3M Mobile Projector for Smartphones, Cameras, Multimedia Players Unveiled at CES

A projector that’s tiny enough to fit inside mobile phones, digital cameras, multimedia players and other small gadgets is being demonstrated at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas this week.

The projector from optical equipment maker 3M and Taiwan’s Himax Technologies uses an LED as a light source and can project images from mobile devices in VGA (video graphics array) resolution (640 pixels by 480 pixels) and it’s about four centimeters tall, three centimeters wide and one centimeter in thickness, according to the IDG News Service. The projector produced decent resolution when it was demonstrated inside a small, flash-based handheld at a distance of half a meter away from the projection surface, but image quality suffered when it was moved further away due to the lighting conditions inside the conference facility, IDGNS reports.

“We believe that embedding projectors into mobile devices is the future,” said Mike Kelly, 3M executive vice president, in a release.

This gizmo could be particularly valuable to businesspeople who often give presentations to small groups. At CIO.com, I’m visited frequently by vendors looking to tout new products or services—in fact, I’ve got a meeting with Motorola in about 20 minutes—and a mini projector would be great for the types of PowerPoint presentations they usually bring along. Typically, we all just hang over the presenter’s laptop and peer across a table or desk at the small screen.

No pricing information or expected release dates were noted in the companies’ press release.

3M’s mobile projector is the third mobile gadget or service announced at CES that I’ve blogged about this week—first I wrote about SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry and then about two mobile printers—and the show runs through tomorrow so it very well may not be the last. So check back at the Mobile WorkHorse blog soon.