It's back to nature for Qualcomm and other companies. They're promoting a radically new breed of screens for cellphones and other handheld devices. The new screen technology allows cellphones to stay on all day without draining battery life. With the new technology, the new screens don't need to be backlit. Instead, they'd rely on the sun's light or movement by liquids inside the screen for illumination.

Backlights are like vampires that suck 90% of the power supplied to the display, and the display itself eats up 30% or even more of the phone's overall energy. Liquavista came up with liquid-filled screens to address this issue. Here's how it works: Each pixel contains water and a droplet of dyed oil. When an electric charge is applied to the outside surface of the pixel, it becomes hydrophilic. The water is attracted to the surface, forcing the oil to the side and making the pixel take on the color of the lower surface of the pixel. When the charge is reversed and the surface becomes hydrophobic, the pixel takes on the color of the dyed oil.

Qualcomm, on the other hand is trying to market the iMod screen to cellphone manufacturers. With the iMod screen, the phone creates images that become visible when sunlight or ambient artificial lights hits the screen. In dimly-lit places, an integrated light does the work to brighten up the screen, but with less energy consumption.

The first batch of iMod screens show info in black, white and gray, but future iMods will have color displays capable of showing videos.

The technology is currently being tested on handheld devices, but is expected to be used in notebooks in the near future.