A Closer Look at Liquavista’s Latest ElectroWetting Screen Tech (video)
Update: This post was published in January, at a time when I was the only one who believed the rumor about Amazon buying Liquavista.
My post yesterday on Amazon and Liquavista hasn’t generated much notice in the blogosphere yet, but it has turned up a useful little video which IEEE Spectrum magazine shot a few weeks back.
Spectrum spent some time at Liquavista late last year and they got a look at Liquavista’s latest demo units. This video is going to give you a much better idea about the color quality and possible uses of Liquavista’s screen tech.
As you can see, this screen tech is visible outside and has been developed as a 9″ display, making it a serious possibility for notebook and tablet screens. Other improvements include better than LCD battery life and the fact that this screen tech can be made in LCD factories. FYI: There is an excess of LCD production capacity right now.
But it also doesn’t have nearly as good a color quality you would expect to see on current generation LCD screens, and I find that detail a compelling argument in favor of Samsung selling Liquavista to Amazon.
One of the commenters on yesterday’s post raised the issue of why Samsung would want to sell. As he saw it, there was little obvious reason for Samsung to want to part with the company when they could just as easily make Liquavista screens and sell them to Amazon.
Speaking in terms of the mindset of Samsung and the tech blogosphere, Samsung makes products which compete with Apple. That means Samsung needs to makes screens comparable or better than the screens Apple uses, and that’s something Liquavista’s screen tech cannot do. Why not part with the company?
Liquavista might be able to get their screens into construction, military, and other rugged devices, but that is a niche market that is already being cornered by Pixel Qi. With that in mind I would argue that the biggest market for Liquavista screens would be ereaders (the commercial uses are ancillary).
If the screens are cheap enough then they will make a very attractive alternative to E-ink screens. I could easily see Amazon wanting to buy Liquavista in order to keep everyone else from using these screens. At the very least I think Amazon would be willing to throw a lot of money at Samsung just to make sure they have a color ereader no one could match.
Spectrum via eReaders.nl
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