qi

PixelQi puts three displays in one

SAN JOSE, Calif--You have to be able to see a screen before you can use multitouch gestures on it.

Here at the Interactive Displays 2009 conference, while the rest of the budding touch-screen industry talks about the best way to incorporate multitouch into expensive handheld gadgets, Mary Lou Jepsen is working on how to make computer displays readable in the sunlight--on the cheap.

Jepsen--co-founder of One Laptop Per Child--is now heading up display start-up PixelQi, which makes low-cost, highly efficient displays for low-cost laptops like the XO from OLPC.

"The future of portables is all about the screen," … Read more

Pixel Qi talks up low-power displays

I got an e-mail from the folks over at O'Reilly Media mentioning that keynotes and other presentations from the company's ETech 2009 conference, held earlier this month, were now online at the ETech 2009 site. I missed that show, but I was interested in one of the keynotes, so I surfed on over to take a look.

The keynote I was looking for was indeed online: Mary Lou Jepsen, CEO of Pixel Qi and formerly CTO of the One Laptop Per Child organization, talking about "Low-Cost, Low-Power Computing." You can watch a video of the presentation … Read more

Microsoft's online chief holds music search patent

When Microsoft hired Qi Lu to run its online business last week, the company trumpeted the fact that Lu holds 20 patents.

Patents are far from rare at Microsoft--many developers and researchers hold them--but the online business has typically been led by people with a business or marketing background. That hasn't been working out too well, so it's putting a geek in charge.

The Seattle Post Intelligencer's Microsoft reporter, Joe Tartakoff, did a little digging on Tuesday to uncover exactly what kinds of patents Lu holds. Most interesting to me, one of them relates to music.

Specifically, … Read more

It's official: Qi Lu to head Microsoft's online effort

Microsoft is indeed hiring former Yahoo executive Qi Lu to run its online services business, but in the process, it is also losing one of its own top advertising executives.

In its announcement of Lu as the president of Microsoft's online services group, Microsoft said that Brian McAndrews, former CEO of Aquantive, would be leaving Microsoft. McAndrews was seen as the top internal candidate for the post, which came open when Kevin Johnson left to become CEO of Juniper Networks.

Lu will start at Microsoft on January 5 and will report to Steve Ballmer, Microsoft said.

"I am … Read more

Report: Former Yahoo exec to be Microsoft online chief

Microsoft's efforts to acquire one Yahoo employee at a time appear to be working.

As has been rumored for a while now, former Yahoo search executive Qi Lu is expected to be named head of Microsoft's online efforts, according to a report on All Things D.

All Things D's Kara Swisher says the announcement could come as early as Monday, though some details remain to be worked out, such as whether Lu, whose experience is largely on the technical side, would be paired with one of Microsoft's business executives.

Former Aquantive CEO Brian McAndrews was considered … Read more