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Science Technology

New LED Backlights For LCD Screens 133

Posted by timothy from the you-can-never-have-too-many dept.
stuffman64 writes: "LumiLeds has a new LED backlighting technology based on their Luxeon Star LEDs. It is meant to replace the power-hogging CCFL lights currently in use. Benefits include longer battery life for notebooks, less weight, and a larger color gamut (up to 130% of the NTSC standard). The release can be found here." I wish I could hook up one of their evaluation kits to my machine right now;) The same site has quite a lot of LED-related information throughout.
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New LED Backlights For LCD Screens More

New LED Backlights For LCD Screens

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  • Hmm.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by sllort ( 442574 ) on Thursday August 23, 2001 @03:10PM (#2210216) Homepage Journal
    ". The shade of red lipstick you purchased on the Internet and viewed on your LCD monitor will be the exact color red you receive in the mail. "

    That's great. Exactly who is this press release for, anyway?

    • Re:Hmm.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by tim_maroney ( 239442 ) on Thursday August 23, 2001 @03:17PM (#2210279) Homepage
      The shade of red lipstick you purchased on the Internet and viewed on your LCD monitor will be the exact color red you receive in the mail.

      That would appear to be an actionably false claim. Color calibration can only go so far, especially when dealing with aspects of color that are not captured in current displays such as reflectance, and when mapping between different color gamuts.

      Calibration also gives incorrect results when mapping between different kinds of color. Monitor color is additive, while real-world colors are usually subtractive.

      Finally, color is heavily affected by ambient light conditions, to which monitors and real-world objects respond differently.

      Calibration can reduce differences but it comes nowhere close to removing them.

      Tim
      • Not to mention that the color in the image is only as good as the camera they took the photo with, and is influenced by the ambient light (more blue for Flouresent, more orange for Incandesent, etc).

        I certainly wouldn't make that claim.
        • The same is supposedly true of lighting conditions when VIEWING the monitor.

          The design agency I used to work at spent a small fortune on upgrading their lighting to Pantone approved bulbs and tubes.

      • Re:Hmm.... (Score:4, Funny)

        by srvivn21 ( 410280 ) on Thursday August 23, 2001 @05:21PM (#2210968)

        The shade of red lipstick you...[noticed] on your LCD monitor...

        It's okay to love your LCD monitor, just don't looooove your LCD monitor...
    • Exactly who is this press release for, anyway?

      It's so when that porn-star shows up at your door, you'll recognize the lipstick color.
  • San Jose, Calif. March 20, 2001

    LumiLeds Lighting, the leader in high flux, high powered LED (light emitting diode) technology, today announced a new solution for LCD display backlights that will quickly and dramatically change the LCD backlight industry.

    • Who said /. had to only publish recent news? This is a really cool technology - news for geeks. I doubt many /. readers even knew these existed - so it IS news. That's why I'm an avid /. fan - not that they are one of the first with the 'latest' news (though they often are), but that they publish links to more obscure news/info I might never come upon in my daily net travels.
      • Yeah, I was playing with high-output LED's back in 10th grade... That was a while ago, about five years or more... time flies at a dead-end job... sigh.

      • But if it was really that big of a 'break-through' why haven't we seen laptops announced with it yet?

        They claim:

        LumiLeds is already working with LCD panel manufacturers for mass adoption and has targeted having LuxeonTM powered backlights on the market by the end of this year.

        This doesn't really say much... Placement of the 'and' makes this sentence vague... is it 'LumiLeds and the LCD panel manufacturers target the end of the year' or 'LumiLeds target the end of the year... hum...

        Seems like LumiLed's would have announce a partnership or firm agreement with a manufacturer by now if it was on target.

  • mini-version (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Erasei ( 315737 )
    I think this would make a very cool addition to a mobile mp3 player. Instead of the little screens they have now, we can get some larger ones with better GUIs, due to much lower power usage.

  • CCFL (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    CamCorders For Lesbians

    I love the Man Show :D
  • Now we can have a backlit GBA and still get reasonable battery life... Nintendo, are you listening?
    • If you know any thing about GBA hacking, you would know it it IMPOSSIBLE to back light a GBA, the GBA screen is a 'reflective' LCD display, not a passive LCD. Currently they are hoping to use a semi-translucent film placed over the screen that projects light from one side but not the other, thus projecting light on the screen and allowing half of it to bounce back out to your eyes.
      • I was aware of that; I was just saying that now that backlighting is not so expensive in terms of power consumption, it would be more practial for Nintendo to release a new GBA with a non-reflective LCD.

