Occasionally i find myself questioning everyday technologies, especially how they acheive their goals. My current example is the use of backlighting on new televisions. In a well lit room why is it that we have to additionally power a light for the LCD screen rather than changing our image processing method to allow for more efficient use. Some people around my age may remember the "Game Boy Color" a small handheld device that made use of colour on an unlit LCD screen. It wasn't great but the battery life was phenominal and the software developers tweaked their work to meet the shortfalls of the technology.

The shortfalls of colourized LCD technology that were present in the 1990s have been overcome in newer technologies. Screens that allow us to switch between backlit and unlit modes, where the unlit mode makes use of a brighter and more reflective material - exponentially increasing the contrast ratio. Another unlit technology exists through the E-Ink displays. E-Ink displays have been popularized through the Amazon Kindle device, but the consumer market has yet to see a colourized E-Ink display. The colourized E-Ink display is rumoured to be complete, even so it may be difficult to get people to change how they choose to receive information as the display is still not suited to use for video.

I like to read, and slow refresh rate devices (like the E-Ink display) are well suited to that task. Though from time to time a refresh rate closer to human perceivable fluidity can be nice. Our culture has integrated video into our everyday lives to the point where countless productive hours of our lives are spent staring at a blinking box. I have one hope - that the box will stop blinking and we can save that energy for use in our factories - doing the work that we are not.