As technologies evolve, one major trend in the mobile handset industry is a shift toward more advanced display technology bringing developers larger screens, richer colors, sharper contrast and higher refresh rates for mobile applications.

Until recently, limits in the ability of mobile displays restricted growth of data driven applications in the mobile industry. Newer display technologies are opening new market opportunities for device manufacturers, operators and content developers who are seeking new and compelling products to drive profit and market share. This will create a formidable push towards the creation of new innovative mobile applications and content.

Motorola is setting the curve for innovations in the application space that use the power of displays. Here are some innovations that are emerging in Motorola mobile devices.

• Motorola SCREEN3 - an innovative technology solution that lets consumers get news, sports, entertainment, and other premium content and services directly from their mobile device home screen (no buttons to push, no browsers to launch).
• New paradigms in multimedia areas - for example, 2D/3D Applications are being developed to take advantage of larger displays with tighter resolutions, much to the delight of consumers.
• SVG, FlashLite - Scalable Vector Graphics and Flash are coming off the desktop and are being used as wallpapers, animations, movies, games and connected applications for mobile hardware.
• Larger displays also allow for more attractive advertising and presentation of content - some streaming video/audio applications use the size of screen to show off some excellent advertisements. Mobile local search is a growing area that has many marketers, developers excited about the prospect of serving targeted ads to mobile users.

One frequently overlooked but important aspect of larger display use that developers need to be aware of while developing applications is to manage/conserve power consumption. For example - if an application is heavily using the inside display of the mobile phone, the external display could be switched off or placed in power save mode by the application.

Quite a few display and power management functions are provided by Motorola platforms to help application developers. MOTODEV strongly recommends that our developers revisit display functions and power management functions to create cool new innovative applications that are useful for consumers.

Motorola recently announced two products that had some latest displays - the MOTORAZR2 and MOTO Z8. The MOTORAZR2 also has larger, higher-resolution displays crafted from metal and hardened glass. The external display features onscreen touch controls for the music player that will give tactile feedback.

The MOTO Z8 is a 16 million-color display with a vertical and horizontal orientation. Offering incrediby fast refresh rates and snappy playback at 30 fps, this handset is an excellent example of vastly improved display usage.

-- Asokan Thiyagarajan, Motorola Technology Evangelist