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Amazon purchases Liquavista display company from Samsung
Proving rumors correct, Amazon just purchased Liquavista, the touchscreen company previously owned by Samsung. This news comes from The Digital Reader, which discovered the acquisition via new filings from the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce (Amazon also confirmed the news). That's about it as far as details go, but it's safe to assume that Amazon will employ Liquavista's low-power color e-paper technology for its Kindle lineup.
Samsung mulls sale of Dutch e-ink display business to Amazon
It's not often that we hear of Samsung suffering from buyer's remorse, but it looks like it should have kept e-ink manufacturer Liquavista's receipt in the box-file marked "Important." Bloomberg's Person Familiar With The Matter(TM) believes Samsung is trying to flog the Dutch electrowetting display outfit it bought two years ago -- back when such technology was the holy grail of screens. Now the Korean giant is looking for a sub-$100 million sale to Amazon, which might be able to use the tech in future iterations of the Kindle. When asked, a Samsung spokesperson said that the acquisition didn't meet its expectations, which makes us sad for the future of e-ink devices beyond e-readers -- now the folks at YotaPhone are our only hope.
Samsung entices with electrowetting displays at SID 2011: coming to consumers later this year?
Liquavista has teased us with the potential of its electrowetting displays for years, but we hadn't gotten to peep its panels post-acquisition until now, at SID 2011. In addition to the several screens we'd seen before, there was a new monochrome model that operates at low frequencies (down to sub-hertz levels) to cut down on current consumption. We also laid eyes on its chromatic displays, but in comparison to Mirasol's tech, electrowetting has a ways to go to match the image quality of IMOD. However, Sammy said that its reflective screens can be constructed with minimal mods to existing LCD manufacturing plants, while making Mirasol requires fresh fab facilities. Such a factory isn't exactly cheap, and Mirasol's large-scale production plant won't be around until 2012. So Samsung might snatch the market if it gets there first, and the rep we spoke with said the company hopes to have products shipping this year. While we wait for their hopes and dreams to come to fruition, view the vid after the break. %Gallery-123865%
Samsung buys Liquavista, dives headfirst into electrowetting displays
Samsung's got a reputation for building crazy awesome display technologies, and it just added another one to the stack -- with the buyout of Philips-spinoff Liquavista this December, it's gained quite the foothold in electrowetting. In case you're not familiar, electrowetting has been repeatedly pitched to us as pretty much the Holy Grail of displays: flexible, colorful, unbreakable, outdoor-readable e-paper screens with high refresh rates and low-power consumption that can be manufactured on existing assembly lines. We'll have to see if the theories equate to meaningful products, but we imagine ownership by Samsung can't hurt one bit, especially as the company says it will "expand its leadership in next generation display technologies by pioneering the application of electrowetting in e-Paper and transparent displays." Sounds like a commitment to us. PR after the break. Update: Seems that The Digital Reader actually figured out about the deal yesterday -- read the original scoop at our more coverage link!
Liquavista displays get flexible, 'unbreakable,' still rather theoretical (video)
The next generation of display technology is still that, next, but despite being a future away it continues to get better. Liquavista keeps wowing us with various demonstrations of its electrowetting technology offering full color, high refresh rates, visibility in all lighting conditions, and low power consumption to boot. Now they're bendy too, with the company releasing footage of a prototype that's flexible. It's also said to be "unbreakable," demonstrated by a person wearing latex gloves gently tapping on the screen -- because, you know, that's about as tough as it gets outside of the lab. Video is after the break, along with full PR, but in neither will you find any hope of seeing this tech for real before the second half of next year.
Liquavista displays go out in the sun, look better than all right (video)
We've seen Liquavista displays plenty of times at various trade shows, but so far they've always been locked up indoors. Now they've gone outside to enjoy the weather, and ARMdevices.net was there to capture the results. The low-power color and monochrome screens are shown looking at least as good in the wild as they do in captivity, and when placed next to a traditional LCD (in the laptop on the right) the difference is clear. Granted, the colors are a bit washed out, but the refresh rate is certainly far higher than anything we've seen from E Ink. While there's still no firm word on how much this technology will cost manufacturers, converting from standard LCD production to Liquavista production is said to be relatively painless. How painless? We'll rather disappointingly have to wait for at least another year before we find out, as these aren't slated to go into production until the second half of 2011.
