hope. [Pixel Qi via Netbook News via Slashgear]

Pixel Qi's last announced manufacturing date—residue of which still graces their website—was "the second half of 2009." In big, bold type, they've updated the claim: "We are starting mass production of this screen in December 2009," is proudly emblazoned on Pixel Qi's worryingly retro website, while "We totally totally promise this time," a comforting, if slightly desperate adjunct, is not. But this is:

We have begun design of a sub-10 watt HDTV that can be used in hundreds of millions of households that don't have steady, if any, access to electrical power. The typical HDTV uses more than 100 Watts and often draws several hundred watts. We are working on a way to massively lower the power consumption, and significantly lower the price with a target price of $100. Thus this HDTV can run off of battery that can be charged up when the power is on, or charged with a small solar panel, crank, or so forth.

I'm sure there are about a million different applications for a low-power screen tech that displays full-motion color, static e-ink and works in the sunlight, but don't get ahead of yourselves: we haven't seen a single non-prototype device yet. Throw us a bone, guys! And by bone, I mean the name of any hardware partner who's willing to make a product with this screen tech once it starts shipping. [Pixel Qi via Blogeee via Slashgear]

[YouTube via CrunchGear]

We've known about Pixel Qi technology for awhile, and it's been steadily progressing to production. It's basically a two-mode LCD: One for typical use, and one "reflexive" mode that requires much less energy and is easier on the eyes. Well, Josh Quittner over at Time actually got to check out a Pixel Qi display, and was awfully impressed.

He brands the colors about as vibrant as a typical LCD and said video "ran perfectly smoothly" (yes, Pixel Qi is capable of both color and video). Jepsen claims battery life at around 40 hours of use, which isn't quite up to the marathon-like endurance of the Kindle but is still impressively long. Best of all, Jepsen states that the Pixel Qi is ready for production now, at a relatively cheap price: Only about $200 for a 10-inch screen. This might finally be the tech that brings e-readers up to their potential, so please, manufacturers, bring on the Pixel Qi e-readers! [Time]

If you recall, PixelQi's founder, Mary Lou Jepsen, is the brains behind the OLPC's breakthrough reflective screen, and an evangelist for the idea that the future of the computer is in displays. When we talked to her about the problems with e-readers, she predicted that LCD would overtake electrophoretic display technology—aka E-ink—by 2010.

The idea isn't crazy if Pixel Qi's displays match the hype: One screen that delivers a high-res, color LCD for normal computer stuff; an e-paper mode that's even more readable than e-ink; and a super low-power black-and-white mode. And is cheap to make and advance, since it's fabricated in standard LCD factories. It makes the possibility of a single tablet computer that really can do everything that much more possible.

And we'll get to see the first one, 3Qi, next month. Sure, it's just a stupid screen, but I'm excited. [Cnet via Engadget]

The Current State of Suck
Amazon will sell a lot of Kindle 2s. If they can keep up with demand this time, they'll sell more than the original Kindle, supposedly now in the hands of 500,000 people. But it's still not the breakthrough reader, the one that will dramatically overturn and recreate the literary market.

People call it the "iPod of books," and in some senses that's true. The first iPods didn't overturn any market. They were just marginally better than their competitors, but they were limited to Mac users only, had mechanical scroll wheels and were easily damaged.

Desire for the original iPod is like desire for the Kindles—it reveals that there is a very real mass of people who do want this kind of device. But getting from the original iPod to the hottest new models may prove to be an easier journey than going from these original Kindles (and Sony Readers) to the perfect reading device, primarily because of display technology—readers are, after all, designed for the singular purpose of displaying content that's easy on the eyes. As of now, there are two display camps—electronic paper and LCD—and both have far too many compromises at the moment to be adequate for a reading revolution.

E-Ink vs LCD
Most readers, including Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader, use a type of electronic paper called E-Ink. These displays are known scientifically as electrophoretic, and involve the arrangement of pixels on a screen like you would draw on an Etch-a-Sketch. That is, energy is used to sketch, but once the pixels are in place, they stay in place without demanding power.

E-Ink differs from the LCD screen you're likely reading this on (unless you subscribe to Giz's new Kindle feed) in that it's not backlit. Like legitimate paper, it must be held under a light source, but proponents say that's easier on the eyes. You're not staring at any rapidly flickering light bulb, just calm black pixels on a grayish background.

And because E-Ink only uses power to change pages or images, but not to display a given page, E-Ink-based electronics can run for days without recharging. The problem with that E-Ink is expensive, slow (you can't have moving cursors or any kind of video) and boring. No color, crummy contrast, crappy resolution. Though reading actual text in good light is pleasant, the limitations of E-Ink are painfully obvious to even the least-techie of users.

