Cell Phone with Built-in Projector

karvind writes "Siemens researchers have developed a cell phone featuring a built-in projector system. A laboratory model was presented at CeBIT 2005 in Hanover. The system makes it possible to project a complete keypad or display onto a surface. With a special pen, users can write on the virtual keypad and operate the phone's functions. Other projection keyboard concepts can be found here and here"

Comments

Re:hard to type

[zenneth]

All they'd need to do would be to incorporate some type of thin glove with specially-padded fingertips to get around the hard-surfaced keyboard.

But imagine laying in bed and have your phone ring and project the Caller-ID info onto your wall or ceiling so you would/wouldn't have to get out of bed.

That'd be sweet.

Tangible Tools

[Doc Ruby]

Most of our motor skills require a tool to be really skillful. Because tools react to our actions, and our minds require feedback to interact with things. This projector requires a pen, which looks superfluous, but which will certainly help accuracy and counter the frustration of pushing fingers against an actually blank, flat, smoot surface like a tabletop. But it's kinda big, and has only limited gestures: press and stroke. How about a thin rubber sheet, maybe 0.1mmx10x10cm, with a textured pattern, that the phone projects onto? A video sensor next to the projector (with the phone standing upright, rather than that huge swivel projector) watches the fingertips, like existing projection keyboards. Our fingers will work the surface a lot more nimbly when it reacts. A later generation can cover the sheet with rubberized piezo actuators, or stacked MEMs, for a truly interactive surface. The sheet could be rolled up into the side of a hollow stylus used for more precise pointing when necessary. Make it cheap enough to replace several times a year, and the whole thing starts looking like a real tool, instead of a picture of a tool.

As long as I'm writing SF, how about the MEMs sheet un/rolling itself from the stylus? And including sensors, rather than a video sensor? Or the phone with a fiberoptic jack for projecting the interface image through the sheet itself? Somebody gimme a budget!