Liquavista demos its color e-paper display with a new QWERTY-equipped dev kit (video)
You'll be forgiven for just glazing over during CES and ignoring all those ebook readers that were raining down, but Liquavista's attempt at marrying the endurance of e-paper with the desirability of color is well worth another look. The company has now furnished its LiquavistaColor dev kit with a QWERTY keyboard and also recruited Texas Instruments into the fold, whose OMAP system-on-a-chip is doing the grunt work under the hood. The video after the break indicates that touchscreen interaction is also planned, but the most impressive thing has to be the total lack of any redrawing pauses, which may be the considered the biggest drawback to the many E Ink devices out there. For the more conventional monochromatic crowd, we've also grabbed video of the LiquavistaBright, which replicates the rapid refresh skills, but omits the keyboard and OMAP in favor of a more compact form factor and Freescale iMX5x hardware. Slide past the break to see it all.
Liquavista's monochrome and color e-paper displays get demonstrated (video)
Philips' 2006 spin-off Liquavista hasn't exactly had a lot to show for itself since it earned its independence, but things seem to finally be coming together for the company, which had a suite of e-paper displays to demonstrate at CES last week, a show that was absolutely chock-full of e-readers. Our very own spin-off, Engadget Spanish, got a chance to peruse the company's suite of offerings, including a prototype device called Pebble. It's a lovely, thin reader that's unfortunately not intended for production -- at least not yet. The video after the break shows displays that not only redraw far more quickly than existing production screens, but also mix in RGB effects and even multi-color backlighting. It's good stuff; you'll want to check it out.
Liquavista shows off low-power, color e-paper display
This one's still a ways away from landing in an actual e-reader (although that prototype above does made an admirable attempt at redefining the bezel), but Liquavista's latest stab at a color e-paper display is at least ready enough for a demo video, and it doesn't exactly disappoint. Unfortunately, Liquavista isn't offering much in the way of firm details, but the display is supposedly "ultra-low power," sunlight-readable and, as you can see for yourself after the break, it seems to be fairly speedy when it comes to browsing and scrolling. Nothing in the way of announcements of e-readers just yet, but Liquavista says it expects to see product implementation "throughout 2010 / 2011."
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. %Gallery-76592%
Liquavista launches ColorBright display technology sans coolness
When Liquavista announced its electrowetting segment-driven display technology way back when, we thought it sounded like just about the best thing ever. We definitely wanted PMP, cellphone, and watch displays with rapid response time, exceptional contrast, and a high volume of color. Fast forward two years: word is this stuff is finally ready to hit the market and designers can now order custom-made equipment for their devices. There's an animation on Liquavista's website that promises some radically hip stuff, and we're looking forward to that, but so far we feel a bit let down by these images of mostly-static watches whose main claim to fame is colors. Get crackin', designers: we want to see those sunlight-viewable video displays and hip-hoppin' PMP visualizers in the non-cartoon world ASAP.[Via core77]Read - Press releaseRead - Official website with demo animation
New display tech could make mobiles "glanceable"
We hesitate to bring up anything to do with the ongoing debacle that is SPOT, but the guys over at Microsoft's most left-of-center division helped popularize the concept of "glanceable" information -- ubiquitous, high-demand data (weather reports, for instance) that can be gleaned quickly and with little or no user input. Cellphones, despite the fact that they have ready access to such data, have been largely left out of the party; always-on displays are a backbone of the glanceable concept, and the dazzling, hi-res screens necessary to keep the modern consumer entertained drain far too much power to be left on when no one is interacting with the device. Manufacturers have taken baby steps to solving the power problem by introducing OLEDs, but more is needed. Qualcomm, when it's not busy filing lawsuits, has been working on its iMoD (short for Interferometric Modulator) technology, which uses an array of microscopic mirrors to stay highly visible in well-lit conditions. Meanwhile, Philips spin-off Liquavista is taking the electrowetting approach. Either way, we're all for always-on cellphone displays that afford us more than a few hours of standby, but both groups have yet to name any commercial devices in the pipeline. In the meantime, there's still a chance to jump on the glanceable bandwagon -- grab a handful of Ambient Orbs, turn down the lights, and soak in the psychadelic data.[Via textually.org]
Philips spins off Liquavista to develop thin Electrowetting displays
A bunch of venture capitalists have been poking around Philips' R&D labs lately, and it seems that they like what they see. New Venture Partners has joined with the Dutch electronics giant to spin off several companies based on technology first developed by Philips Research, with the first collaboration, Liquavista, being announced today. Based on a thin-display technology called Electrowetting, Liquavista will attempt to integrate its products into DAPs, cellphones, watches, and other portable devices where high brightness and rapid refresh rates are valued (which is like, all of them). Electrowetting supposedly provides better brightness and response time than competing reflective display technologies while using essentially the same manufacturing techniques, and according to a handy comparison chart on MobileRead, is just about the best thing ever. Skeptics will be able to peep the displays for themselves in early June, however, when Liquavista will present some prototypes at the Society for Information Display's 2006 exhibition in San Francisco. [Warning: PDF link][Via MobileRead]
