3M is investing in Mary Lou Jepson’s Pixel Qi company, which produces dual-mode transreflective displays that can operate in LCD color or low-energy monochrome e-ink-like modes. Engadget has the press release and some commentary. So far, while the Pixel Qi displays have seemed fairly impressive in what they could do, they have not yet been produced in large numbers or used in any very successful hardware. The infusion of an undisclosed amount of cash by a major corp like 3M might just change that....

I’m not sure if I buy this, but Dave Zatz of “Zatz Not Funny” is reporting a rumor that suggests Amazon’s upcoming Android tablet could have a very interesting, idiosyncratic screen display format. According to a friend of Zatz’s who was seated on a flight next to someone who claimed to be a highly-placed Amazon exec, the tablet will feature both a color LCD and an e-ink screen—but unlike the Nook and the Alex, these screens will not be on the same surface. Instead, they will be on opposite sides of the device, like the faces of a coin. ...

The Android Police blog features a couple of five-minute demonstration videos of the Adam device from Notion Ink, showing it being put through its paces. The videos mostly cover the same territory, but one of them is, fairly impressively, shot in direct daylight, and the Pixel Qi screen is only slightly washed out—considerably more readable than my iPad in those conditions. The Adam looks fairly impressive from the videos, though of course it would take a hands-on session to get a really good idea of how usable it will be. Tantalizingly, both videos showed an e-book reader screen, but...

Electrowetting is not just what a robo-baby does in his cyber-diaper. It’s a method of e-ink-like display technology under development, and a recent discovery by a University of Cincinatti engineering researcher could eventually lead to e-paper screens constructed out of e-ink on ordinary paper, rather than glass—reducing the price of e-reader displays considerably. Given that the screen is usually the most expensive part of any tablet or e-book reader, this could lead to e-ink readers that are literally disposable—while at the same time looking better than e-ink displays today. “Nothing looks better than paper for...

Ars Technica has a report on a new form of e-paper that could offer the same low power consumption rate as the e-ink used in current e-readers, but at a much higher refresh rate and better screen reflectiveness. Gamma Dynamics’s e-paper screen uses layers of oil and pigment that can be induced to change places through an electrical voltage. It could offer a refresh rate of 50Hz, and possibly color eventually. (At the moment it works best in grayscale.) The screen will reflect 75% of ambient light, rather than the 40% of e-ink or 30% of electrowetting, making...

Om Malik reports on GigaOm that Mirasol’s low-power, sunlight-readable displays, previously scheduled for launch in 2010, are now expected to come to market in early 2011. Gizmodo notes that this is also about when the new displays from Pixel Qi are going to come out. It will be interesting to see what the sudden availability of not one but two low-power sunlight-readable display options is going to do to the e-reader market. The current best solutions for color reading involve LCD, which is washed out by direct sunlight. Will new-display readers drive LCD readers’ prices down? Or will...

Pixel Qi is creating a new device that may well be the first of its kind—a self-contained 10” Pixel Qi monitor that connects to a laptop or “even some phones” (or, for that matter, a desktop) using wired or wireless USB. Pixel Qi’s 10” $275 swap-in displays had been available for Samsung N130 and Lenovo S10 netbooks, but they required end-users to install the parts themselves. This new device would act as a fully-powered stand-alone monitor, useful for more screen area or for showing someone else screen data. As far as I know, nobody’s come out...

Mary Lou Jepson has posted on Pixel Qi’s blog about a number of new developments coming soon—most notably, the development of a new 7” Pixel Qi screen for tablets and e-readers. In addition to posting some user comments about how easy to use the 10” Pixel Qi DIY netbook conversion kits are, Jepson reports that Pixel Qi has “now fully completed [its] first tranche of series B finance,” and says that 7” screens are being planned for mass production sometime in the first half of 2011 (but samples may be available as soon as Q4 2010). ...

Mike Lee at OLPC News has a photo and video comparison of the 4-year-old OLPC XO-1’s display, and the new Pixel Qi display based on the same technology. Lee said that he bought the $275 10.1” display panel when MakerShed had them available (they sold out fast) and put it in the Acer Aspire One netbook he had bought the month before for $199. (It seems a bit odd to me to pay more for a screen than for the netbook you swap it into, but on the other hand it does have some advantages.) Although...

The New York Times has a brief article looking at the future of e-book devices, and their technological siblings the tablet computer. It includes quotes from Nicholas Negroponte of One Laptop Per Child, and Nick Colaneri of Arizona State University whose Flexible Display Center is working with the military to develop flexible displays for battlefield use. The group Mr. Negroponte heads, One Laptop Per Child, has developed a slate computer set to be released in 2012 that will cost less than $100. Plastic and, he said, unbreakable, the computer will resemble the iPad...

Imagine if your e-book reader could sense your finger approaching its screen without actually touching it. That’s the possibility offered by an intriguing new technological development from Cypress Perform, maker of the touchscreen for the Palm Pre. The video suggests it could be used for creating a magnifying bubble over a web browser to allow more easily selecting a link. I could see that being useful for e-book readers, too, especially for books that have footnotes. Certainly it would clear up one of the big problems with touchscreen interfaces for fine tasks: you can’t actually see what’s beneath...

You know the Pixel Qi screens that are one of the forthcoming “better-than-e-ink” display technologies? Gizmodo and the “What’s Happening at Pixel Qi” blog note that a DIY 10” screen replacement kit will be out in the second quarter of this year, bringing the ability to swap out your netbook’s 10” LCD screen for a transflective Pixel Qi model that can be read in direct sunlight. Writes former OLPC CTO Mary Lou Jepsen in the Pixel Qi blog: It’s only slightly more difficult than changing a lightbuld [sic]: it’s basically 6 screws, pulling...