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How cool is this -- at CES, LG is going to be showing off a 14.1-inch LCD panel that is lit by sunlight. No, it's not solar powered, it's actually illuminated by the sun. Instead of using the backlight, when outdoors, why not just harness the sun?

With the touch of a button, these screens can be switched from a selective reflection mode to a transmissive mode when you're away from the sun.

How much energy will this save?

The display uses one-quarter of the energy in the sunlight mode than the conventional backlight mode. Considering that this technology (if you didn't figure it out already) is designed for laptop computers, anything to increase battery life is a good thing.

When used in the reflective mode, the contrast ratio exceeds 9:1. Not great, but compared to the 2:1 or 3:1 a transmissive LCD gets outdoors in bright light, it's pretty impressive. Now, if the sunlight-illuminated laptop was also solar powered, I would be really impressed. -Leslie Shapiro

TWICE