Innovating for the environment:

We're more reliant than ever on our mobile devices, but battery life remains a problem. Improvements in battery capacity simply haven't kept pace with ever-more-powerful processors.

Researchers have come up with an answer for mobile devices that not only reduces power usage but enhances usability as well. Targeting one of the main culprits of battery consumption – the display – they've developed an energy-aware solution that dims parts of the screen not in use.

These displays adapt their energy consumption based on user interest – lighting up only the lines of text being read, for example. The result: display battery life is increased two-fold to four-fold and, in some cases, even up to twenty-fold.

Today's digital displays are heavy, fragile and expensive. They lack the resolution, flexibility and portability of paper. And they require lots of energy – both to manufacture and run.

We are developing low-cost, lightweight, portable displays that could one day match paper – or possibly even replace it. Besides enabling devices that are lighter than laptops and provide a more user-friendly browsing experience, these have the potential to reduce both paper use and waste because it is possible to ‘print’ many images to a single paper-like display.

Such displays could one day be used to produce newspapers, documents, books, billboards and other types of printed materials. We're particularly interested in displays that are reflective -- meaning they can use ambient light rather than having to generate their own light.

In addition, we are developing ways to 'print' these displays on plastic, with novel manufacturing technologies that would use less energy, produce less waste, and are less expensive than existing methods.