3M has announced a projection engine that’s less than half an inch thick (see left) that’s designed for such products as cellular phones. The LED device can display images that are 40 inches or larger and is scheduled to be available in products early this year, according to the company’s press release.
“Each engine uses an advanced liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) electronic imager in conjunction with proprietary 3M optics technology,” the release says. It can project images with VGA resolution. 3M will be showing the device at the Consumer Electronics Show.
An article in Gizmodo notes that Texas Instruments and Microvision also are developing projectors for portable devices. Microvision, for example, has been showing prototypes of projectors that work when attached to cellular phones (see below).
Projectors certainly could help solve the problem of viewing photos and videos on tiny cellular phone screens. I’m sure this would be an enormous hit with users for both consumer and business applications.
However, a lot of work still needs to be done, both integrating projectors inside phones as well as ensuring the battery life isn’t reduced to ten minutes!
Update (1/7/08): The New York Times reports that Microvision is showing an “advanced prototype” of its standalone Pico Projector that the company hopes will be commercially available by the end of 2008.
Standalone projectors that must be connected to, for example, a phone will be used first by businesses. Most consumers won’t want to carry around a projector, especially if it’s hundreds of dollars, as I assume it will be.
But once capabilities are integrated into phones — and the quality is “good enough” to see photos and videos — the early adopters will snap them up.
a nice article , i had fun reading it and i am looking forward to get some more stuff like this .
Posted by: electronic white board | January 01, 2009 at 05:42 AM