9th October - Television and internet on your mobile phone
is said to be the Next Big Thing. But there remains a glaring
contradiction: in the era of giant flat-screen televisions,
why would anyone want to squint at football or a movie on a
pocket-sized gadget?
The two leading handset manufacturers, Nokia and Motorola, are
spending millions of pounds to find an answer. One option is
to turn the mobile phone into a mini-film projector, capable
of shooting images on to a nearby wall or other surface, while
generating an accompanying soundtrack.
Nicolas Demassieux, director of European research at Motorola
Laboratories, said: 'It is in the labs at the moment but it
faces difficulties, mostly concerning battery power. It is
something we are exploring. In modern life you often have
screens around you. Maybe you use your phone to temporarily
take control of them in a secure way.'
One example would be watching content from your phone on
a plane's back-of-seat screen instead of the in-flight movie.
Nokia's researchers have designed a thin screen which can
be rolled up and stored compactly when not attached to a mobile.
Anssi Vanjoki, its general manager of multimedia, said: 'We
have a flexible LCD material in our labs which works in black
and white. It is a direction we are following but I cannot
promise it will be commercially available next year.'
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