Former OLPC CTO starts her own company, aims at $75 laptop
Mary Lou Jepsen, former CTO of OLPC project who has started her own company called “Pixel Qi” aims to produce a $75 laptop which she calls “a next generation OLPC laptop”. Jespsen was a major contributor to OLPC project as she developed multimode screen for XO which is one of the most distinctive components of the laptops.
Jepsen’s 7.5” XO display supports two different display modes, 800×600 color mode and 1200×900 reflective black and white mode which is fully readable under direct sunlight and is also energy efficient as compared to other LCDs. Jepsen hope that in future her display technology can be used in phones, digital cameras and other kind of mobile devices and also she plans to commercially market her unique multi mode technique display technology that she developed for the OLPC XO laptop.
OLPC, a non-profit organization which is presently making low-cost laptops first aimed to make a $100 laptop but as the project went on price of each unit climbed from then $100 to present $188. Jepsen says that price of OLPC laptop would keep rising with the increase in manufacturing cost and the only way to bring down the overall manufacturing cost is to generate revenue from other commercial endeavors that would have positive impact on this project.