Now what would you say if we were to tell that you’ll have a projector in your pocket within a couple of years?
Well the technology and patents are already in place – and just in case you need more convincing, Apple appear to be leading the charge.
The technology is already in place with Alp Electric, who have created a tiny lens measuring 1mm x 1mm, which is barely the size of the tip of mechanical pencil lead.
The tech is usually used for transmitting communication data in a similar way to fibre optic cables, but it could feasibly make the jump to projection in mobile phones and other devices.
Alp Electric are testing future devices that could project onto a wall as large as 60-inches, in full HD resolutions.
The main issue at the moment is heat. Projectors are famous for running extremely hot, so Apple would need to come up with a way of getting around this.
Apparently Alps’ latest aspherical lens, the FLGS3, has a high coupling efficiency (measure of light transmission efficiency) of 73% over the previous 68%. What that means is you need less light to gain the same level of brightness. Less light means less power and less heat.
This is not the first time that Apple and others have been looking at this new technology. As far back in 2009 Apple first hinted they would one day integrate a projector system into iOS devices.
Then in 2010 a broad patent application surfaced concerning networked projection systems and later that year research teams began working on integrating a projector into a MacBook.
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