Pico-projector: Projector on your mobile phone

Mobile cameras were the in-thing about 4 years back. Everyone dreamed of one but it remained a distant dream for financial reasons. And then it slowly trickled into the mainstream consumer market. Consumers have been overdosing on mobile phones cameras for a while now. Though the quality of the cameras in mobile phones are nowhere near those of discrete digital cameras, they have managed to find their way even into the low end market. Having become a casual feature, electronic giants are seeking new ways to keep the market alive with niche products and prevent phones from becoming a commodity item.

One such attempt that stands out is the mobile phone sized projection technology from Texas Instruments called the pico-projector. Pico-projector is a miniaturized version of TI's DLP (Digital Light processing) technology which is commonly used in semi-conductor chips that power modern day digital projectors commonly used in home theater setups. For more details on DLP check this Wikipedia article.

You might wonder how a projector on a mobile phone is going to help. Think about it, have you ever wished that the screen on your mobile phone was a little bigger. With new mobile phones capable of storing and playing full-length movies, there is a necessity for bigger screen for an immersive experience. However, there is a limit to how much trade off can be made between the size of the phone and its display capabilities. Here is where the pico-projector helps. Imagine being able to play a movie on your mobile phone and being able to watch it big size on a blank wall in your immediate location. Though there is an obvious disadvantage of having to find a blank wall, this is a really cool feature to have in a mobile phone.



The projector contains three lasers, a DLP chip and a power supply and comes in 1.5 inches length package. The best part is that it can beam a larger than mobile phone screen size DVD-quality video onto a wall, even in a widescreen format. TI demonstrated the technology on a dummy mobile phone enclosure at the CTIA Wireless 2007 show last month. All we have to do now is wait for this technology to show up in production phones and then trickle down to the mainstream market.

I can only imagine how much distraction this is going to be in a public location and probably the government will step in with regulations. But that is quite a distant event while we look forward to using this technology.