  • Argh, my eyes (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jeffrey Baker ( 6191 ) on Thursday August 23, 2001 @03:22PM (#2210317)
    Their power-saving plan works by alternating the duty cycle of their red, green, and blue LEDs at 1-65Hz. I can feel a headache coming on already.
    • I think the LED's are inherently more efficent than the fluorescent lamps currently in use. They will certainly be more durable and probably cheaper in quantity too.

      I'm not really sure what the color flashing is for. Maybe you could use a monochrome LCD and cycle it while changing the colors to produce a full-color effect? That might be a lot more efficient than the current color-filters which absorb a lot of light I'm sure.
      • I think it's to appeal to the people who ring their license plates and undersides of their cars with those annoying neon lights.
      • Actually fluorescent lamps are not quite as efficient as LED. Fluorescents use roughly 25-30% less energy than incandescent, but LED's only use 50% less energy per lumen (same broadcast angles). Here's a link.

        NOT_goatcx_really [dialight.com]

        The more durable comment is certainly true, plus the long life. They are NOT cheaper per lumen, however. LED lightly is quite an order of magnitude in cost above incandescent and probably 2-4 times higher than flourescent. In summary, use fluorescent lamps for now where applicable and use the new-fangled LED lightly for robust, super-long-term, and small applications (laptops, flashlights, car dash lights, etc.). But in a few years.....practically everything will move to LED's.

      • Maybe you could use a monochrome LCD and cycle it while changing the colors to produce a full-color effect? That might be a lot more efficient than the current color-filters which absorb a lot of light I'm sure.

        I was thinking that too. Not only could you get potentially better battery life, but 3x the resolution on current displays, since you don't need 3 subpixels for one color pixel.

        C-X C-S
        • great idea; but it fails on the glacially slow refresh times for LCDs. Many people don't realise that when an LCD pixel turns on or off, the molecules in the pixel physically reconfigure themselves. It takes time for them to react to the... erm guessing here ... elecrical field applied to them.

          However, TI had a display-on-a-chip (using mirrors mounted on micro-actuators, iirc) that used exactly this color cycling technique. As always, this was discussed on /. a while back.
          But search is down, so I can't point you to the discussion. Make do with the original site instead:

          http://www.dlp.com/dlp/default.asp

          click on the "see how it works" for a flash animation. The "color" tab describes the process. With a physically spinning color disk. How oldskool!
    • Wow, blue LEDs, I remember one of my EE professors telling me those things were tough to come by. Then again, he could have just not known what he was talking about, I've had some professors like that. If it is the case though, it would mean these could be really cheap if not for the blue.
      • Blue LED's are now plentiful, if a little costly, and are much brighter than other LED's you might have seen (some approach 10000mcd!). They were first developed in the early 90's by some Japanese guy whose name I am too lazy to look up.

        You can buy awesome blue (also white) LED's from Radio Shack for about $3 or $4 a piece, cheaper from electronics sites on-line. Those babies are painfully bright... not your Daddy's LED's. I made a flashlight with a single white LED at the end of a piece of intercom wire with a 9v battery pack. I use it for looking around in computers and other cramped places, reading (much better than those Itty-Bitty Book Lights), and entertaining my kids.

        • Re:Argh, my eyes (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Salamander ( 33735 )

          For those who don't feel like building their own flashlight, check out CMG's Infinity Task Light. The LED lasts forever, and it boasts 40+ hours of continuous use on a single AA battery. I use NiMH batteries, which work even longer. The light is bright and rock-steady. I have a blue-green one that is by far the best camping light I've found - whether for reading in a tent or for late-night walks.

          • And here's a link [cmgequipment.com] for the Google-impaired, or http://www.cmgequipment.com/infinity2.html for the goatse.cx wary. They have a list of places to buy, or the Google search [google.com] pops up some nice ones. Some stores have a broader colour selection than others.

            For $20, I'll have to check one out--although it's not as useful for bopping someone on the head as a 4-D MagLite.

            Oh, they also seem to have lanterns [cmgequipment.com]--coooool.

