World's Smallest Projector

SkinnyGuy writes "Mixed into all of PCMag's CES preview coverage is an interesting story about a projector that's no bigger than an iPod. An early version showed up at last year's CES, but some of the guts weren't inside the small body. Now they are. It uses lasers to project the image. Really fascinating, futuristic stuff."

Comments

Laptops

[ianare]

This would be awesome for an ultra-portable laptop: just a keyboard without the screen, just project onto any wall ... or use a very light roll-up screen.

Re:Laptops

[ZJVavrek]

Or one of those laser keyboards. Like this. http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/8193/ Get some reasonably powerful device, add the two of those and maybe some kind of location sensing finger ring for a mouse... voilà, now you have a justifiable reason for Linux on your cell phone. Not that you needed one.

Possibilities for embedded devices?

[zykhou]

While I'm sure the original price tag will be steep, this product could actually have some pretty sweet applications.

Imagine a singular device, the size of a cell phone, that could be a wholly working portable computer. You set it down and it projects a screen wherever you need it. Imagine that projector with something like this, and some sort of mouse replacement, and you'd have all your IO needs on the go. Instead of being restricted to tiny screens and keyboards, your portable device could be competition for your main desktop (which seems to be the route that consumer electronics are heading).

I know I can't wait for the day when I carry around one wallet sized (or smaller) device that is an audio player, a cell phone, and feature complete computer, capable of being used for the same applications my laptop is for, but with far less weight and size. Hopefully with devices like this, I won't have to wait until I'm near dead to enjoy such luxuries.

Would be great for multi touch touchscreen

[mrjb]

Lately I've been giving some thought about how the hard part of multi-touch touch panel is the projection. Such a screen can be built from a sheet of glass+webcam, but the problem is that projecting an image back onto it requires a rather expensive projector. A $200-$300 laser projector would take this into the realm of 'affordable' technology.

It could also render the OLED technology of the 'optimus maximus' keyboard obsolete- many people have a second VGA port that they do not use. Using this port to display a key map onto an essentially transparent keyboard would do the same. It could also allow people to choose the decoration to be displayed on the rest of their keyboard.

Re:Would be great for multi touch touchscreen

[apt142]

At $200-$300 my first thought was, could this replace my TV set? I'd just need a tuner, which I could get for my computer. It sure would be nice to reduce all of my entertainment equipment to one computer, a speaker system and an iPod sized projector.

The resolution isn't what I would like, especially if I wanted to hook it up to my computer. But, I'm sure that'll improve in future versions.

Good

[DerWulf]

Very cool product. The name sucks though. Google finds 2.560.000.000 hits for "SHOW".

Re:This Isn't Going to be Good for the Community

[jacquesm]

I think your power calculations for skywriting are off by several orders of magnitude. That sort of laser is best not used near anything combustible either, not unless you want it to combust that is :)

A friend of mine who pioneered lasers in pop music (for Genesis in the Peter Gabriel days) once turned down a proposal to implement this because of the limited range of conditions when it would operate and the enormous power levels required, it's a bit of a difference to project something on a wall 5' away from you vs on a semi-transparant medium several hundred meters away. Of course you don't need to take my word for it, or you may have meant your original post in a sarcastic way (but that's hard to tell here sometimes).

a 50 mW laser will carray a good distance as long as you don't start scanning it, then it quickly becomes useless.