News from the pico projector

Now even leading companies in mobile communications industry rely on the pico projector technology. The market launch of a pico projector from Samsung is likely to be imminent. Sony Ericsson on the other hand patented a special technique for the pico projector.

In recent months we reported several from developments at the pico projector. Since our last report, there was more news from the industry. Here is an update.

Samsung micro projector MBP-100

The micro projector can be connected to each of Samsung’s mobile phones. He delivers a picture diagonal of up to 20 inches.

micro projector MBP-100 by Samsung (youtube video)

Still there are no further technical details and information on the price available. The launch of the product will be in March 2008 in Korea.

Auto focus for pico projector
Even at Sony Ericsson they are already thinking about the future with pico projectors in their mobile phones. They presented no device with pico projector yet, but filed a patent for the technology.

Image from the patent specification from Sony Ericsson

Sony Ericsson wants to use the built-in camera in the mobile phone analyse the image, produced by the pico projector. With this technology focus, brightness and contrast of the projector should automatically adapt to the particular circumstances.

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The future of lighting is organic

LEDs are now considered as pioneering technology on the market in the field of lighting. Now the revolutionary development of OLED (organic light emitting diods) could succeed the LED technology.

We reported on OLEDs in connection with future display technologies in October last year. With the possibility putting single-coloured OLEDs on large carrier materials in any form, the application as a novel light source gets very interesting. The list of companies in connection with OLED lighting research and development gets longer day by day. Companies such as Philips Lighting, OSRAM, BASF, Merck and Applied Materials are closely involved in research for the OLED technology.

Transparent OLED lighting panel

In December 2007 OSRAM introduced a transparent OLED prototype. New applications with light and interior design got imaginable. At daytime the transparent panel lets the day's light through, while at nightfall the panel itself starts shining.

transparent OLED panel by OSRAM (source)

Outlook
By 2013 experts reckon with a more than 100% increase in energy efficiency and lifetime of OLEDs compared to 2007, while halving the manufacturing price. Japanese market research institutes expect by 2015 an increase in the market share of OLEDs to 25% of the total lighting market.

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Multi-touch interface at CNN newsroom

For reporting on the US presidential primaries CNN used the multi-touch technology from Perceptive Pixel.

A multi-touch system similar to that of Microsoft (as reported in November 2007) was installed in the CNN newsroom.

multi-touch system at CNN (youtube video)

According to CNN, the main advantage of this technology is, that complicated matters for the prediction of the election result could be visualized very easy. For example, pie charts got adjusted by hand movement to show the impact on the final result.

A detailed report about this system on washingtonpost.com.

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