          • The ARClight [arcflashlight.com] is far brighter, and uses AAA batteries, though the batteries have about 1/4 the life of the Infinity's.
        • I have one of those blue LED key chainlights you can get at ThinkGeek.com. My friends and I have a new favorite saying:

          DO NOT STARE INTO LASER WITH REMAINING EYE!
        • The guy who invented the working blue laser diode was Shuji Nakamura, now a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He's also just filed suit against the company he worked for back then for 2 billion yen because he claims the patents are his - must have found some kind of loophole in the employment contract I'd guess!
          • Thanks to his inventions we may soon kiss incandescent lights goodbye forever. The savings in both energy costs and reduced landfill would be enormous. There are LED replacements for incandescent bulbs now, but their cost is around $200. Some day, when the cost gets more reasonable, I plan on filling my house with them. I hope Dr. Nakamura gets everything he deserves. Hooray for science!

          • Before anyone goes berserk over the sum, please realize that 2 billion yen is only about 17 million US dollars.
      • A couple years ago there was some sort of manufacturing break through in blue LEDs. Apparently U2's bigass TV screen they used on their POP tour used big LED elements in the pixels and the blue elements were manufactured using the new process though I imagine they still cost a few bucks. Look up some LED enthusiast websitesand you can find a good source of blue LEDs. You can pick up blue LEDs from the Radio Shack catalog for 2.99 a pop.
      • I really love looking at a PlayStation 2 in the dark. It reminds me of a photon light--The CD-In indicator stands out the most, of all LEDs glowing in my room (DVD player, stereo, computer, etc).

        Just a thought. *shrug*

    • quite to the contrary - the way that these LEDs are driven, the real "flicker" frequency is well beyond the response time of the human optic nerve - that is to say that not even "subliminal" effects are possible as your nervous system can't recycle itself fast enough to pass action potentials at the speed the light will flicker. You perceive nice, constant light. I am waiting with bated breath for this stuff to really hit market...

      • You are right, most people can't see changes that cycle faster than 30 or 40 Hz. However, it is possibible to perceive flicker that is much faster than that. For instance, all CRTs will eventually give me a headache, even if I can't actually see the beam rastering across the screen. At 60 Hz, I can easily see the flickering whenever I blink, move my head, or look at or away from the screen. If you can't see the raster as easily, try waiving your hand in front of the screen. The same effect occurs in films, wich operate at 24 frames a second. 24 FPS is more than good enough for most things, but if you happen to be looking near the edge of the screen when the camera pans, zooms or joggs, you will clearly see the flicker.

        I drive my monitor at 85 Hz, and I can look at it for about three hours before it starts to get uncomfortable. I know it isn't because I have a crummy monitor, it's a nice 20" flat surface Trinitron, or because of florecent lights since I use indirect hallogen lighting in my office.

        In comparison, I can use my laptop, which has a much smaller LCD screen, for as long as I can pay attention. When I turn down the brightness and use my anti-eyestrain fonts and themes, I can hack for 24 hours at a stretch. The reason is because LCD screens do not flicker - LCD screens do not draw the screen by flashing one pixel at a time. If you or a friend have a laptop, try putting it next to a CRT. Set the CRT to the highest refresh rate it can handle, and set the laptop to the lowest refresh rate it can handle (although, for the laptop, it really doesn't matter, and you may only have one choice anyway). Waive your hand in front of the CRT, and then in front of the LCD. You will notice a rather remarkable difference.

        The biggest reason that CRTs bug people is because most places use overhead florecent lighting. In the United States, all florecent lights flicker at 60 Hz, and 50 Hz in Europe and a lot of other countries. Chances are, your CRT and the overhead lights will flicker out of phase with one another, causing a much lower frequency strobing effect. The effect may be very subtle, but it will still drive most people crazy, even if they can't see it directly.

        If these new LED backlit LCDs have the same flicker that CRTs do, I'll happily stick to the older technology. For the average person who doesn't need a no-flicker screen for 30 hour hacking sessions, these new screens will be awsome.

        • Remember, it is not at all necessary to pulse LEDs for applications such as this. These LEDs can be driven with a constant current and still last about 25000 hours. The only time you would want to pulse them is for reducing the percieved light output, and in that case, you could pulse these LEDs in the megahertz if so desired.

