By the end of next year, your iPhone could be projecting interactive holograms.
UK-based startup Light Blue Optics is developing miniature holographic projection systems that can be embedded in iPhones (as well as camcorders). The technology projects an image onto any flat surface, while sensors allow users to interact with the image.
The result: you could effectively turn a tabletop into a projected touchscreen to view photos, video and web pages.
Light Blue chief executive Chris Harris told the Financial Times that the company - which was spun out of Cambridge University and raised $15 million in funding in July - hopes to have products commercially available by the end of 2010.
Meanwhile, LBO isn't betting the farm on mobile phones - it's also developing the technology to support future apps like projecting dashboard info onto car windshields, and is working with Thales on displays for airplane cockpits, the FT says.