Matchbox-sized Laser Projector

soupisgoodfood writes "Light Blue Optics Ltd. have developed a laser-based projector called the PVPro. It's small enough to fit into a cellphone or PDA. Some specs: Supports resolutions up to 2048x1280; No moving parts; Infinite focus; Green monochrome, with a colour version expected late 2006; Max consumption of 1.4W with an average of <350mW. Looks a like a good solution to the increasing problem of smaller devices trying to display more information."

Comments

Computer

[everphilski]

Once these come out in color, imagine having one of these babies inside your laptop. You can then set your laptop on any work surface 2-10' from a wall and have a big screen monitor. If we want to get fancy even we can slap some gyros and accelerometers into the computer and you can have the computer on your lap, and provided you don't wiggle too much ( no pr0n ) you could probably work fairly well from a sofa as well, the software would adjust the image and angle of the projector using servos, etc. Very cool.

Re:Computer

[AKAImBatman]

Once these come out in color, imagine having one of these babies inside your laptop.

I have a better idea. Imagine a portable LaserMAME console. You could project classic Asteroids or Gravitar games onto walls! OR, they could use it to bring back the Vectrex in all its "portable" glory! (Perhaps even Game Boy sized?) :)

color ?

[Arthur B.]

Well, that's easy for the green and red part, the blue laser is other business.. they don't come cheap nor small.

Combine this with a virtual keyboard

[PIPBoy3000]

They also have a virtual keyboard for sale. Imagine setting your cell phone on a table, pushing a button, and getting an instant monitor and keyboard. No one will need PCs for surfing the web and common functionality. Give it ten years or so to become widespread.

Re:Yeah really, no pictures?

[Rich0]

I doubt it is pulsed - the laser is probably on continuously at variable amplitude. So, the pixels will just blur into each other. This is how a regular TV works as far as I understand. If you look at a TV you see lots of dots, but the reality is that the bandwidth on a standard TV is not sufficient to go from black to full RGB in one pixel - which is why small-fonts on TVs look horrible (it is also why analog TV is described in terms of lines of resolution and not columns - only the lines are discrete). A computer monitor is more expensive than a TV because it actually achives high bandwidth and consequently truly high resolution.

My guess is that with the laser projector each pixel will really be a horizontal dash. The only place you might get separation would be in the vertical direction, but you get that even with normal TVs and it isn't very noticable. If you fired it against a screen that would scatter the light somewhat then it might help in this regard.