        • Re:Argh, my eyes (Score:1, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          If at 85 hz you still notice flicker, then you have a really hyper nervous system. I have an unusual form of epilepsy, which means that if there's ANY flicker, I can feel it, like how you can feel somebody's standing behind you, without being able to see them. It's my special power :) And at 80 hz I don't feel any flicker from my screens. 75 hz though, that still flickers noticeably.

          As far as flicker with TV's is concerned. The current evolution is totally wrong. TV's are getting the same type of screens as PC's. Screens which light up for a lot shorter timeperiod when illuminated, which means they're black more of the time than old TV's, so they flicker more noticeably. If you want a flickerless TV, get yourself one of those big-ass really old TV's that had a nice afterglow. (It seems the bigger they are, the less the flicker, which I can't explain) Much easier on the eye. Or get yourself a 100 hz TV, those don't flicker either, but they cost an arm and a leg.

          Or, you could just do like I did and get yourself a decent computer screen (as in big, flat, and with a low dot pitch) and a TV card, and then hook that all up to your stereo system. The quality is far superior to anything you can get from a TV, and the sound is very nice too. Plus, you can take screenshots of something stupid as it happens :)

          It might become a problem to use that as the family TV though. But you could use an old PC as the TV, since all you need is a PCI bus and a reasonably decent PCI graphics card (that can drive the screen at 80 hz or higher in 800x600). The images get copied over the PCI bus to the graphics card, so your cpu doesn't get involved, which means that you could even use a low-end pentium for it.
          • If at 85 hz you still notice flicker, then you have a really hyper nervous system.

            Well, I do have a hyper nervous system. ^_^

            But as you (and the post I responded to) imply, the chemical reaction in your retina is not fast enough to directly perceive the flicker of a screen running at 80 or 85 Hz. However, you can indirectly perceive the flicker when it interfeares with other things, causing a strobing effect.

            Also, the squeel from the flyback transformer buggs the hell out of me. My monitor is pretty decent in that respect - the transformer must somehow be dampened. But I can't stand the sound of televisions - I can hear that obnoxious squeel from across the street sometimes. I like your suggestion about using a TV tuner card - that's what I did in high school, although that was mainly because TV's were against the rules.

        • The flourescent backlight of your LCD screen does definatly flicker(More acurately, the backlight flickers). The DC voltage of your laptop battery is put through an inverter to convert it to AC before powering the lamp. It's just so fast you don't notice it. A dell laptop I took apart once had an 80Hz cycle. I'm sure that they very from manufacturer to manufacturer though. I must say though that it is a different kind of flicker that that caused by redraw. It's more like the kind you'll see at a movie.

          The LED backlights also have the same kind of flicker as your current LCD backlight. It's not a redraw kind of flicker, but an all-at-once kind of thing.

  • X-Mas Tree Lights (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Wish one of these companies would get a clue and do Christmas tree lights. Extreme low power, long life compared to current plugins (skip the plug-in and go with a straight built) and possibly programmable. Yeah a string might cost $30 but would be paid for in 1-2 seasons . Any of you looking at your Electrical cost?

  • Forget LCD (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    OLEDs are the future. Backlighting is irrelevant.
  • Dear Editors,

    Can we have a new section specifically for LCD topics, instead of Science, so I can remove these boring little stories from my Slashdot homepage? Please?

    Chris

  • Maybe now LCDs can get their delta-E values for color accuracy [macworld.com] under 6!

    Then again, maybe not.

  • I haven't owned a laptop for sometime (sold the last one because I didn't need it anymore), but the one thing that really bothered me was short span of battery life.

    It seems that a lot of the hardware (processors, drives, lights) are being tuned to use less and less power (which is a good thing, mind you), but it makes me wonder...has battery technology become stagnant? I don't claim to be an expert on batteries (or anything else), but is the general thought that battery technology has gotten about as good as it's going to get (can't recall the last time I saw anything about better batteries), so let's concentrate on making the parts more effecient? Of course, I'd like to see more efficient parts as well as better batteries, but I won't be greedy yet. :)

    • Battery technology doesn't move in leaps and bounds because they store electricity chemically and thus there's only so much "energy density" certain technologies can reach. You also want consistant discharge rates as the battery is drained. As amperage is drained out of battery the voltage begins to drop. When the voltage drops below a circuit's tolerances the battery is dead. In making batteries you need to figure out which chemicals you can produce industrially that will make worth while batteries. Thus development is slow as there's only so many ways to store energy chemically and then retrieve it. When you're building battery powered devices all you can do is increase their efficiency because you generally need to assume you're not going to get more efficient batteries. It's alot easier to make your electronics more efficient than it is to make your batteries store more power.
  • if your laptop uses one of these backlights! 80 W power consumption -- OUCH!

