Motorola to turn cellphones into video projectors

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 05 August 2007 11:19

Business IT - Technology

Motorola has teamed up with Microvision to develop a mobile phone that can double as a video projector.

Motorola will leverage Microvision's ultra-miniature laser-based display engine, called PicoP, which according to Microvision is expected to enable a 'big screen' viewing experience from mobile devices.

Microvision suggests that, by projecting content displayed on the device screen onto a wall, object or even a curved surface, mobile users could share web sites or multimedia applications such as movies, personal videos, mobile TV, photographs, and presentations.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, however the companies revealed they will work together initially to integrate Microvision's latest PicoP projector inside a functioning mobile device for demonstration purposes. This prototype handset will use Microvision's new, WVGA (854 x 480 colour pixels) wide angle scanner, first demonstrated in May 2007 at the Society of Information Display annual conference.

In Microvision's PicoP technology three primary colour - red green and blue - lasers are modulated individually and combined to create a single beam of light that is able to represent the colour and intensity of every point on the image. The image is then built up by shining this light onto a micro mirror which is rotated on two axes so as to cause the beam to scan in a series of horizontal lines, thus building up complete image in a similar fashion to the cathode ray tube used until recently in TV sets.

Microvision claims it is small enough and low power enough to be embedded directly into mobile devices, but capable of producing full colour, high-resolution images.

The technology can be used for large image projection onto a wall, or direct into the retina of they eye, or for a heads-up display in a vehicle. More details can be found here .