Nokia Lumia "Black": Beamer 1.1

Available to Lumia users who upgrade to "Black," Nokia Beamer 1.1 lets you "beam" the display of your smart phone to any screen with an HTML 5-equipped web browser. This lets you do things like share photos, give a presentation, or even view maps on the big screen, all from your phone.

Note: The latest version of Beamer requires Lumia "Black." I believe older versions are available for other Lumia handsets.

Learn more

Remember, you can learn more about Nokia Lumia "Black" and the associated Update 3 from Microsoft in The Complete Guide to Windows Phone 8 Update 3 and Lumia Black. To learn more about Windows Phone 8, be sure to check out my free 650-page e-book, Paul Thurrott's Windows Phone 8.

Nokia Beamer 1.1

Nokia Beamer is pretty ingenious. Basically, it lets you duplicate your phone's display on any screen that's connected to the Internet, assuming it can display an HTML 5-based web page. It works locally—when you're standing next to the screen with your phone—or remotely, though I've only tested the former, more common scenario. It's an interesting solution for sharing photos, giving a presentation and showing other information that's on your phone to others, but via a larger screen.

To work it's magic, Nokia Beamer interacts with a web service you can find at beam.nokia.com. Just navigate to that page on the display and then use the Beamer app on your phone to scan the QR code it provides.

The connection is then made, and what you see on your phone's screen is replicated on the display.

The portrait-oriented nature of the Windows Phone UI doesn't exactly lend itself to your typical HDTV, but some of the experiences you can access on the phone make a lot more sense. For example, it's not a terrible way to share photos on your phone with others.

I also used Beamer to display a PowerPoint presentation I have stored in SkyDrive.

And here's another crazy idea: You can share your screen from handset to handset: The HTML 5 web browser on your smart phone will work just fine too.

As with App Folders and Glance 2.0, Beamer is available outside of the "Black" update as a standalone app. You can download Beamer 1.1 from the Windows Phone Store.