New technology offers large screen on a small device

Neochroma is a concept that has the potential to solve the conundrum of mobile phones, cameras, PDAs and other small devices needing screens larger than the device itself. It borrows heavily from the iconic billion-selling View-Master which was the first device to offer 3-D imagery to the public in 1939 and ironically may find a new lease of life in the digital era by offering a high resolution, large screen stereoscopic image projected to each eye. NeoChroma’s inventor Patrick Amaru believes the small, low-cost, lightweight Neochroma viewer could be built into a mobile phone or digital camera or created as an attachment. As a platform for location-based services, NeoChroma has the added advantage of being ideal for maps and other navigational systems too, so with the growing need for cheaper, high resolution minidisplays we think this German invention has a viable future in a range of mobile devices.

Amaru says, “the big gamble is whether display technology will continue to evolve as quickly as it did over the last five years. Five years ago, the Nokia 7110 screen was about the best you could get. My bet is that it will - and that it won't cost much to implement Neochroma with VGA or larger resolutions in the near future.”

“Right now, a phone with VGA screen - the Sharp 904 - is available on the Japanese market.

“As Neochroma halves the resolution, you get 480x320 pixels for each eye, better than many personal media players today, but much cheaper to produce.

The image can be flat, of course, but it can also be stereoscopic if it has been created accordingly.

Amaru’s White Paper on NeoChroma technology can be downloaded here. He is seeking development partners in the project and can be contacted here.