  • Is it possible to use these in my home? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is it possible to replace regular light bulbs and floresents with these Luxeon Star LEDs? Better power savings and more stable white color, but what would the cost per light fixture be?
  • How does this improve the color of the lcd display? I thought that the purpose of a backlight just that, illumination just like that lamp on your desk not coloring. I guess if the led backlight has a better (ie more white) spectrum than a traditional backlight it would allow the colors of an lcd to show through more accuratly.

    And I think the switching rate would be 10Mhz not the 60Hz another poster mentioned.
  • I personally, think this is very worthy news. It affects everyone who uses LCD's. And I'm pretty sure that the majority of /. users have LCD's somewhere in their life. Think of all the time that your laptop is on, while you are writing down notes, reading a manual, etc. How many times have you wanted just 10 more minutes of battery time to finish something up? Many of you are questioning the relevance of LED's, but you have to remember that its the little things that count.
  • This page is well on its way to being hosed. Here's what I got off it.

    [BOF]
    LumiLeds Lighting Announces a Breakthrough LED Backlight Solution for LCD Monitors, Notebooks, and LCD Televisions.

    This solution offers larger color gamut, longer battery life and eliminates the last non-solid-state component in the display.

    San Jose, Calif. March 20, 2001

    LumiLeds Lighting, the leader in high flux, high powered LED (light emitting diode) technology, today announced a new solution for LCD display backlights that will quickly and dramatically change the LCD backlight industry.

    This LED backlight solution has been optimized around LumiLeds' new high flux LuxeonTM light sources and will enable a whole host of new features that are currently not available via conventional CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lamp) backlight technology. LumiLeds' LED backlights are the first solid-state solutions for medium to large LCD displays in the industry, immensely more durable than the fragile CCFL while eliminating EMI and mercury completely.

    The benefits to end-users are huge. The larger color gamut, up to 130% of NTSC in the backlight, will let the user enjoy an enhanced viewing experience with more saturated and real-life colors. The shade of red lipstick you purchased on the Internet and viewed on your LCD monitor will be the exact color red you receive in the mail.

    Color sequential technology enabled by a fast switching LuxeonTM light source, less than 100 nano seconds, will potentially result in a battery life that will allow you to leave your power adapters at home on a typical business trip.

    "We're extremely excited about our LED backlight technology", claims Mark Pugh, LumiLeds' VP of strategic marketing, "This solution will allow the LCD display market to go head-head with the incumbent CRT market and win on all performance fronts adding real value for the end user".

    LumiLeds is already working with LCD panel manufacturers for mass adoption and has targeted having LuxeonTM powered backlights on the market by the end of this year.

    About LumiLeds
    LumiLeds Lighting is the leader in high power LEDs, dedicated to developing innovative solid-state lighting solutions in the automotive lighting, traffic signaling, signage, and general lighting markets. The company is vertically integrated, producing core LED material, LED packaging, and light source solutions. LumiLeds is one of the few companies with LED material producing capabilities in all three base colors- Red, Green, Blue.
    LumiLeds Lighting, headquartered in San Jose, California, is a joint venture company between Agilent Technologies and Philips Lighting. LumiLeds maintains a global infrastructure including operations in Best, The Netherlands, Penang, Malaysia, and sales offices throughout the world.

    Note:
    Information in this release is accurate at time of release. However, product specifications and availability, promotions, prices, relationships, contact numbers and other specific information is subject to change over time. Information as stated in the release may or may not be in effect after the date of release.

    In addition, the news releases may contain statements that are forward-looking. These statements are based on current expectations as of the date of a particular release. Actual results may differ materially from those projected because of a number of risks and uncertainty.
    [EOF]
  • Isn't that kind of like saying your new car has better acceleration than a diesal Rabbit? NTSC doesn't have particularly good color fidelity last time I checked. Besides, I'd try to avoid associating color performance with NTSC[1] as much as possible from a pure stigma point of view.

