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Mobile phone projectors one step closer

Imagine a world where convergence has gone mad, and mobilephones can do pretty much anything. As technology improves, that world isalmost upon us. If Light Blue Optics has its way, mobile phones will soon havebuilt-in pico projectors so that we can enjoy video footage projected onto walls andscreens.

An industry-leading developer of holographic laser projection technology, Light Blue Optics (LBO), has announced that it has secured £12.7mmillion in funds to develop its portable mini-projectortechnology.

Founded in2004, LBO has developed an innovative holographic laser projection technologythat allows full colour, high-quality video images to be projected onto flat or curved surfaces. Eventually these projectors could be as small as a sugar cube - tiny enough to fit inside mobile devices like phones and portable video players.

LBO's novelapproach to projection delivers a unique combination of enabling featuresincluding an ultra-wide throw angle, in-built laser speckle reduction, infinitefocus, low power consumption, no moving parts and a robust design thatnaturally lends itself to miniaturisation and low-cost manufacture.

Light BlueOptics' CEO, Dr Chris Harris said, "The closure of this US$26 million fundinground will allow us to accelerate our product development and commercialisationprogramme towards the high-volume manufacture of miniature projection systems.

"LBO has world-beating technology, excellent customer traction across a widerange of markets, a strong investor syndicate and is ideally placed to become theworld's leading supplier of miniature projection systems," he said.

Of course LBO doesn't have it all its own way - Texas Instruments and MicroVision are also working on pico projector technology with partners that include Motorola, Mitsubishi, Samsung and Toshiba.