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Not sure why the release of this particular set of plans is news, really. There are a ton of guides for DIY projectors, that go from simple fresnel based systems, through LCD + overhead projector, all the way to building the whole thing yourself.

FYI, see:

• Building a Home Theater (a guide and study of my own experience)
• Operation: Big Screen, using an OHP
• Inventgeek's guide
• Building an LCD projector from the ground up

Add one of those DIY projector http://www.audiovisualizers.com/madlab/lcd_proj.ht m and you can turn the laptop into a huge interactive educational tool in a classroom.

http://www.audiovisualizers.com/madlab/lcd_proj.ht m

For under $400.

From my opinion as a student of computer arts/digital arts, the first thing you have to ask yourself is how to include the computer in your artistic work.
I can recommend the Book "Composing Interactive Music" from Todd Winkler, as I found it not only interesting for re-thinking how to use Computers in artistic installations, but also how to completely rethink computer interaction.
Winkler proposes a framework of 5 stages which i think can also be adoped for any digital works, not only music.
The book is inteded for composers working with max/msp, a visual programming language where object boxes can be "patched" together; this style of working shows fast results, as this kind of software is working "realtime", meaning you get constant ouptput of the things you are doing or the parameters you are changing.
I am working with this kind of "patchable software interfaces" for more than five years now; and this is also teached on the University of Applied Arts in Vienna/Austria, where I am studying.
If it comes to interaction (sound-visual, sound-dancers, graphics-interface, whatever) in the field of artistic work, these tools such as
PD Pure Data (windows/mac/linux) - Audio/Video/3D (GEM,Framestein) -opensource-
Cycling74 max/msp (windows/mac) - Audio/Video/3D (also see Nato and Jitter) -free 30days demo-
Native Instruments Reaktor (windows/mac) -commercial, but has education pricing-
vvvv (win) -free-
are used from lots of the people around.
there are hell lots more, you might want to take a look at the audiovisualizers.com tool shack, or pawfal.org for example.

For some visual examples and also works, you might want to take a look at
http://www.harvestworks.org/maxreel/
http://puredata.info/community/ (mostly audio)
talking chair (vvvv+hardware)
http://www.realtimearts.net/

or you might also want to take a look at the department of digital art in the university of applied arts/vienna.
currently we are a group of people trying to bring opensource and arts together. there are also workshops and lots of projects going on: http://5uper.net

for sure there are also "standard" programs teached, which are good for working with business and advertising companies -- but if we are speaking about digital arts, that's going beyond the standard approach of software use. at least for me.

Reminds me of propeller clocks (also here, here, here...)
...or the similar mechanically scanned displays.
Spacewriter sells some very cool full-color displays. Their iBall 3D display is also sold at AudioVisualizers - check their site out for more animated demos.
There's also the Virtual Game System (Google cache) which was amazing; unfortunately the site is down so you'll have to settle for text and no pictures.

Here a better place for a Ghetto Video Projector:

http://www.audiovisualizers.com/madlab/lcd_proj.ht m

Anybody have an alternate site? I found this one on google.

From the wired article:

Video scratching was pioneered by a U.S. multimedia crew called Emergency Broadcast Network in the late 1980s, and refined by Coldcut and Hex, a pair of U.K. collaborative multimedia producers and musicians.

Does anyone else remember EBN? They were sorta Negativland-ish music (later Negativland, that is... dispepsi-ish stuff that had a beat and wasn't as abstract as their earlier stuff) and had all these cool videos where they did video sampling.

Their live show was one of the coolest I've ever seen. They had three huge video screens behind the stage playing sampled video, and this this weird podium thing that had two arms... On the front of the arms were TVs with yet more sampled video, and then later in the show, they arms spun around and had lasers or something on the other side. This was a long time ago, so I don't remember exactly, but it was incredibly impressive. They had re-edited all this footage, so they had Connie Chung, Dan Rather, et al. saying "This is EBN Nightly News!" and stuff. They also had a real gun shooting blanks during "Shoot the Mac 10". I grabbed some of the bullets of the stage, and I think I still have them. Amazingly, they were just the opening act for Banco de Gaia, who I also like, but come on... Toby Marks (BdG) was just sitting at a mixing board. It didn't even compare.

You can find some of their videos around the net. We Will Rock You shows them re-working (elder) Bush speeches, similar to the Bushwhacked that's been floating around the net.

They also had this tricked out station wagon with a satellite dish and video monitors all up and down the roof. It looked pretty cool, though I only saw pictures, not the real thing.

Later I saw them in "concert" opening for someone else, and they just played a video. I don't even think there was anyone from EBN there. It was totally disappointing.

Coldcut and Hex are cool, too, but I've never seen a show like the EBN one since.

1. Brightness:

---Brightness isn't that bad. Ok so you can't watch it with the sun shining directly on the projector screen, but I can't watch TV that way either so it doesn't matter. They use a LCD projector in my CS classes, and it's easily viewable with all the bright fluorescent lights on, but I won't lie, it does look better with the lights off. Also the projector is a older Epson model (probably 3 or 4 years old?), so I'm sure the newer ones look much, much better.

2. Bulb Life:

Most decent projectors have a 2,000 hr life, while good ones have up to 4,000 hrs. This doesn't sound like a lot, but according to several sources (here's one) the average US family watches about 4 hours of TV daily, or 28 hrs a week. Sounds like a whole lot, almost 1,500 hrs a year, so the bulb will need replacing every 16 months or longer.

This sounds very costly, but considering the fact that just a 47" projection TVs cost $1500+ it would be several years before the price of a inexpensive eBay-purchased LCD projector would equal anywhere near the cost of even a 47" TV, much less 60", while the size would be much larger.

I've also noticed that most of the bulbs aren't so amazing, most are 100-200 watts, easily attainable using inexpensive bulbs purchased at Wal-Mart. While the real bulbs are quite different than standard bulbs, I'm sure there would be a way to hack the projector to use a less expensive bulb. Perhaps those bright white automotive bulbs may work? I believe those are 70 watts, so two should provide around 1300-1500 lumens, not bad. I also feel white LEDs may be a reasonable alternative in the next few years: they've already doubled their power within the last 5 years while the price is 1/10th.

3. Other options?

---slashdot did a story not long ago about the "build your own 100" TV!" internet scams that just put a magnifying glass in front of a standard TV. While that probably wouldn't work so well, a LCD projector is pretty much just that, a tiny LCD in front of a projector, and this site has instructions on how to build your own. Seems legit.