by Paul Semenza, Senior Vice President of North America & Europe
This year’s Consumer Electronics Show does not promise many breakthroughs in large-area LCDs and PDPs; most will be refinements of existing technology emphasizing thin form factors, LED backlighting, 120/240 Hz scanning, and green features.
There do appear to be some breakthroughs in emerging technologies, however. The most noticeable are pico-projectors: projectors small enough to be handheld, battery operated, and integrated into other devices. Texas Instruments was showing several different models, including Optoma’s very slim and lightweight device; Samsung’s MBP200, which has a microSD card slot for storing documents, pictures, and videos, and a QVGA LCD with touchpad controls; and the WowWee Cinemin Swivel, with a 90° hinge for projecting onto the ceiling.
But the most impressive example of integration of projection (and several other advanced display technologies) arrived in Las Vegas from Korea as the show was going on: the Samsung Show, a mobile phone with an integrated DLP projector. The camera phone, which is designed for the Korea market, is a candy bar form factor, and also has an active matrix OLED display with touch screen and haptic feedback, and is capable of receiving DMB-T digital broadcasts. It also appeared to have a videoconference capability.
Speaking of OLED, OQO-which has been developing and producing ultra-mobile computers for several years-showed their newest model, the 2+, which has a 5″ active matrix OLED (supplied by Samsung). It is based on the Intel Atom processor and also has a touch screen.
