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Mobile Phone Projectors "Will Launch This Year"
An anonymous reader writes "Mobile phones with built-in mini projectors will launch later this year, according to 3M, which gave PC Pro a hands-on demonstration of the technology at CES 2008. The projector has a brightness of around 8-10 lumens, and is capable of displaying an image of up to 50 in., although 3M's spokesperson Greg Roberts told us that, with perfect lighting conditions, it's possible to squeeze a 60-in. screen out of the projector."
WTF? 50inch screen with only 10 lumin is going to be SHITTY.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
but will they still be able to make phonecalls?
And you thought laser pointers were annoying when they came out.
Seriously though, it is pretty cool.
That being said, I bought a cigarette lighter this week, and when I got home I discovered it had a laser pointer built into it, all for two bucks.
Soon my microwave will be able to use it's laser pointer to point at the projection it puts on my wall that my popcorn is done, as opposed to beeping, which would be oh so gauche.
expandfairuse.org
This is only going to lead to millions of college students slipping a 50" cock into the professor's lecture while he isn't looking.
... but this is not the same as this one http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/03/0418221. This one is led based and seems to be smaller but the PicoP one is laser based and images seems to be better. That is the one I want on a mobile phone. OTOH I don't want these on my mobile phone...
Millions of college students slipping a 50" cock into the professor's lecture while he isn't looking...
"A real computer in a pocket."
Are you sure you're not just happy to see me?
One step closer to the MPP (Mobile Porn Platform)
One hand keeping the cellphone steady and the other hand fap, fap, fapping away.
Of course we are going to need a hell of lot more then 8-10 lumens.
Being in the film industry, I work in footcandles usually and not lumens, but If I recall correctly the correlation between them is close (I'm not a cinematographer, so lighting is secondary to my normal job function). A 'birthday cake candle' in a pitch black room, will produce 1 foot candle of light at-- wait for it.. 1 foot. If you put a 1-foot-square surface (like a 12" x 12" piece of paper) 1 foot away from that candle, it will be hit with "1 lumen"
;). If they can increase the light output significantly, it might be useful for something other than showing someone really low brightness web pages shined onto a piece of whitepaper 10" away while in a darkened room.
A 'normal' candle produces about 15 lumens. Incandescent bulbs (normal lightbulbs) produce about 15-18 lumens *PER WATT*. So this projector is roughly equivalent to
Now, there are claims of a 50" projection (diagonal, I assume) from this-- no specification as to how far from the projection source the 'screen' is, but light works on the inverse square law-- basically, as you double the distance from a given light source, you get a square root of intensity. So if this sucker threw 10FC at 1 foot, at 2 feet that intensity has dropped to 3.2. At 4 feet, 1.8. So if that 50" screen requires you to be 8 feet back.. forget about it.
Overall, this sounds like a cool little geek gadget, but as other posters have said, probably just another example of cellphones trying to do too much (too poorly
Apologies if I screwed up any of my tutorial, as I said, I don't paint directly with light, I just admire the guys who do.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Time to roll out the tin foil covered flying pigs.
"Millions of college students slipping a 50" cock into the professor's lecture while he isn't looking..."
Even the women?
ive been thinking about an all in 1 laptop being useful but i cant see how this is useful in a phone
An Enhanced EEE ( or EEEE ) would be much better use for this.
Then you integrate bluetooth and project to IR blobs to the top of the screen and get the Wiimote Enhance EEEE ( or WEEEEE )
Alternatively full sized laptops would be a good platform for this, because whos going to use it for anything other than showing of on a phone.
sod the mobile phone market.
I am waiting for my mini laser powered home cinema projector that I can get for £100 (or $200 if you like), never have to change a £300 bulb on a £300 projector, never have a loud whirry fan and huge amounts of excess heat, generates a good HD image with a respectable amount of lumens and can be tastefully hidden in a wall of books with a drop down projector screen on the over side of the room. Now *thats* a product I would get excited by.
Rubbish 10 lumen images projected from a bloody mobile phones of all gizmo's are nothing to me except an obvious tactic to attempt to sell phones. Of course the projector market might suppress this because of bulb sales, but who knows?
The alternative use for this technology is mini computers with projected screens and laser/IR keyboards that can fit in a pocket and allow office work against a hotel wall with full wifi, SSD and decent battery life. Now thats another use I would get exited by. I want my Zardoz projector/interface ring.
Balderdash.
FairTax baby!
Why a cellphone? so that everyone can see who's calling me? I see a lot of other cool possibilities, perhaps a new market for personal portable media.
