May 12, 2011 10:58 GMT  ·  By

When thinking of means to add brightness to a display or another, backlighting is one of, if not the first thing that crosses developers mind, but it looks like Qualcomm chose something else for its Mirasol product.

E-readers, nowadays, do use E Ink displays, but Qualcomm has a certain screen that offers more benefits while also supporting color.

The display is known as Mirasol and is known for its ability to become clearer the more ambient light there is.

This is a stark contrast to LCDs, which lose visibility the more intense external light, especially sunlight, becomes.

That said, Qualcomm's Mirasol is still in prototype, stage, even though information about it has been cropping up for months, with an e-reader-like device even put on show back at CES.

E-paper is famous for not needing backlight and looking and feeling like paper, to some extent, meaning that illumination would more or less defeat the purpose.

Then again, not having something of the sort would make it impossible to read it in low lighting conditions, unless a lamp is used.

As such, Qualcomm has now added an embedded front light to the Mirasol, which can be turned on and off at users' whim.

It also seems to evenly illuminate the whole surface of the panel, unlike clip-on solutions which don't really succeed in this.

Unfortunately, Mirasol displays aren't going to show up as part of e-book readers until fall, so users will have to do some waiting for the color panel. It is also unknown just which companies will adopt Mirasol over E Ink screens.

On the flip side, this will give the company enough development time to, maybe, finish that version of the screen that, with the aid of an ambient light sensor, can automatically turn the LEDs on or off when appropriate.