A Video Projector That Fits In Your Pocket

Sven-Erik writes "Video projectors able to project high-quality images will be embedded in your cellphones and laptops within two years. This is the promise of a new technology developed at Cambridge University. These pocket projectors will have no lenses and no light bulbs. Instead, these future battery-powered tiny projectors will rely on holographic technology and special algorithms. In 'Holograms enable pocket projectors,' Technology Research News explains that a 2D hologram will be created on a microdisplay and projected by using a laser beam. This has been possible because the researchers have written special algorithms which generates the holograms a million times faster than standard ones." Update: 07/03 21:21 GMT by T : Note that this text belongs to Roland Piquepaille and comes from his weblog; submitters, please strive to make your sources clear.

Comments

Is that a video projector in your pocket

[Anonymous Coward]

Or are you just happy to see me?

Oblig Star Wars Ref

[anaphora]

Yes, but when will we be able to put them in robots?

"Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, You're my only hope."

Re:Oblig Star Wars Ref

[Tlosk]

You know the funny thing is I remember thinking to myself the first time I saw that why the holographic video was grainy, it seemed preposterous to me that they could have that sort of technology on R2D2 and yet have it be all grainy in appearance.

And now it seems incredibly prescient lol, given the millionfold increase in processing speed using the noise variance method described in the article, the trade off between graininess and speed actually becomes quite rational.

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

On a side note, inexpensive home projection theaters kick ass. Cost is about $400 for everything besides the projector. I don't know why anyone with a week of time would buy a plasma TV.

Re:Hmm

[The Only Druid]

There are several reasons:

1: Plasmas look perfect in bright light, allowing you to use them without blanketing the room in darkness.
2: Plasmas are rated to last around a decade, give or take. Bulbs in projectors need to be replaced (after a comprarable amount of use) in about 1-2 years.
3: Plasmas are almost without exception higher resolution and clarity than projectors.
4: Plasmas are almost without exception better at displaying pure black and pure white, and thus at displaying all colors in between, than projectors.
5: Plasms dont require an unobstructed path between the projector at the screen, i.e. they're easier to position in a potentially crowded room.

There are more, but I'll leave it at that.

Re:Hmm

[HeelToe]

Yes, there are clearly tradeoffs. I took the projector approach and I couldn't be happier. Not quite movie-theater angular size, but closer than anything short of a movie theater. For 1/3 the price of a plasma 3/4 the size of the screen.

It will be interesting to see how the new prototype Sony technology (the black screen thing) works out. It would be amazing to have a high quality projected image without needing great control of the ambient light.

There are also people doing reverse projection setups using front projectors. These also reduce the need for ambient light control.

Re:Hmm

[dave420]

I'll see those and raise you these:

1. 160" plasmas are rather more expensive than a projector (which can give you that size, easily)
2. You can't pick a plasma screen up in one hand and move it out on the veranda to watch movies outside
3. Cheap plasma screens have horrific quality, as the built-in processing is limited
4. Projectors cost 1/4 of the price of a plasma 5. Replacement bulbs for projectors cost about $100
6. Sony's new projector screens mean perfect viewing in light environments

I know where you're coming from, but if you have a screen in your lounge as big as your wall, you simply don't care. I got a projector last year, and I've not looked back (and I'm a stickler for image quality, etc.).

Re:Hmm

[AaronLawrence]

Higher resolution and clarity? Where do you get that from? A typicaly widescreen home theater projector such as Panasonic AE-500 is 1024x576. Plasmas are typically that or lower.

Projectors are just as clear if not clearer. In fact they are sometimes TOO clear, ie. the square pixels become visible. So recent projectors soften it slightly to get back to a more natural looking projectors.

But, all this is irrelevant for me. Projectors generally give 2-5x as large a screen at 1/2 to 1/4 the cost. That's a no brainer to me.

Watch for Apple

[fastdecade]

Apple will make this a standard component first, in the same way as they picked up on other trends and mainstreamed them, e.g. window-based UI, 17" screen, PDA.

Re:Watch for Apple

[euxneks]

Apple will make this a standard component first, in the same way as they picked up on other trends and mainstreamed them, e.g. window-based UI, 17" screen, PDA.

Kinda strange though, that when I think of those three items I don't think of Apple....

Re:Watch for Apple

[Ironclad2]

Didn't the PDA become a market-standard device some after Apple *dropped* the Newton?

Re:Watch for Apple

[fastdecade]

Yeah, they certainly made a mes of the Newton. I'm not saying they succeeded in everything they kicked off, I'm just saying they put their butts on the line and go all-out with upcoming technologies.

In the case of Newton, they made it big news. There were PDAs before, mostly industrial, but Apple were making a big fanfare about being the first mainstream PDA.

As it happened, all the publicity backfired big time.

Re:Watch for Apple

[fastdecade]

Apple's not exactly mainstream, but it pushes technologies into the manistream. If I had a dollar for every "candy coloured" gadget that came out in the late nineties ...

Re:Watch for Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet England, Apple drops on Newton!

won't the small size also affect image quality?

