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Matchbox Sized Color Projectors?
Justin Nolan sent in a very brief link about
ultra small projectors which says
"Upstream Engineering is willing to provide miniature color video projectors for use with portable video player, travel TV, laptops and handhelds next year. Upstream's patented technology, called Photon Vacuum, maximizes the amount of photons sent to the target from the light source in a minimum space and allows the creation of devices free of a variety of components currently used in projectors that unnecessarily waste energy. Photon Vacuum enables the smallest projector designs in the world, ultimately to a size of matchbox. The company says is going to push the power consumption of the whole device ultimately to below 4 watts while still gaining a travel-TV sized color projection" You can also read Upstream's website for almost as little information.
I am sure something useful will come, eventually, but don't hold your breath waiting for anything cool to buy any time soon.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Little info and terms like "Photon Vacuum" make this thing sound like the next high end graphics card from the bitboys... If they had a usable product they would give you at least some information - especially since the design is according to them patent protected...
For people who are often going to meetings, this makes it pretty quick to set up, could go off your laptops power source so no need looking for an outlet, no need to adjust it, nice and fast. If it is priced correctly, I would even buy it just to have since, you never know when a gadget like this will come in handy. Ok okay, yes I was the one to buy the USB laptop lamp, and no I don't use it :(
They claim that a single unit can project a "TV Sized Image". Assuming they meen a small screen TV (32") you would probably want at least four of these to start giving you a big screen image. I somehow don't think that would be cheaper than buying a single unit, and you're multiplying your points of failure by four (any one of four units dies, and your image is pretty much useless).
Now if this tech could be scaled up to make larger brighter projectors that are still small and low on power consumption, then we might be talkin'
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Their website doesn't even feature a single photo, prototype, or past products. I'm surprised this article was even approved. It certainly looks like yet another one of those companies which try to persuade people to buy shares, counting on a 'revolutionary' product which the company is unlikely to ever succeed in producing.
>>small screen TV (32")
I remember a time, not long ago that 32'' was considered big screen.....
Now you need a room with an empty wall the size of Texas for a big screen TV. What's next, wrap around TV for 2 or more walls?
wbs.
Huh?
It's amazing how quickly any discussion reaches the point of worrying about "what if", "someone with malicious intent"...
Is this going to be the new thing to stop the potential advancement of any new technology? Really this should be a non issue - the equivalent would be your local hardware store worrying about selling boards, nails, and hammers - all at once! And god forbid to the same person (what if someone with malicious intent combines the three to obtain a board with a nail at the end?).
"The size of the projection will be initially around the size of standard travel televisions."
Does anyone have a figure for the amount of light needed per square foot for good visibility on a screen with normal meeting room lighting? Assume solid state light source efficiency levels.
There are two interesting parts to their claims. One is reduction in size, the other is reduction in power requirements. The statement above from their website leads me to believe they're really just reducing the size of the device - the 4W figure is spread over just a few square inches. When they need to cover several square feet the power consumption will increase proportionally, and so will the size of the device to allow for adequate cooling.
>>small screen TV (32")
>>> I remember a time, not long ago that 32'' was considered big screen...
No kidding.
I have a very different interpretation: On their website (if you go through all the links) you see them repeatedly mention "size of current mobile screens". Think of the mobile DVD players and current "mobile LCD" screens.
That's right. 8-15 inches.
Interesting little company, 5 people - 1 "manager" and 4 engineers.
Really?
So... at 100% conversion, how much power does, say, your average 17" monitor put out in terms of light? (not counting heat, etc)
You might be surprised just how bright 4 watts of pure light is.
a 100W tungsten incandescent light bulb is about 2.6% efficent.... or 17.5 lumens/watt so 1750 lumens.
Good tungsten halogen bulbs, 3.6% (3.6W) or 2500 lumens for a 100W source.
So.. a matchbox projector with 4W of output with a 100% luminous efficiency would give us, say, 650lm/W * 4W = 2600 lumens...
If you google around for projectors, you'll find that for $2000 you can get around a 2200 lumen projector.
That's a 200W lamp.
Don't forget that while the projector won't be 100% efficient, neither is a light bulb.
get smaller, cheaper and more high quality?
Pick 2. you can't have all three.
You can have just about anything you want for any price you want--you just have to be willing to wait until somebody comes up with it.
Sure you can. Just not right now.
You think computers were destined to be the size of houses?
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Merge this technology with some other bleeding edge 3d/holographic technologies and some concepts that used to only exist in scifi suddenly have some real-world possibility.
Palmtop holographic photos and/or projections could seem likely in the next few years?