We’ve seen some wild concept phones before, but this is probably one of the more unique designs of that bunch. The Caps concept cell phone looks like a little tube and features a tiny projector to let you view images and video at a larger scale.

Designed by Jean-Jacques Chanut, Caps features a small, rounded screen with a simple menu that should be easy to navigate via the touchscreen. A pico projector (perhaps this or this one) can show images and movies from one end of the phone, and a headphone jack is on the other side to listen to tunes and movies.

Obviously we’re a ways away from such a small phone, but sometime in the future a little tube like this might be what we’re all using to chat to each other. We do have one question though: how do you talk on the phone? Perhaps sticking it in your ear might do the trick, or maybe it’s only intended to be used with a headset. Another picture after the jump.

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3M has announced a partnership with a yet unnamed leading consumer electronics company to bring its ultra-portable projector to the market.

The company is hoping to become the first to release such a product, ahead of big names like Texas Instruments and Microvision.

This tiny projector will be able to attach to cell phones, cameras, and laptops to display an image up to 50 inches, diagonally. Although its not exactly a built-in pico projector, it’s capable of displaying a fairly large image and will work with other devices - not just a cell phone. It also looks portable enough, as we don’t know many people who would complain about carrying that tiny thing in their pockets.

The device is estimated to sell between $300 and $400, with prices dropping to $150 within five years. Count us in, we want one of these!

[About Projectors via Gizmodo]

With pico projectors coming soon, Sony Ericsson has picked a perfect time to file a patent describing self-adjusting mobile phone projectors.

The phone’s camera would analyze the picture coming from the projector and could adjust it for color, brightness, and focus. This would ensure the best possible image coming from your phone every single time.

This is a great idea, and it would work perfectly in cell phones considering that you can move them just about anywhere to project an image. We’re excited to see a system like this in action.

Young Optics Inc., a company that creates optical components and optical engines, has announced that they will be shipping a pico projector either at the end of this quarter or the beginning on the next one, meaning that we will see a tiny projector in the next few months.

The devices are expected to run on only 1 watt of energy and, using an LED lamp, will be capable of displaying 7 ANSI lumens of brightness. The pico projectors will use the Texas Instruments DLP display technology.

A name or price has not been announced yet. However, with the release date imminent these details should emerge soon.

With this projector we could finally see an explosion in mobile video. A pico projector would probably mean bigger storage in mobile phones so we can cart around big video files and view them anywhere at a decent size. Hopefully the big mobile phone manufacturers will take advantage of the technology when it’s released.

Texas Instruments has unveiled a pair of new chips that allow cell phones to power mini projectors and give them high-definition video recording capabilities. TI is hoping to take a lead in the cell phone chip industry after falling behind to Qualcomm last year by developing chips that allow for significantly more advanced phones.

Cell phones will soon be able to project images onto a wall, overcoming the limitations of their tiny screens. The company expects commercial products harnessing the new technologies to show up in a year.

Nice going TI, this is some pretty cool stuff… the days of small screens and low-quality videos are over!