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Cell Phone with Built-in Projector

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the almost-practical-now dept.

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"

32 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. That's not a projector. by VJTod · · Score: 4, Funny

    I want a 1280x1024 projector. They're just projecting a keyboard.

    1. Re:That's not a projector. by Lispy · · Score: 5, Funny

      and I want a small Princess Leia on my desk: "Help me Obi-Wan Keinobi, you're our only hope..."

  2. hard to type by alatesystems · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Anyone who has ever used these type of keyboards knows you need a completely steady surface, it needs to be semi-dark so you can see the keyboard, and it hurts the hell out of your fingers to type on a non-giving surface.

    None of these aspects are well-suited for portable typing. I want a SELMA hologram for my portable electronics interaction.

    1. Re:hard to type by zenneth · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      The Chronic *WHAT* les of Narnia!
    2. Re:hard to type by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I want a SELMA hologram for my portable electronics interaction.
      Holy crap, +5 obscure reference.

      That was a good show, too. Wonder what happened to it.
    3. Re:hard to type by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      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.

      I just press the silence button.

    4. Re:hard to type by hgavin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I tried out the Canesta projection keyboard at the Symbian expo in London two years ago. The keyboard was projected using a laser, and was perfectly visible in the artificial light of the exhibition hall. The keyboard generally worked well, and was linked bia Bluetooth to a Sony Ericsson P800.

      The real drawback of these devices in my opinion is the lack of tactile feedback - until the character appears on the screen you don't know whether you've hit the key correctly. It's fine for hunt-and-peck typing, but touch-typists have trouble with them.

  3. Giant Keyboard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    How far does this thing project? Can I set it up across the room and have giant keyboard that I can jump around on, like in Big?

    1. Re:Giant Keyboard by Hannah+E.+Davis · · Score: 5, Funny
      Let's hope not...

      Think about it: a keyboard you can jump on, plus long and annoying ringtones. Do we really need a cellphone version of DDR?

  4. too clunky... by kebes · · Score: 4, Insightful

    TFA claims:
    "At first glance, the mobile phone looks exactly like a conventional cell phone."

    ...but I disagree. It looks big and clunky. Frankly I don't think this feature is worth the added bulk, cost, complexity, and battery-usage. This will remain a gimmick until it can be integrated seemlessly into current cellphones, and more importantly, until the interface is actually smooth and efficient.

    1. Re:too clunky... by danila · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I am amazed at your studpidity, kebes. What you are saying is essentially "the feature is useless and will remain a gimmick until it works perfectly". May be you were not aware of it, but all new technologies go through these stages. First DVD players were bulky, expensive and there were no DVDs to play on them. First mobile phones, for fuck's sake, weighted several kilos and were carried around in a briefcase. Of course this is a prototype - have you seen any phones with projectors before? Of course, it is not perfect - it is just a prototype. Would you prefer companies keeping all their concept products secret? No one expects customers to buy these phones en masse. But if there is some interest, the technology will be developed further and eventually perfected.

      You don't seem to understand any of this and act as if your groundless and irrational bashing has some merit. It doesn't. Your comment is 100% content-free and in the future, please kindly think before typing anything on the keyboard in front of you. Thank you.

      --
      Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
  5. Stupid idea.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    This has got to be the stupidest cell phone idea of the year!

    So you'd have to hold the rather klungy cellphone still near a suitable surface and plug the projected keyboard with a thick bluetooth pen? Why not just use morse code by panging your head agaist the wall?

    Bluetooth foldable keyboard is a much better choice.

  6. pen operated or can I touch type? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    In this concept a virtual touch typist demonstrates he can type directly on a laser-projected keyboard, but this newer concept indicates that a special pad and pen are required. What happened? This was hot a couple years ago...

  7. Awesome by Rolling_Go · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wait, no, my bad.

    Also what do you really need a projected keyboard on your cell phone for? Is it really that time consuming to put in a new contact with your keypad, or are people writing 20 page business reports and stuff on them? I'm getting too old for this shit.

    --
    sup
  8. mobile? by orson_of_fort_worth · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Very nice technology and all but it requires the user to be stationary, kind of defeating the purpose of a mobile phone.

  9. Wrong direction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If they are going to build a projector into a cell phone, then it needs to display the screen on the wall, not a keyboard on a desk. I've long wondered why no one has integrated a projector into a laptop.

  10. Cell Phone bloat! by bogaboga · · Score: 2, Insightful
    What I observe is what I call cell phone bloat. Much as I'd like to send my photo to my loved ones once a while, I resent the idea that these gadgets are no longer produced in their simplest terms as it once used to be.

    Here in Canada, major Telcos charge exorbitantly just for the previledge of being able to send and/or view video. These are features that users do not use that much. How many of you send photos via their cell phones on a regular basis?

