Barnes & Noble beats Amazon to the punch with lighted e-ink Nook (hands-on) | E-book readers – CNET Reviews

My comments

Illuminating non-self-lighting displays

The new e-ink display technology is showing up a few issues here, especially with use in darker environments. The typical solution for dark-environment ebook reading was to use an accessory cover that had an integrated light of some sort. But it will follow the same path as the liquid-crystal display as I outline below.

Initially, if an application required any form of useability in a dark environment such as a watch, the manufacturer installed a filament bulb in the side of the display and this was lit up by the user pressing a button. Later on, in the mid-80s, device manufacturers used a LED array installed behind the display to backlight small displays like number displays. This typically provided a relatively-consistent illumination effect across the display area and allowed for such practices as changeable illumination colours, which was asked for with car radios.

This became the norm through the mid-90s until some watch manufacturers worked on the use of “electroluminescent” illumination technology which provided an illuminated display on their watch with very little battery consumption and an even display lighting.

Large LCD screens for video / data display applications do use cold-cathode fluorescent backlighting but have moved to white-LED backlighting as a way to be power-efficient.

Research that has been done

The current problem with the e-ink display is that it isn’t self-illuminating. This is although there is research by Pixel QI in to establishing a display technology that can combine what the LCD offers with the e-ink technology. This is to counteract the problem of LCD and OLED display applications being “washed out” in bright sunlight.

But there could be the use of a white electroluminescent panel behind an e-ink display, especially a colour fast-refreshing type to allow for a highly-flexible “use-anywhere” display that can conserve power.

Conclusion

Once we see further work on the e-ink display taking place, it could then allow for this technology to move beyond the Nook or Kindle e-reader.

News articles

Sonnenresistente Displays gehen in Massenproduktion – Der Standard (Austria – German language)

From the horse’s mouth

Pixel Qi – web site

My comments on this technology

If you have ever tried to use your laptop, mobile phone or digital camera outside on a bright sunny day, you will have found it very difficult to read the device’s screen in that bright sunlight. Some users may have fashioned up loupes or shades to force the sun away from the screen and others may have preferred to work in shady areas like under a tree or in a shadow.

Pixel Qi have designed a colour display which uses a combination of LCD and e-paper technology to avoid this washout problem. It has the advantage of the always-backlit standard colour LCD display but uses the e-paper technology to enable reflective viewing in brighter lighting environments. This has also allowed for the backlight to be used only as needed, thus saving power and allowing for a longer operating time when on battery power.

Some people may think that these advanced displays won’t work well with video or games but they have the same refresh rate as the current-generation standard LCD display thus will work properly with these applications.

At the moment, the only screen size that is being built with this technology is the 10.1” widescreen which will be pitched at e-book readers, netbooks, subnotebooks, tablet devices and high-end large-screen electronic picture frames. This is mainly because they are supplying this technology to the low-power laptops that are part of the “One Laptop Per Child” project. They are yet to make smaller and larger screens for the other display applications like standard laptops, regular electronic picture frames digital cameras or HDTVs.

What I am definitely pleased about with this technology is that there is a colour LCD display that is friendly to all lighting environments and can allow portable devices to run longer.