New screens promise 40-hour notebooks

If you're the type of person who is constantly forgetting to put their gadgets on charge, you'll be itching to get your hands on a laptop based around Pixel Qi's new technology.

According to Yahoo, Mary Lou Jepsen – previously the head of Intel's display division, and then later chief technology officer at Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child – is hoping that her newly-formed company will revolutionise the laptop industry.

Rather than concentrate on improving the technology behind the battery – hairy work involving worrying chemicals and always gaining the tiniest percentage improvement with each generation – Pixel Qi is looking to use display technology developed as part of the One Laptop Per Child program to dramatically reduce the amount of energy a laptop needs in order to run – and the company is talking about devices capable of running between 20 and 40 hours without a recharge.

Jepsen believes that the inventions her company is working on “go well beyond the [One Laptop Per Child] screen that we are developing right now,” and claims that the low power draw of the new screens is such that “we can enable an increase of 5-10x battery life between charges compared with a standard notebook.”

The displays – which will include ultra-low power LCD ranges for notebooks and netbooks alongside colour electronic paper screens for e-book readers – are likely to start shipping later next year.

Hoping that the technology will have proven itself the next time you're looking to upgrade your laptop, or is anything more than a ten-hour runtime a waste? Share your thoughts over in the forums.