Liquavista's e-reader displays do video, color and other magic tricks (video)

Liquavista's been kicking around in the shadows for years now, and while its stuff has largely been viewed as vaporware, the video waiting for you just past the break changes everything. The company has today revealed three new e-reader display technologies that it's working on, and all three of 'em are in prototype form ready to wow. LiquavistaBright aims to speed up page refreshes on e-book readers and add support for video playback, and considering just how awful web browsing is on existing e-ink displays, we can hardly wait to surf on this stuff. It's also toiling away on a LiquavistaColor screen, which is exactly what you think it is. Finally, there's the elusive LiquavistaVivid, which is planned for "product implementation" throughout 2010 and 2011. Hit the read link if you're down for looking into the future, and be sure to tell PixelQi its main competition has just come out in a big way.

Liquavista's e-reader displays do video and color (video)

[NewL Posted Oct 27th 2009 11:56AM]

Couldn't they get a camera that synces with the display refresh rate to get rid of the flickering in the video?

Looks promising though, certainly fast enough for the odd short video clip. A higher contrast wouldn't hurt, looks very grey-on-grey...

[CyberDog666 Posted Oct 27th 2009 12:46PM]

Lota blurring in it though.They'll need it to refresh faster.

[Alan Strangis Posted Oct 27th 2009 11:57AM]

I'm not sure if I'm sold on the colour yet, as it looks like it's only 256, from the admittedly small Youtube video (even in HD)

At this point, I'd still be more interested in a laptop with 3Qi technology built into a standard LCD screen, but if they could bump this up over the next year or two, it could be really interesting beyond the ebook market.

[jhoff80 Posted Oct 27th 2009 12:09PM]

Except PixelQi isn't e-ink, so this is some pretty amazing stuff comparatively.

[Plothole Posted Oct 27th 2009 1:21PM]

This isn't eInk either. EInk is a brand and implementation of electrophoretic display. Liquidvista uses a very different electronic paper technology called electrowetting.

[jhoff80 Posted Oct 27th 2009 4:36PM]

Ahh, thanks for that information.

[R E Posted Oct 28th 2009 6:45AM]

The reason this can do video is because it doesn't work the same way as e-ink. One of the main features of e-ink is that it can maintain an image with no power. This is not the case for these displays. The power usage man not be as high as LCDs (mainly because this technology is not using backlighting or very little, much like a transreflective lcd in a watch).

[GTMac Posted Oct 27th 2009 12:18PM]

I'll wait to upgrade to Liquid7.

[GTMac Posted Oct 27th 2009 12:19PM]

Or Liqua7 if I spent half a second to read closely.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 27th 2009 3:25PM]

I'm sticking with LiquaXP for now.

[dorbolo Posted Oct 27th 2009 12:30PM]

Wow!

[Pies Posted Oct 27th 2009 12:53PM]

If the color one is low powered I'll take one for my next mobile phone.

[Dshark Posted Oct 27th 2009 12:58PM]

Busy day for e-paper/readers on Engadget. I really want one.

[Chefgon Posted Oct 27th 2009 1:22PM]

I don't need color, but their ultra-fast black and white screen refresh is a HUGE deal, if this is in fact real e-ink with the same easy-on-the-eyes benefits as current readers.

I want a device built around this designed specifically for taking and organizing lots of handwritten notes. Sort of like Courier, but without all the fancy web browsing stuff or the full x86 processor draining the battery. I just need a way to jot stuff down and be able to find it later, and this is the perfect technology for it.

[Plothole Posted Oct 27th 2009 1:59PM]

It's not eInk. In fact Liquavista's electrowetting technology has, functionally, more in common with a transflective LCD. Except with considerably better contrast and viewing angle.

[Wwhat Posted Oct 27th 2009 2:03PM]

I was thinking it was just an LCD without backlight, but another video says 'viewable from all angles' so I guess it's not.
And it's a philips spin-off company I see, let's hope the management has more respect for customers than philips does.

[Plothole Posted Oct 27th 2009 5:29PM]

The technology is called electrowetting. Basically each pixel is filled with water and a oil. When no voltage is applied the oil quickly settles into a film. When a voltage is applied this film breaks down and is diluted with the water, making the pixel more or less transparent. This means it can modulate light in much the same way as an LCD. Except without polarizers or color filters (the oil itself is colored).

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 27th 2009 3:40PM]

I'm impressed, and yet I'm not. It certainly is a leap forward for e-ink, but I guess I'm just not sold on e-ink in general. In the end, these demos remind me of passive-matrix laptop LCDs in the early 90's. At the time, we were amazed to have a thin display at all in a laptop that you could carry in your bag. But by today's measures, they were washed out and had strange glitches. Seems like e-ink is a step back to those days, all for the purpose of obtaining very high battery life. I'd rather have a nice, crisp LCD that looks great indoors and outdoors (like the one in my iPhone, but larger), and go for fuel cell technology to take us the next step forward on battery life.

[Shinigami Posted Oct 27th 2009 4:11PM]

Looks great but I'll stick with my OLED touchscreen laptop for $500.

Oh, wait...

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 27th 2009 5:54PM]

It looks impressive but how does this compare in terms of power usage to other E-ink technologies and PixelQi? I would have killed for a device like this during college.

[DCTenor1 Posted Oct 27th 2009 7:26PM]

http://www.howstuffworks.com/magna-doodle.htm

[Plothole Posted Oct 27th 2009 7:39PM]

That is not even remotely the same thing.

[FurryPotato Posted Oct 28th 2009 2:46AM]

I think I just electrowet myself .....