Until now, battery life was the single most troublesome aspect of mobile communication / entertainment devices. Motorola (NYSE: MOT) is looking to change that. The Green Options Blog reports that Motorola engineer Zili Li has devised a strategy that promises to make those video displays on mobile devices self-powering, and the science has more than just promise. In the past, the nature of those mobile video screens has made them impervious to the level of light rays that would allow them to act as solar collectors. Motorola's answer , proposed by engineer Li, is to create LCD displays that only filter selected colors and wavelengths while allowing enough light energy through so that the display may gather and harness that energy. The best part is that Motorola has the patent (US 7206044) already in hand.

Motorola gives no indication when the technology might reach the consumer, but Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has already built a working 200-pixel-square prototype of a monochrome self-powering display. According to its inventor Zoran Radivojevic, the key to this device is the use of titanium dioxide nanoparticles both to generate the image and to harvest power from light. For now it seems that the Nokia concept remains "bimetric" in that it is indicated that the nanoparticles simply change from black to light -- black when power is applied from the internal power system and light when energy is being collected. In consideration of the fact that all our current digital displays are descendants of what were once simple bimetric displays (remember Pong?), it is no stretch of the imagination to think that very soon full-color digital displays will be gathering their own energy as well as powering entire devices.

We're sorry, Mr. Energizer Bunny, but keep your day job!