Projectors in gadgets: the next big thing?

Despite their small sizes, pico projectors pack quite a wallop, with some products capable of showing bright, 50-inch diagonal images on a wall or other surfaces.

For marketers, it opens up new territory in guerrilla outdoor advertising, or virtually any type of advertising where brands want their messages illuminated in four feet of shimmering glory.

This combination of small physical size and large image makes embedded projectors a perfect fit for space-constrained mobile devices.

And smart phones represent a promising market. Samsung fired the starting gun in this area with the unveiling of its Show smart phone at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January.

The show, which presently is only being sold in South Korea, employs Texas Instruments' Digital Light Processing (DLP) projection technology. Other smart phones equipped with pico projectors are likely to be introduced soon.

Nikon recently announced that it will ship its Coolpix S1000pj digital camera, which employs projection technology for the display of pictures and video this September.

iSuppli said projectors are likely to find initial acceptance in the corporate market, allowing business people to make presentations directly from their mobile PCs, smart phones or PDAs.

However, they also have a strong allure to consumers, allowing large-sized display of video, internet sites and applications.

Sanju Khatri, iSuppli principal analyst, said: "Mobile electronic devices offer consumers and corporate users the portability they desire, causing an increasing number of users to employ products like smart phones and netbook PCs as their primary platforms for computing and internet access.

"However, a major obstacle blocking the use of mobile devices in this fashion has been their tiny displays relative to desktop PCs. Embedded pico projectors promise to enlarge these displays, making mobile devices more capable as primary computing and internet access platforms."