After the last post we did discussing the possibilities of pico projectors amongst groups in society I got to thinking about more specific technologies that would do well to embed pico projectors. This isn’t anything new on this blog, we are always thinking pretty much this same question – “how will pico projectors improve peoples lives”, with interest in the market, technology developments and all the stuff related to optical technology thrown in for good measure. Ultimately if we can work out what we would do best using pico-projectors for then we will help progress the real adoption of these miniature wonders.

The video phone then, first big in science fiction – never really worked in reality. Well in fact it was fairly well adopted, 3g really was the beginning – with a bandwidth on mobile phones which realistically allowed the devices to transmit and receive video through the air. Skype and softwares like NetMeeting allow it to happen with ease over a broadband connection via 2 pc’s but displays are usually quite ample at providing a visual representation of a face to a communicating party. Mobiles however offer little more than a tiny screen (note the bigger screen mobiles such as the apple iphone do not do video calling.)

So perhaps after this muted success the first time round, and utilising the improvements both in carrier networks, data transfer rates and ultimately pico projector embedding video calling could come back? Big time? It could make for an interesting new aspect to phoning at least – staring at a wall seeing a lifesize version of your friends face as you chat to them, or seeing something that your friend is looking at live. It would almost be like kitting up every person with a mobile phone to be an individual broadcast unit – capable of providing live video across the globe.

Whether or not this catches on is to be seen, but I can definitely see myself having a go So mobile phone producers – keep at it – Embed better and better pico projectors in your phones and just see how well it catches on !