It's here! The Pico Projector mobile phone

The advent of handheld Pico Projectors created a buzz throughout 2008 and although they make very useful stand alone devices, we've been eagerly awaiting their integration into mobile phones. We wait no longer. Samsung has produced the first cell phone featuring Texas Instrument's DLP Pico chipset and like the mobile phone camera - which not so long ago was seen as the "latest thing" - we can expect to see tiny projectors quickly become a standard addition to mobile phone features.

TI's tiny Digital Light Processing (DLP) chipset is now being used in around a dozen handheld devices such as Optoma's PICO pocket projector. They offer the obvious benefits of being able to escape the shackles of small screen viewing while you are out and about. Integration into cell phones is the next logical step.

The Samsung Show is being released in Korea, but there's no word yet on when it might be introduced into other markets. We haven't yet received confirmed specs, but an OLED screen, 5 MP camera and haptic feedback we're among the key attributes of the prototype on display at CES 2009. Mike Guillory from TI was kind enough to give us a demo - see the video below.

Noel McKeegan