More than ever before, we are flocking to a gaggle of tiny devices for entertainment. We watch movies on iPods and use our mobile phones to show our family photos and to watch live TV. We bump shoulders as we crowd around the minuscule screens, fumble for reading glasses, and tilt the displays back and forth to find workable viewing angles. If we’re old enough, we pine for the good old days of drive-in movies, with their vast screens.

We love multimedia content, and we also love the convenience of enjoying it wherever we are and whenever we want. But can we continue to put the two together without turning into perennial squinters?

We sure can! Behold the ultraminiature, or ”pico,” projector. From now on, the dimensions of the device in your hand will no longer dictate the size of the viewing screen.

Photo: Microvision
Petite Package: Inside this pico projector from Microvision is a silicon mirror about the size of the head of a pin.

The first generation of pico projectors hit the market in 2008. They weren’t much—clunky little boxes that produced low-quality images and had to be cabled to a computer or PDA. Very few people bought them.

Turns out that what people really want is a mobile phone, music player, laptop, or camera that projects big, bright, and sharp images—or an extremely tiny plug-in projector compatible with all those devices. This year, they’re going to get what they want. We’re just now starting to see the next generation of pico projectors, and besides being in smaller stand-alone devices, they’re coming embedded in cameras, media-storage devices, and a few smartphones—about 100 individual products so far. Over the next few years they’ll be popping up in more products and are likely to be the hottest new feature in mobile devices since the cellphone video camera. In fact, market research firm Insight Media forecasts shipments of embedded pico projectors—in consumer electronics, cars, industrial applications, and medical equipment, as well as in cellphones—to reach 30.8 million units in 2014, up from about 1 million units in 2009.