Samsung patent application reveals projection display for mobile phones – holographic displays to come?

We’ve got another mobile phone manufacturer jumping on the projector-bandwagon. But, it’s not what you think.

Samsung has filed a patent application for using projection technology to light up the handset’s primary display. Unlike Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE)’s recent patent application to perfect a pico-projector embedded within a cellphone, Samsung wants to use a projector to project images onto a device’s screen. As we’ve seen over the past several months, projection technology has become miniaturized enough to fit inside a handset, and Samsung has developed a “panel type waveguide,” a new refraction technology, that can distribute the light from these tiny optical projectors evenly across a mobile phone’s display.

Projection technology has advantages over LCD or OLED display technologies because the projection display can be scaled to any desired size (presumably by altering how the light is refracted onto the display), whereas an LCD or OLED display needs to be manufactured in a predetermined size. Furthermore, the use of a projector to power the primary handset display opens up the possibility of holographic displays in the future.

Although it has been assumed in the above description that the panel-type waveguide according to the present invention is used as a screen, on which source images emitted by the optical unit are two-dimensionally displayed, the panel-type waveguide may be replaced with a three-dimensional hologram screen so that source images emitted by the optical unit are three-dimensionally displayed on a plane spaced from the hologram screen by a predetermined distance.

We like the sound of that. Holographic 3D displays…we can’t wait.

[Via: Electronista]