Pico projectors may be next big mobile trend
By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 13 January 2010, 15:28 IST   |    1 Comments
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Pico projectors may be next big mobile trend
Las Vegas: With a prediction of having projectors in all the mobiles, Microvision's Director of Communications Matt Nichols sees the first prototypes of gadgets with embedded Microvision pico projectors later this year, and expects the first commercial products sometime next year, reports Reuters. At CES which ends on Sunday, when different types of large flat-screen TVs were available, Microvision is putting their bets on image viewing of a much smaller scale: projections from devices as tiny as cellphones. Microvison and companies like Texas Instruments and 3M promise strong prospects for pico at the Las Vegas show Microvision showed off a stand-alone projector that looked like a big bar of soap and projected crisp video images using laser technology. Its big hope is to embed the technology in a range of consumer electronics including cameras and phones. Nichols said, "My feeling is that ultimately the phone is the largest opportunity and we are in talks dozens of potential customers including phone makers. I expect the phone market to explode in the same way that cameras have quickly become a must-have component in cellphones." Texas Instruments, a major supplier of application chips for phones, has its pico projectors embedded in several commercial devices including dedicated mini-projectors and two phones from Samsung Electronics, the latest of which was demonstrated at CES. Frank Moizio, Manager for Texas Instruments' pico business said, "Everybody is just completely jazzed about pico projectors. I don't know what that translates into in volume. We hope it will be high." Since phones already have so many bells and whistles, such as multitouch screens, cameras and music and video players, some analysts question how much room there is to add more components. But Ovum's Jonathan Yarmis said that pico technology has a huge potential because it solves the problem of video viewing on tiny cellphone screens. Others like wireless industry consultant Cheetan Sharma see the mini-projectors turning up in cameras, allowing photographers to share snapshots, before becoming popular in cellphones.

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