Mobiles - the Big Picture?

Those searching for the new big thing at the recent Consumer Electronics Jamboree in Las Vegas will have found mainly large, flat screen TVs. However, nudging along behind them were a series of smaller devices offering the ability to project images onto walls or screens. There are still very few actual pico-projectors on the market but three major movers in this area: Microvision, Texas Instruments and 3M were proudly displaying their wares in Vegas.

Microvision's stand-alone projector is no bigger than a mobile phone and can throw out a crisp video image using laser technology. The US-based company hopes to install its system into handheld consumer devices such as cameras and phones. The company is reportedly in talks with several mobile device manufacturers and hopes that some prototypes carrying its technology will make it onto the market sometime next year. Within five years, Microvision believes all mobiles will house pico-projectors.

For its part, chip-maker, Texas Instruments, has its pico projectors embedded in several devices that are already commercially available - these include two mobile phones made by Korean company Samsung Electronics.

However, some reporters and analysts making their way home from the gambling capital of Nevada said they believed the pico-projectors will be more popular in cameras and laptops before making it into the mobile world. It appears the race is on.