Unwired: The tiny screen problem

Unwired: The tiny screen problem

Can we reconcile the need for better, bigger screens and greater mobility?

By Richard Leyland
Published: Tuesday 12 December 2006

It's a major battleground for technology vendors in both business and consumer electronics: printers, fax machines, copiers and scanners are converging into the multi-functional device (MFD).

The converged mobile phone has been a roaring success and the humble handset can now include a 5 megapixel camera, MP3 player and FM radio. The ultra-mobile PC is bridging the gap between smart phone and laptop. The video iPod is well established. The Sony Mylo is the handheld media player which your children covet, with wi-fi, Skype and instant messaging built in, reaching our shores during 2007. Apple has the IT world holding its breath braced for the possible arrival of the iPhone.

Advances in wireless technology, particularly the emergence of wi-fi and 3G, have provided added impetus to device convergence, as we seek the most convenient tools to carry with us. In the future, mobile WiMax promises to envelop whole cities in ultra-fast wireless coverage, moving us towards 'always-on' ubiquitous connectivity.

As our converged devices have become smaller, tech vendors have been battling some weighty but very basic problems: computing power has been limited, battery life has been poor, keyboards have been small and difficult to use, and the screens as they get smaller have become hard to read and even harder to interact with.

So what is being done to address this screen size problem?

One solution is to switch to projection: throwing an image against whatever surfaces are available. Today's projectors are generally bulky, immobile boxes, inefficient at projecting over short distances. Projectors are becoming smaller, with a wide variety of the optimistically named 'pocket projectors' now available, but these are still totally unsuitable for true mobility.

Now the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany has created a video projector the size of a match box, designed for mobile phones, PDAs and laptops. The miniature projector is just 16mm by 9mm.

Traditional projectors use millions of tiny mirrors to project the image but this prototype projector uses a single tiny mirror. A laser is fired at this mirror which vibrates at high frequency and reflects the laser, forming the image. At present the projector can only produce red and blue, as green laser diodes aren't yet small enough to fit the tiny housing, meaning that images still have a limited colour range.

A benefit of laser-based projection is that it can be used to project onto curved surfaces. True mobile working is an ad-hoc business, and any projector and connected device combination would need to project onto everyday surfaces - in coffee shops, on trains, etc.

Microvision is the exclusive commercial partner of Fraunhofer IPMS for 2D MEMS scanners targeted for display and certain imaging applications. Microvision will be demonstrating our next-generation full-color ultra-miniature Picoprojector during the 2007 CES show in Las Vegas in early January.