Flying Home, WIsh I Nabbed a "Demo Unit" From TI

I'm at DFW, waiting on my early flight back to the New York area.

 

As I mentioned in my last post, I learned this week that Sipera is up to some interesting things.

 

I also stopped by Texas Instruments on this trip, and in addition to getting a run down on their OMAP 4 strategy I learned  about some of the other things they just showcased at the Mobile World Congress show.

 

Robert Tolbert, platform marketing manager, OMAP platform business unit shared the company's recent news, and explained the company's activity in TI's quest to continue to improve user experience and the power properties of the devices that TI chips are deployed in.

 

Tolbert also discussed the company's recent announcement (with Samsung) of PicoDLP technology, which will be available in a Samsung handset soon,

 

After the briefing we took a tour of TI's Wireless Application Center (WAC), where I got to see the PicoDLP technology up close and personal. If you haven't seen it yet, it's a tiny projector, which can take your source video (as an example) and project it onto any nearby surface, such as a wall, or the back of an airplane seat. The quality is amazing, but to me the fact that this technology is available in a handset or a standalone device smaller than a deck of cards is pretty remarkable.

 

I almost wish I could have taken a "review copy" of the device to trial on my flight home today. It would be a great way to catch up on some of the movies I have yet to watch, or perhaps just review the video interviews that I conducted in Dallas this week. (These will be available from our video library shortly.)

 

While in the WAC, I also saw a demo of several devices based on TI's ZOOM Mobile development platform, which is a software development tool designed for the open source community. The kit includes all the key components for developer to build applications, be it on the Android operating system, Windows 6.5, or the latest version of Symbian.

 

It's always exciting to get a glimpse of the future when visiting with a company like TI, where often we're treated to demo versions or prototypes that will not see the mainstream store shelves for 12-24 months. Maybe that's why I am always loath to upgrade my own personal tech (I still carry a KRZR, which is a phone that's really good as a ... phone). How do you make the leap to today's devices when you've seen what's coming down the road?

 

Well, we're boarding soon, so I'm off for now...