US-based mobile device maker Akyumen Technology shows off a number of products at MWC 2016-- the Falcon EDU and Falcon M tablets, the Hawk smartphones and the Holofone phablet, all featuring built-in projectors.

The company claims the projector inside all its devices can beam images up to 100-inch in size via bulb with a 3000 hour lifespan, all while avoiding the heat issues involved with similar devices.

As the name might suggest, the Falcon EDU is aimed at the education market, while the Falcon M is a consumer version. Both run on Windows 10 and carry Intel quad-core CPUs with 4GB RAM. The EDU includes 200GB built-in storage and a 40+ lumen projector, while the M version has 300GB storage, a 45+ lumen projector and the ability to switch between Windows 10 and Android.

ZTE is no stranger to Android-powered projectors, but its latest takes an even bigger form factor-- featuring an 8.4-inch AMOLED touchscreen, the Spro Plus is essentially a tablet grafted on top of a projector.

Announced at MWC 2016, the Spro Plus combines a 500 lumen projector with a Snapdragon 801 CPU, 3GB RAM, 128GB storage (expandable via SDXC card) and 12100mAh battery. Connectivity comes through wifi, Bluetooth and optional LTE. As such, one can easily describe it as a chunky mid-range tablet able to beam 80-inch images on walls or screens.

MIT researchers promise to bring brain-like intelligence to low-power mobile devices with Eyeriss-- a 168-core chip claiming to be 10 times as efficient as regular mobile graphics processors.

The Eyeriss chip is optimised for deep-learning, allowing it to handle tasks such as natural language processing and facial recognition without need to connect internet (the iPhone requires an internet connection to run Siri, for instance). Such functionality usually demands hefty amounts of processing power, but the researchers say the Eyeriss chip can bypass both size and power demands by giving each core own memory, reducing the need to exchange data with distant memory banks.

Researchers at the University of Michigan might have a tablet solution for blind users-- a display using microfluidic bubbles to produce the bumps making the Braille alphabet on demand.

Braille displays and keyboards already exist but, being based on motorised pin systems, such systems tend to be heavy and expensive. The University of Michigan solution uses liquid or air to fill bubbles forming Braille symbols, making it both smaller (around tablet-size) and capable of showing more complex information than traditional devices.