The most talked about e-reader news right now is the impending arrival of a whole new range of color e-readers next year that is poised to make a paradigm shift in the way we perceive color e-reader at present. And why not, when two of the major player in the filed of e-reader technology – Freescale and Liquavista – have joined forces to bring the e-readers to life, what we can expect to have on our hands is the most advanced e-readers of the future era. Freescale is the leading supplier of e-reader processors with the majority of e-readers currently doing the rounds in the market having a Freescale processor at its core while Liquavista is a pioneer of color e-reader display and has the electrowetting LiquavistaColor display technology to its credit.
If initial reports are to be believed, both the e-readers will boast of a high frame rate that will make for a smooth and jerk free video playback experience, something that has been achieved by the use of LiquavistaBright and LiquavistaColor screens.
The Technology Aspect:
The LiquavistaBright and LiquavistaColor display screens makes use of the electrowetting technology, which is all about putting to use electricity to bring about a contraction or expansion of the surface tension of colored oil films. The technology is extremely energy efficient and draws just the minimum voltage while is able to initiate pixel switching in the range of microseconds. What all of this implies in a real life scenario is extremely smooth video and media playback.
The all important difference between the LiquavistaBright display and LiquavistaColor display is color with Bright being grayscale only and featuring 64 shades of gray. The LiquavistaColor on the other hand is able to render high contrast reflective color display with a wider viewing angle.
The most striking aspect of the Liquavista display is that there is nothing path breaking in it as its based on much of the same manufacturing processes that goes into the making of LCD screens. In fact, LCD displays too makes use of the electrowetting technology. So, what this means is that Liquavista won’t have to get into any new methods of manufacturing as modifying existing manufacturing processes is all that will do.
The Processor:
The color e-reader will be built around the new i.MX515 processor from Freescale that can boast of an impressive clock speed of 800MHz. The advanced processor is a highly integrated unit and includes an ARM Cortex A8 core, a vector floating point unit along with a separate unit dedicated to image processing. Use of state-of-the-art power management features makes the processing unit extremely less demanding on the battery while rendering fans or heat sinks obsolete.
All of this tech wizardry when combined with the two e-reader platforms – Liquavista Bright and Liquavista Color – and we might have the most innovative e-reader to show off next year. Both the versions is likely to come with a 6 inch display and will have an OS based on Linux.
Company sources have further revealed that the Liquavista-Freescale System Development Kits for both the e-reader platforms – LiquavistaBright and LiquavistaColor – are currently available and are built keeping in mind the i.MX51 processor from Freescale.
Watch this space for more e-reader news as well as those from the Tablet/Slate realm.
You will also love out new Good E-Reader Magazine that is replete will all the latest news and events from the world of e-readers and tablet/slates.
Click here for the official Liquavista Press Release.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.