[adzoox]

My question is:

If the size of the lens makes a difference in CCDs in camcorders (moreso than digital cameras) - won't the small size also affect image quality from these devices?

Also, will these devices be ANOTHER cost INCREASE? - because projectors (affordable units) are JUST now appearing on the market.

Re:won't the small size also affect image quality?

[the_2nd_coming]

I guess you messed the HIGH QUALITY part of it.

Re:won't the small size also affect image quality?

[sploo22]

To the best of my knowledge, the loss of image quality with standard optical equipment occurs due to imperfections in the lens. With this method, there seems to be no actual refraction taking place - it all operates on wave interference. And I quote:

"No lenses are required -- the projected image is formed entirely by diffraction," said Cable.

Believe it or not, the cost is not likely to be that much higher, because there's no need for precision optics, just a tiny screen and a laser.

Re:won't the small size also affect image quality?

[arieswind]

dark lit rooms? isnt that contradictory? O_o

Re:won't the small size also affect image quality?

[RickHunter]

Actually, the cost is likely to be quite a lot lower than anything involving optics. Making lenses is hard work. Making lasers is easy. And from what they say in the article, I gather that the hardware for the image production bit is pretty easy to make too. What's complicated are the algorithms they use in the background.

Re:won't the small size also affect image quality?

[Freudiandave]

The fact that it's easier to use won't make it cheaper. There's a novelty to it that will allow them to price it higher if they want. Just look at DVDs, which should be cheaper to produce VHS, for an example.

Re:won't the small size also affect image quality?

[pVoid]

The quick answer is no.

The reason is that Holograms *use* diffraction as a means of creating the image. Diffraction is the phenomenon where if a light wave passes through a hole that is approximately the size of its wave length, it gets 'garbled' - or diffracted into unrecognizalbe patterns.

That's why you have a practical limit to the miniaturisation of lenses.

But aside from that, you have optical artifacts that occur even with normal SLR lenses. And that is because lenses are not perfectly 'stygmatic'. Which means, lenses don't actually do what they're supposed to, they only do it to a certain degree at which the eye can't differentiate.

If lenses were stygmatic, then the concept of 'depth of field' would not exist: everything in the picture would always be in focus.

Think of it this way, the rules playing on lenses and holograms are as different as the rules effective on analog vs digital. It might be the same medium, but it's an entirely different ballgame.

New killer teleconference app?

[VinceWuzHere]

What an addition this would be to remote meetings, instructing, etc. Just set your cellphone on the table and have a live demo in front of your eyes. Of course someone will likely use it for pr0n before any other "real" uses...

Re:New killer teleconference app?

[Sven-Erik]

True, but they did the same thing to Super8 film and VCR's. But maybe that was before your time...

sign of the times

[justforaday]

The Pocket Projector - the sign of a true dork.

Take it anywhere

[Zorilla]

Great. This only increases the potential of being able to have PowerPoint presentations shoved down your throat, now anytime, anywhere.

PHBs beware, do not approve a purchase of one of these projectors for use by Debbie from Sales.

Well..

[arieswind]

I dont see how putting projectors in phones will make them any more useful than they are, they will only make it more expensive.

The Laptop projectors on the other hand, if they are built in, would eliminate the need for bulky projectors when a worker needs to give a presentation to his boss or co workers.. they could even make mini tv's use this technology, and project onto any free space of wall.

Re:Well..

[aero6dof]

Go one step further and you might have a laptop with flip up lid that consists of little more that a reflective surface to shine the projector onto, flip the lid out of the way and have a presentation projector.

queue the same jokes

[Saeger]

1. "Help me Obi Wan Kenobi!"
2. "And you thought the punkass kids in the movie theatre with laser pointers were bad!"
3. "Goatse.cx! Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children!"

--

holograms in phones?

[Anonymous Coward]

you know the first application of this will be "Help my Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" ringtones...

Students

[mboverload]

This will be great for students and teachers. In my school teachers are always fussing over the projectors and when they get to use them. Because of this, many have given up on using them. With these new pocket proijectors teachers can take them home and use them where ever and when ever.

I welcome our new pocket-sized projector overloards.

What's the light source?

[Animats]

What makes this so great? They still have to have a light source and enough power to drive it.

The actual imaging component of a projector isn't that big. Look at the TI DLP chip. Their projectors are already down to 2.2 pounds.

Color is a problem. Currently, you need either a color wheel for field-sequential color or three imaging chips, which looks better. This new "holographic" display has the same problem. Note that their demo image is greyscale.

What's really needed are powerful LED arrays as the light source. If you could change the light source color at a few KHz, which LEDs can easily do, a one-chip DLP projector without a color wheel would work. With an LED light source, you could do some other obvious power-saving tricks, too. You need no more light output than the brightest pixel in that color in that frame. With sectional lighting, maybe less.

LEDs with enough light output for this are not far off. LEDs have taken over automotive taillights, and white LED automotive headlamps are expected in 2006. Toyota showed a car with LED headlamps in 2003.

