A $75 laptop from the hardware chick of Pixel Qi

Moderator’s note: So will MLJ do a dedicated e-book reader? In early ’92 I predicted that we’d eventually see a $50 e-book tablet with some multi-use compatibilities. Hey, we’re getting there! – D.R.

Mary Lou Jepsen (almost) single-handedly made One Laptop Per Child’s XO Laptop a reality. She has every right to brag to Groklaw that:

“When I started in January 2005, many people thought [OLPC] was a joke, including Craig Barrett and Bill Gates. I took it from that stage—just an idea of a $100 laptop—through invention, design and partnering and to delivery.

The laptop is in high volume mass production, it’s the lowest cost laptop ever made, the lowest power laptop ever made, it’s the greenest laptop ever made, it’s the only sunlight-readable laptop on the market,”

And now it’s looking like she left OLPC just in time to start Pixel Qi, a company she founded to commercialize OLPC technology.

The self-described “hardware chick” is going to sell cutting-edge technology to rich notebook computer buyers to support better educations in poor countries:

“I’ve created a licensing structure where OLPC and the children of the world benefit through me licensing the technology. I happen to be the inventor as well, but I’m not getting access to the IP by virtue of being its inventor.”

Now guess what her first goal is with all that clock-stopping hot technology at her fingertips? Nothing more that a visual revolution across all digital technology:

Pixel Qi is currently pursuing the $75 laptop, while also aiming to bring sunlight readable, low-cost and low-power screens into mainstream laptops, cellphones and digital cameras.

Nokia, sign this woman up! I love me my N95, but I can’t even imagine how cool it would be “Jepsenized”!

My only disappointment is that without her to Jepsenize One Laptop Per Child, I expect we’ll have more Negropontisms—announcements of technology achievements proven to be fantasy.