How to Add Color to a Kindle: Pixel Qi's Cheap Screens

Peter Kafka — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:00:30 +0000

Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle gets many plaudits, but it also gets one consistent criticism: Why can’t it come with a color screen?

It can, say the folks at Pixel Qi, a start-up based in Silicon Valley and Taiwan: It could use the cheap, lightweight color screens that we’re going to make.

Pixel Qi is the brainchild of Mary Lou Jepsen, who was best known as the CTO at the One Laptop Per Child project that makes supercheap laptops for kids in dirt-poor nations. Her new company has a similar thrust with a different goal: Produce cheap color screens that can be used in supercheap “netbooks” or in Kindle-like devices.

Jepsen says she can pull this off and create screens that cost less than the E-Ink ones used in Kindles and other devices like Sony’s (SNE) Reader because she’s using LCD technology, which has an existing industrial infrastructure to support it.

Meanwhile, she says, E-Ink screens will struggle to incorporate color because the only way to do that is to put a color layer above the existing monochrome screen, which will end up making the screen harder to read.

Almost all of these technology claims are impossible for a knuckle-dragger like me to assess, but I will note that I’ve heard other companies working on E-Ink-based readers make the same argument about the difficulty that color poses.

I’m still not convinced that color makes a Kindle or a Kindle-like device that much more successful. I know that the publishing industry wants it, but that has as least as much to do with the business model that industry types think that color can sustain as with anything else. Perhaps readers, the kinds of readers who spring for a reading device that doesn’t make phone calls, will be fine with black and white.

Recall that audiophiles spent years complaining, accurately, that MP3 players like Apple’s (AAPL) iPod produced severely degraded sound. Turns out no one cared. Or at least not enough to outweigh the iPod’s other benefits.

But assuming that the netbook/tablet trend has legs, there should still be a market for the screen that Jepsen says she can make and get on the market early next year.

Recently I sat down with Pixel Qi chief operating officer John Ryan, who happens to be married to Jepsen and who walked me through the company’s pitch. We tried our best to show off the demo screens, but it’s the kind of thing that you really need to see in person; even if I wasn’t using a Flip camera, I think this would be difficult to capture. But Ryan was a good sport about it, and although you can’t see the screens that well, you can get a good glimpse of Central Park during a rare bit of sun.

[ See post to watch video ]

Could iRex Be the Company Making News Corp.'s Kindle? Mmmmmaybe.

Peter Kafka — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:24:37 +0000

Thank you, MediaMemo readers! After News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch mentioned his plan to invest in a company that produced e-book readers, I wondered who he might be talking to, and asked for your thoughts.

And you weren’t shy! And by the time I was done tallying your crowd-sourced tips, I had a pretty comprehensive list of everyone who plans to make, or is rumored to be making, a competitor to Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle. But many of you were sure that News Corp. (NWS) must be talking to iRex Technologies, the Dutch company that is already producing a line of Kindle rivals under the “Iliad” brand.

And you were correct, says iRex CEO Hans Brons. iRex plans to sell its devices in the U.S. using a “private label” strategy–it will make the readers but sell them under someone else’s brand–and it has talked to News Corp. about the possibility, he says.

But to be clear, Brons isn’t saying his company has a deal with News Corp. (which owns Dow Jones, the owner of this Web site). For the record: “It is definitely a logical path, and a logical conclusion, but I cannot confirm that we are working with News Corp.,” he says.

Fair enough. And no comment from News Corp. But imagine that iRex did end up building something for Murdoch and company. What would it look like?

A lot like the one Murdoch described earlier this month: iRex has a machine in the pipeline that will feature a big screen and full color, Brons said. The difference between his color screen and those of his competitors? Most of the latter take the e-Ink technology that powers the Kindle and Sony’s (SNE) Reader and add a color filter on top of that. That reduces the brightness of the screen, Brons said. But he promises that the iRex color screen, which he hopes will be on the market in 2010, will solve that problem.

And if News Corp. doesn’t do a deal with iRex? Well, as I mentioned above, there is no shortage of folks working on would-be Kindle killers. Thanks again to readers who helped me round up this list:

Fujitsu–Already selling an e-reader with color e-paper

Bridgestone–Also has a color display

Endless Ideas–Dutch company behind the black-and-white BeBook reader

Samsung–Its Papyrus reader features a touchscreen

Pixel Qi–Start-up focused on making cheap color screens; run by Mary Lou Jepsen, former CTO of the One Laptop Per Child project

Anyone else I should be looking at? Let me know.

AllThingsD » Mary Lou Jepsen

How to Add Color to a Kindle: Pixel Qi's Cheap Screens

Could iRex Be the Company Making News Corp.'s Kindle? Mmmmmaybe.