Like many others, I long for the day when we have a display which does not shine light at your eyes from behind the screen. That is, a display that looks just like a sheet of paper, but capable of changing the picture that is on it. The natural way to accomplish this would be to place a transparent LCD screen on top of a white surface. I know, a white surface will appear white only if an adequate amount of light can be reflected off it and this might be hard to achieve if the white surface is behind the LCD layer. My question is whether this problem can be solved using the kind of light guide found in the Kindle Paperwhite. Can anyone please tell me why one cannot sandwich a light guide layer (which directs light from some LEDs on the edges onto the white surface --- and not towards the user) in between the white surface and LCD panel? Won't this be a display that does not make you look directly at a light source?
P.S.: I know this does not make a display that is sunlight-readable or more energy efficient than current LCD displays. But I would still like to know if this is even possible.