That direction is more likely to result in smaller projectors than this "holographic" thing.

Re:What's the light source?

[sploo22]

This is so revolutionary because it has no optics. No lens, no mirrors, nothing. Plus because it uses a laser instead of a bulb, it will use less power, last longer and won't need a big fan to cool it.

Re:What's the light source?

[Viadd]

For holography you want monochrome light, which means the light source will be lasers. Probably three diode lasers for R,G,B. Lasers are much more efficient than the incandescent bulbs used in projectors, which means that you will be able to put your PDA back in your pocket without second degree burns after using for a while.

The home page of one of the coauthors of the cited paper is here. It shows a hologram that takes a few seconds to generate on a 2 GHz PC. Pretty low quality, and presumably specialized hardware (which could probably be implemented as an FPGA) will be required to get it to video rates. But for static text type presentations, for the Powerpoint warriors who are the main market for projectors, speed is less important.

Re:What's the light source?

[TheSpoom]

Hmmm...

*replaces LCD headlight in car with holographic projector projecting image of oncoming truck to the car ahead*

Can it be used as a computer display?

[Anonymous Writer]

The images were the same but contained different levels of noise. The researchers found that variation in noise levels affected people's perception of video quality more than the actual level of the noise.

I'm not familiar with holography, but doesn't the presence of noise mean that individual pixels won't be very clear? I suppose that would be okay for video, but what about using the projection as a computer display? Would it be good enough for text and fonts?

The power

[mao che minh]

"These pocket projectors will have no lenses and no light bulbs. Instead, these future battery-powered tiny projectors will rely on the in-born, raw nerd power of the geek that wears it."

errr.. batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hey guys, check out this hologram I just got! Just give me a second for me to plug my wireless phone into an electrical socket, so that my batteries don't get completely drained in 15 seconds."

Kind of defeats the purpose, huh? Already when I start using my video camera is limits my cell phone usage. Imagine the energy requirements for a hologram projector.

Let's forget about putting all this stuff in cell phones... let's concentrate on actually getting this in a real projector of some sort before we start making high-faluting promises of having everything in our freaking cell phones.

Help us Sony, Pioneer or Fujitsu!

[ManyLostPackets]

Help us Sony, Pioneer or Fujitsu!

Focus group's of American electronic companys say no one is interested in such things!

Help us Sony, Pioneer or Fujitsu! You're our only hope!

Can't access the algorithm description

[gokeln]

Primary author's homepage here http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~eb296/research.shtml The algorithm appears only to be available in the Journal of the Optical Society of America. Membership required to access.

I dont't know Sven-Erik, but he didn't wrote this

[rpiquepa]

Check this page ( http://radio.weblogs.com/0105910/2004/07/03.html ) or this RSS feed ( http://radio.weblogs.com/0105910/rss.xml ) to see what plagiarism is -- the exact words on my RSS feed. You also can check hours of publication. I'm not happy with this. Last month, someone opened a Slashdot account with my name. Now, "Sven-Erik" is publishing my own words, already submitted to Slashdot, and he's credited for this. Slashdot editors, please be careful! And "Sven-Erik," please indicate your sources!!!

just the next step

[cybergrunt69]

This looks like it's going to be a great new product. While I'll probably never have a cell phone with one of these built into it, I can see it as the next logical step to be included in the standard PDA and notebook. For all we know now, that little laser pointer will have one too... So I wonder what it would take to get one of these items just by itself so I can hook it up as a monitor for my computers? Will it take the place of my clunky heavy TV, too? I'm very interested to see where this is going!

Am I missing something ?

[sane?]

Maybe I'm missing something, but surely you would store the holographic image data (eg the thing that drives the 2D microdisplay), rather than attempting to convert on the fly.

Therefore what you need, past the circuitry, is a good compression algorithm for the holographic data. This is unlikely to follow the precepts of the JPEG/MPEG compression (more oppotunity for patents methinks). Together with the display technology you then have a viable system.

Interesting technology, maybe, but not a complete solution yet.

? 2-D hologram ?

[James Turpin]

What is a 2-D hologram?? I thought holograms were inherently 3-D, although they may sometimes be images of impossible objects.

Special Algorithms

[drooling-dog]

special algorithms

The answer to this and most of life's other thorny problems, I expect...

Some really exciting possibilities

[LeBlanc_Joey]

Maybe it would be possibe for a computer to use both this and one of those projected keyboards you could have a tiny useful device.

Yo, dude, you like behind the curve ...

[porky_pig_jr]

everything comes in a cellphone nowdays. your toaster will soon come in a cellphone.

Are these really holograms...

[cr0sh]

...or is it a reconfigurable diffraction grating?

Or maybe - are diffraction gratings a form of a hologram?

What I am trying to get at, is that they appear to have used a microdisplay to generate a diffraction grating pattern that generates the resultant image - similar to how the el-cheapo laser pointer keychain devices use small diffraction gratings to "project" words and drawings on walls.

Is there more to this? Am I missing something? Whatever the case, it looks like very interesting and promising technology...