    [1] Never The Same Color
  • that is took this long to get something like this working. LED flashlights have been around awhile...using clusters of super bright white LED's...the light usually has a minorly blue hue to it, but it's the damn coolest thing to see. I have a headlamp that I use for camping made with 3 of those LEDs in it (you can find stronger ones with more) and you can get about 40 hours of life from the thing on a pair of AA batteries...pretty sweet. (Lithium batteries give 100+!)

    The other cool thing about LED's is that if you run more of them at lower power levels, you actually get a more efficient light array out of it. Running them at half their rated power gives more than half the light of the max rated power. You can do some really efficient lighting if you really capitolize on that...and it even scales like that further down the power scale...Plus the buggers won't burn out for quite a few years.

  • What's the power usage of an LCD screen? I mean, it's great that we're cutting power usage to extend battery life, but I always thought that the hard drive and CD/DVD drives sucked up the most juice. Around where does the processor power usage fall into place?


    I'm just wondering if power saving in the LCD is really all that worth it. "You can leave your power adapters at home because your screen is more efficient!" Ummm... OK.


    In other news, at least they're getting the lead out.

  • Some Canon digicams already use LED backlights (Score:3, Informative)

    by phr1 ( 211689 ) on Thursday August 23, 2001 @05:35PM (#2211039)
    The S100/S110 and S300 Digital Elph digicams use white LED backlights. I'm not sure about the bigger models (G1, G2, Pro90IS). I have an S100 and the backlight is great. Good color, and none of the turn-on delay or flickering of fluorescent backlights. The LED's are at the edge of the screen, but the lighting is still pretty even. That may be because it's just a 2" digicam screen. I've been wondering for a while whether it would be a problem for bigger (laptop sized) screens.
  • Most LCD monitors are probably far beyond 130% better than NTSC. No big deal. They don't call it "Never The Same Color" for nothing.

    Being lower power than CCFL isn't impressive. I also would not want to buy a laptop that used a side-lighting system of any kind, be it fancy-dandy LED or CCFL, because side lighting systems simply can't illuminate the whole screen.

    LED side-lights have been around a long, long, long, long, long time. They are lower voltage than ccfl or EL, but both ccfl and led draw more amps than electro-luminescent backlighting.

    That being said, the reason not everything uses EL is because EL is *expensive. And sometimes it's not bright enough for the task. iPaqs appear to be CCFL side-lit, for instance, and are freakin bright. side-lighting works well on a pocket computer becaise the screen is small enough that it can be uniformly lit from the side.

    LCD technology has been improving every day, getting brighter and lower power. Maybe they've figured out a way to run a lot of white LEDs on only a little power, and this may presumably save you the cost and space of implementing an inverter to drive an EL or CCFL.

    But it sounds to me like the the major thing they're shooting for is cost savings. if you wanted bright on a real small screen you'd go CCFL, and if you wanted low power you'd go EL. this sounds like they've made LED side-lights better than they used to be, but I doubt they're as good as other technologies.

    I'd have to see a CCFL side-lit device right next to one that's been retrofitted with one of these fancy new LED side-lights before I'd advocate it from a quality-of-experience perspective.

  • All of these parameters that can be adjusted about the backlight... white point, brightness, color-cycling (ugh)....

    I'd only be happy with one of these if all three of those were user-adjustable (and that includes turning off the last one).
  • I see this as a boon for handheld gaming systems. Nintendo says that they didn't put a backlight on Gameboy Advance because of power requirements. Mayby they knew this was comming and so can produce another game system relese EVENT next year. I know I'd sell my Advance in a second and get a backlit one at even double the current price. I can only see mine in the bathroom on a sunny day... very lame of Nintendo.

    grimzap
  • Maybe I can finally get some decent backlighting for the Gameboy Advance ;-)
  • it seems to me that LCD backlighting will only be a short term application. other display technologies are coming out that don't require backlighting: LED (grid of diodes), EL (electro-luminescent) & FED (field-emission displays). all of these will be lower in power because no backlighting is required. however, what's cool about the LED stuff is that it emits white light (not a combination of RGB light). that means that a low-power/high-efficiency/long-life lightbulb is only a small prodcution step away. imagine a lightbulb lasting longer than one's childhood.

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