    Now one sees projectors...next will be God knows what...! Maybe it's because I am in Canada and being charged unfairly. What is the experience of others?

  11. New excuse by Solder+Fumes · · Score: 4, Funny

    If I project this onto my lap, maybe I'll get fewer odd looks on the airplane.

  12. Yeah, right by roman_mir · · Score: 3, Funny

    First thought: ta da ta da ta da ta da ta da ta da ta da ta da - Batmaaaaaan. Communicate with symbols projected into the sky.

    Second though: wow, I will have to walk around with two suitcases full of batteries.

    no dice.

    --
    You can't handle the truth.
  13. They've almost got it now. by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is so very close. I want a color projector at minimum 640x480 resolution that I can project on a wall, and a laser projector that will draw a keyboard for me. I want this stuff in a phone, which can be the size of a PDA, and which should have a decent screen on it as well. Provided there is a decent system for writing programs for the phone, that's the convergence device I'll pay for. (Got to have a camera and mp3 player too.) Granted it'll probably be the size of a small palmtop but I want to have all of these devices in one so I don't have to carry around a bunch of stuff. Really I think they could make it not much larger than an iPod as long as it used flash storage.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  14. Re:advantage to typing on hard surfaces by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 2, Funny

    iu leaefbnt rto tyyoper luikwe thast niow i havbe teree treuynk fingfeers.

    mno adcverrsde efdfexcts ghere!"

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
  15. What a waste of time by cliffski · · Score: 2, Insightful

    can't 'researchers' come up with something useful? That trevor bayliss guy who invented the clockwork radio, now THAT is inventing. These are just lab-monekys churning out cool trinkets for rich kids. Arent there things to invent that satisfy a real need amongst consumers who arent tech-obsessed rich kids?

    --
    DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
  16. The phone itself is badly designed. by AtariAmarok · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Like many cell phones, the phone itself is badly designed to make it difficult to do basic things like enter phone numbers. Something that should be a "no-brainer" like having a standard right-angle array of the phone numbers is lost on them. Why have the 7 key located way above the left key so you have to look at the keys in order to figure out where they are? (The Nokia N- Gage is one of the worst examples of this: it is like the intentionally went out of their way to make it useless as a phone).

    Maybe the projection system could make up for this by projecting a standard number button array so it can be used. However, it would be a lot simpler if they used a standard number array on the phone itself.

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
  17. Tangible Tools by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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!

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  18. Projecting Selma by AtariAmarok · · Score: 2, Funny

    So, do you project her in full 5'9" size? Does the projecter belch Laramie smoke to make the virtual experience more real? There are unshaven bikini-clad images available, too.

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
  19. Re:Speech recognition? by AndroidCat · · Score: 2, Funny
    As opposed to "tea, earl grey, hot".

    Yeah, what's the point of that? It'll just deliver a cupful of liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. (Or it'll just get it completely wrong and connect you with El Tigré Hutt.)

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  20. Ah, but the service providers... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... like Verizon will want this disabled - for your own protection of course!

    To use this virtual interface, you'll need to subscribe to Verizon's easy-write(TM) service. It's only $4.99 a month!

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  21. Minesweeper anyone? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Funny

    If your cell phone can project a game of Minesweeper onto the bathroom wall...

    PHB: Why are you spending so much time in the bathroom?

    Peon: Uh... none of your business.

    PHB: Why were you tapping on the stall walls for?

    Peon: If you were stuck up like me, you're be tapping the walls too.

    PHB: Why did you yell "You bastard!" when I walked by?

    Peon: Hey! Can't a guy take a difficult dump around her?

    PHB: Not in this company!

  22. I stand corrected by flowerp · · Score: 2, Informative

    It is an Israeli company who invented the virtual
    keyboard.

    http://www.globes.co.il/DocsEn/did=875104.htm

    --
    --- Eat my sig.
  23. i want a cell phone with a built in death ray by multiplexo · · Score: 2, Funny
    projectors, who's going to use that? But a death ray! That would be cool! Of course I also want to be the only person allowed to have a cell phone with a built in death ray because the rest of you can't be trusted.

    --
    cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
  24. Re:Speech recognition? by x2A · · Score: 2, Funny

    Try calling someone who's right next to you.

    I wouldn't say lag was the problem if I was calling someone who was right next to me.

    -2A

    --
    The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
  25. Am I missing something here? by Rui+del-Negro · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you have to use a special pen... what's the point of having a keyboard? I mean, why doesn't it just do handwriting recognition? The whole point of having a keyboard is being able to type with all (or most of) your fingers. If you're limited to using the "special pen", it's slower than typing with your thumbs (assuming you have two of those).

    Unless they can make the virtual keyboard work reliably with people's fingers, I doubt this will be very successful.

    RMN
    ~~~