« Back to Article

Pixel Qi's Mary Lou Jepsen focused on the screen

Mary Lou Jepsen, founder of Pixel Qi
Published 4:00 am, Friday, May 11, 2012


  • Mary Lou Jepsen, founder of Pixel Qi of San Bruno. Photo: Pixel Qi


Larger | Smaller
Email This
Page 1 of 1

Mary Lou Jepsen was one of the pioneering minds behind One Laptop per Child, the project to produce cheap laptops for children in developing countries.

Since then, Jepsen has moved on to start San Bruno's Pixel Qi, building screens for cell phones, tablets and other gadgets that require less power than traditional ones.

Backed by 3M, Pixel Qi technology can be found in Android tablets, netbooks and specialty products such as a golf training tool. Its latest advancement is a screen that uses much less power yet promises to produce the same visual quality as the screen of the new iPad. But while the iPad represents a challenge, Jepsen said that Pixel Qi has set its sights on a much bigger picture.

Q:What's the latest with One Laptop per Child? Are you still involved?

A: One Laptop per Child is growing. Every child in primary school in Uruguay has one. There are large deployments in Peru, Rwanda and many other countries, about 50 countries in all and in over 25 different languages. I help still, especially with on-the-ground support with manufacturers in Asia, but mostly these days I am running my new company, Pixel Qi.

Q:How did your work with One Laptop per Child lead to Pixel Qi?


They were persuasive. I decided that my job was done at OLPC: I made the laptop they said couldn't be made and, if we could get this technology into other devices, I could solve the next big problems. The laptop was groundbreaking in the power reduction it achieved, key because all kids in Africa don't have steady access to power.

All devices should just sip power and be charged like a calculator is, with a small solar cell. No power adaptors. It's easy to put a solar cell into a device, but it's not powerful enough to drive today's cell phones or laptops. They need too much power to run. As much as 90 percent of the power in a tablet is used to drive the screen. We at Pixel Qi are driving the power consumption of all devices down tenfold and, with our new architectures, perhaps by a hundredfold. At the same time, we are making screens more comfortable to read, and comfortable to use even in bright sunlight.

Q:What is driving you to develop the technology behind Pixel Qi?

A: To quote Kevin Kelly, author of "What Technology Wants" and co-founder of Wired magazine, "We are the people of the screen."

The world's information is now largely digital, and we access it primarily through the screen. It's all you see when you look at a cell phone or tablet. I see screens moving onto many more surfaces. I want to solve the problems with that on how to have screens all around us, that can cover tables and walls and then fade back to a quiet surface. It's my vision of the near future, but we can't get there unless we solve the power problem. Otherwise, cables will be everywhere, the rooms will get hot, and so forth. These new screens should not need cables. We should be able to beam information to them wirelessly from our cell phones or other devices.

Q:What's next for Pixel Qi?

A: We just announced a new screen architecture that can match the resolution of the Apple Retina display, match the color saturation, contrast ratio and viewing angles, but draws three to 100 times lower power and is sunlight readable. This will enable slimmer, lighter devices with much longer battery life.

We are choosing device-making partners for this screen development now.

Q:Will we see many more devices with the same display quality as an iPad, but with cheaper prices and requiring less battery power?

A: Sure, there will be further price drops but making cheap things isn't our focus at Pixel Qi (Apple also never focused on cheap). Pixel Qi is focused on hardware and device innovation - namely we are focused on the screen.

The problem (with the new iPad) is that the screen is a power hog. It seems that as much as 90 percent of the battery is there only to power the screen. This makes the iPad literally hot and heavy.

We at Pixel Qi envision a future of devices that don't need power cords. Screens can work wirelessly and run on the amount of power supplied from a small solar panel and room light.

The future of screens isn't about the iPad. It's much, much bigger. The world's information is digital and the way we access it is through the screen. They are too small, aren't "on" all the time when we want the information, and so forth. We are addressing these broader problems at Pixel Qi.

Ellen Lee is a freelance writer. business@sfchronicle.com

Latest Top Business Videos