Television and internet on your mobile phone is said to be the Next Big Thing. But there remains a glaring contradiction: in the era of giant flat-screen televisions, why would anyone want to squint at football or a movie on a pocket-sized gadget?
The two leading handset manufacturers, Nokia and Motorola, are spending millions of pounds to find an answer. One option is to turn the mobile phone into a mini-film projector, capable of shooting images on to a nearby wall or other surface, while generating an accompanying soundtrack.
Nicolas Demassieux, director of European research at Motorola Laboratories, said: 'It is in the labs at the moment but it faces difficulties, mostly concerning battery power. It is something we are exploring. In modern life you often have screens around you. Maybe you use your phone to temporarily take control of them in a secure way.'
One example would be watching content from your phone on a plane's back-of-seat screen instead of the in-flight movie.
Nokia's researchers have designed a thin screen which can be rolled up and stored compactly when not attached to a mobile. Anssi Vanjoki, its general manager of multimedia, said: 'We have a flexible LCD material in our labs which works in black and white. It is a direction we are following but I cannot promise it will be commercially available next year.'
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