Standard LCDs on your computer or an ebook-friendly smartphone aren't any better. They could be too small, and if they're not too small, they require too much power to run for any prolonged length of time. (E-Ink can go for days—getting a single day out of any LCD device would be a coup.) Above all, it's just not a comfortable display to read on—sure you might stare at a monitor eight hours a day, but no one wants to read a novel on a glowing, constantly refreshing screen when they're lying in bed, trying to relax. It's doable, sure, but make no mistake, it's a harsher experience.

The Dimly Lit Future
So what's next? Plastic Logic presents the rosiest picture of the future of electronic paper displays, a perfectly-sized flexible plastic touchscreen that's basically all E-Ink display, plus Wi-Fi.

I talked to Time Magazine's Josh Quittner, who's been intently researching readers, and he loves the device. The problem, he says, is that it's both too innovative and too slow—it's made entirely of plastic, even the transistors, requiring brand new fabs to produce it. So not only will the initial version will be expensive as hell, with a 10.7" screen, but it'll be standard black on gray. Color, which E-Ink has developed in the lab, won't be coming out until 2011—possibly too late. Not even God knows what the market will be like in 2011—try to imagine what you thought cellphones would be like in 2008 from back in 2006.

Mary Lou Jepsen—who designed the XO Laptop's breakthrough reflective LCD screen and her new company, Pixel Qi, are reinventing the LCD again, and their display, if it lives up to its promises, could be the other way forward. In fact, she told me that she predicts that "in 2010, LCDs designed for reading will overtake the electrophoretic display technology in the ereader market."

She says that Pixel Qi's displays are actually more readable than e-paper, with "excellent reflectance, high resolution for text, sunlight readability"—just as easy on the eyes when the backlighting is turned off, but with the key advantages of full color and fast refresh, for pages that update as fast as video. Jepsen says it's even possible to get a week of battery life from LCD tech, of course depending on the device the screens are embedded in. Infrastructurally and perhaps historically speaking, the odds are in LCD's favor. Even new versions will be incredibly cheap and quick to manufacture because they can be made entirely in existing factories without requiring new, specialized equipment.

What's Really Gonna Happen?
Which display tech will win out is may prove to be more economic than aesthetic, but ebook readers are here to stay. The presumption that everyone will eventually read books on an electronic display of some sort in the future is so fundamental I haven't bothered to question it, mostly because nobody else does either. (Even if you love books, ebook reading makes sense.)

If you believe there's a future for a dedicated device that exists solely to display books and newspapers and whatever other forms of the printed word you want to read, then E-Ink and similar tech makes sense, as long as it eventually can cost less and refresh faster. The battery-life advantage is huge. But if you think that a reader will be just one function of, say, a multitouch tablet that's also your netbook, PDA and video display—and it's a device you charge every night—it's pretty clear that a multi-talented LCD display is the future.

As Quittner told us, someone's going to figure this out. It's just a question of who and when.

Old book image: ēst smiltis no ausīm/Flickr

How? It's all about the screen. Just just like she reinvented the LCD screen for the XO, making the project possible both costwise and practically (with the flip of a switch, the color LCD can switch to one that's monochrome and highly reflective, making it easy to use outside and even more energy efficient) she's trying to do it again with Pixel Qi's latest. Their incredible efficiency is what will allow the laptops to possibly run for 20-40 hours.

Obviously, she wouldn't spell out in detail what's so magical about their screens yet. In an email to PC World, Jepsen simply says that:

"At Pixel Qi, we have a new series of inventions that go well beyond the OLPC screen that we are developing right now... We can enable an increase of 5-10X battery life between charges compared with a standard notebook. This means that rather than needing to recharge your batteries every few hours, you could run 20-40 hours of use on a one charge."

However they work, we'll be eager to check 'em out when they debut sometime in the second half of next year. [PC World via Engadget]

Okay, we remember how far OLPC spiraled way past its $100 laptop goal. So how can XO's designer—who should know as well as anyone the difficulties involved in cranking out uber-cheap machines—except to slash 25 percent off a price OLPC couldn't touch?

Because Pixel Qi stands to make beaucoup bucks from licensing tech to commercial companies, subsidizing its low-cost laptop, a far more effective business model than hoping wishy-washy governments maintain their closed-door promises to buy your wares while getting courted by your frenemy at the same time. (More on this at Valleywag.)

While Pixel Qi might provide components to OLPC "at cost," if it really puts a laptop on the marketplace that costs almost a third of XO's current price, XO is probably donezo. [Yahoo!]