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Friday, September 01, 2006

High-Definition TV from your Cell Phone

Continued from page 1

By Kevin Bullis

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A key challenge for the fiber-based systems will be keeping manufacturing costs down. In the past, researchers have typically tried to make such devices purely out of silicon to take advantage of inexpensive manufacturing.

Adding carbon fibers to the mix could increase costs. With this in mind, Thompson and Shayaan Desai, a doctoral student at Cornell who was key to creating the device, developed a manufacturing method that uses traditional silicon fabrication until the final steps, introducing the carbon fibers only at the end of the process.

Still, the process is not yet reliable enough for large-scale manufacturing. (In the demonstration system they placed the fibers manually). Wu says success will depend on how much new infrastructure manufacturers have to install to incorporate the fibers.

Thompson says a prototype projector should be ready within a year, with commercial products, developed by their startup, Mesmeriz, in Ithaca, NY, likely possible in three to five years.

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Comments

  • Handheld Electronic Displays
    BartStuck on 09/01/2006 at 7:39 AM
    Posts:
    1
    Interesting article, but you should have covered more startups, including Pixtronix, which has arguably the best overall display of any startup
    Rate this comment: 12345
  • Who wants an Integrated Laptop Projector?
    briang1621 on 09/01/2006 at 9:17 PM
    Posts:
    50
    Avg Rating:
    4/5
      The number of possibly applications for a cheap (lower than $50) small size (wallet or cell phone size) projector technology are impressive, like projectors for cell phones, PDAs, in store advertising devices, laptops, not to mention creating a new type of portable TV.  Of course, the premise here is that nothing more than a three color laser pen and a small set of optics and driver electronics will be needed to create a (MLD) projector.
    However, the development time for high volume production will be length (3+ years).  Regardless, I see the development and commercializing of these Micro-Laser-Displays (MLDs) or Intra-LP (Integrated Laser Projector) as another promising result of the research in the MEMs Field.
         Brian Glassman
    Rate this comment: 12345
  • More Immersion Please
    Phineas on 09/04/2006 at 5:27 AM
    Posts:
    52
    Avg Rating:
    2/5
    Cheap video glasses that give high definition display would be the answer. I know that these were attempted by several companies in the recent past and they never made it to market for the masses. Ideally, the glasses would use little power, compensate for vision deficits and incorporate 3D.

    Those who are familiar with the hurdles will rail at my naivety, but someday they will be as common as Dick Tracey's wrist radio.
    Rate this comment: 12345
  • "It's the mirrors......"
    JNo on 11/14/2006 at 1:50 PM
    Posts:
    3
    The concept is a great selling point, however, will the resolution be that much of a difference taking into account how much more the price would be. Stating this, however, gaming would be much better and movies and TV. This is just another example of how the consumer will buy anything that sounds like a step forward to the future.
    Rate this comment: 12345
    • Re: colbert
      420 on 11/14/2006 at 1:53 PM
      Posts:
      3
      Avg Rating:
      2/5
      Josh has a very valid point in this debate. The HD phone sounds like a good upgrade. Some things that Josh left out is that this new phone would increase talk time and talk clarity. It is expensive however but that doesnt matter to the modern consumer, buy buy buy is all they think. The gaming will be enhanced and the movies and TV will be very clear and precise.
      Rate this comment: 12345
  • tv phone
    kkangmin3 on 11/14/2006 at 2:14 PM
    Posts:
    2
    Lots of koreans already watch the tv through their cell phone. It already common things in korea. They can watch the tv in subway, bus, their car and train. Also many cell phone company provide tv resource without money. So we can get the informations quickly. Also we can get the information everywhere. 
    Rate this comment: 12345
  • clementi
    aclem88 on 11/15/2006 at 2:25 PM
    Posts:
    2
    high def tv from my phone would be dank, but would i have cable? I think not. i believe what they should be trying to do right now is allow cable television to be played on my phone. The costs of this high def screen will be outrageous and not worth the money. Plus, this is supposed to come out 3 to 5 years from now? that is not going to help. the japanese probably have high dev dvd players in their phones. these americans need to step their game up and stop acting smart.
    Rate this comment: 12345
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