What about adding this projector to portable videoplayers/camera's or a (video) iPod (iPhone as well) :)
Could this be the start of a new 'hype' a lot of people are waiting for?Or build it into a car / (portable) gps navigation system so you can use your cars windscreen as a transparent heads up display!
Another cool application could be a replacement of the virtual laser keyboard creating a virtual optimus with dynamic keys
Kids these days. Surely taking up one penis enlargement offer is enough for anybody. I bet you were also checking the time on one of your dozen or so cheap Rolex's too.
... is expected to be over 45 minutes.
Seriously, could the manufacturers try to produce a phone that goes, like, a whole week on a single charge?Oh, how convenient: a theory about God that doesn't involve looking through a telescope.
What is with the scope creep in the mobile phone industry?
I don't know if one already exists, but what'd be more useful in a small form factor projector would be a USB powered laptop projector, with VGA input.
"This is only going to lead to millions of college students slipping a 50" cock into the professor's lecture while he isn't looking."
Even the women?
I think he mistyped "complete darkness after your eyes have adjusted".
No sig today...
As if "playing out" isn't already an annoying problem, it looks like we'll soon have to deal with "projecting out" too.
This projector and a camera hack similar to the one Johnny Chung Lee made http://mradomski.wordpress.com/2007/12/20/wiimote-multi-touch-display/ with the Wiimote and you would have a multi-touch screen projected onto any surface. Drool
Break the sound barrier - bring the noise.
This is about selling phones, not about producing quality images (that might come in five years or so).
Remember polyphonic ringtones? Were they "quality" music? Nope, but we all secretly wanted them.
The gadget power of having a phone-projector is orders of magnitude more than a polyphonic ringtone. This thing will sell millions no matter how bad the image quality is.
No sig today...
Is that the Microvision (http://www.microvision.com/) technology? If it is, that might finally be the first step towards VRD displays for mobile phones/laptops... and I can't wait to get rid of the monitors, they suck as a technology.
I first heard about them 10 years ago, when they made the first VRD display (the thing which projects picture directly on the eye). The thing is available, but relatively expensive, and I think they mostly sold it to military. Then I heard about this mobile-phone-projector thingie, which uses the same technology. I hope the next step is cheaper weareable VRD display...
But when are they going to release the head-attached laser beams for my sharks?
Aw, you're just pulling my leg. No, my other leg.
8-10 Lumens and they try to sell that? That's less bright than a candle. Now I know we started cinema with candles and camera obscura, but what this means for real life is that you have to make the room dark, as in pitch black, in order to see anything.
Look at some comparisons. Note that normal projectors like you use for home cinema, have 200 Lumens and up.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Those bastards!
I'd love one of these, if only so I could send captured plans to allies in the memory systems of one of these cell-phone units, along with an appropriate video message. You know, along the lines of:
"General Kenobi, years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars. Now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire. I regret that I am unable to present my father's request to you in person..." etc.
you are my only hope...
Now everyone can have their princess leia projected while talking to her, of course she is on the wall but one day she will literally spring up from the phone as you lay it down on the table and chat using your BT headset.
Hell, done right we will eventually be able to do presentations for people who can't come into the office. Real time video and projection combined to make a cool tool. I figure it is just like cell based cameras, first two generations suck before something truly useful comes along
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Now imagine in a few years where your display surface might just be a cheap light screen with a simple support to hold it at different angles. The computer can be almost any shape that suits, perhaps with a fold out keyboard. You can have a big screen on your desk, a small clip on screen that you use on the train. Perhaps the computer has a wireless dongle that includes the display driver, perhaps it's built in, perhaps both.
Using a curved screen might involve no more than an adjustable object in the optical path to deal with the pincushion distortion - use of lasers means focus at virtually any distance.
Microsoft has built up a huge business based solely on the mouse, monitor,keyboard model. Apple has started to move away from it. This is a little gadget which could reshape the desktop computer industry. It shouldn't be underestimated.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Why do you think electric bicycles are more common than electric cars even though electric bicycles are less useful? Because it's easy to build an electric bike, hard to build an electric car, but the commercialisation drives public acceptance at affordable prices. Why are e-readers crap? Because they can't make a cheap A4/USL screen yet, that's why. So sell to the gadget obsessed to get the customer feedback and some return on investment till they can do it right.
As for projector sellers suppressing laser projectors, that's nonsense. Projector sellers want to replace LCD monitors. Who makes LCDs? Samsung. Who makes DLP chips? TI (I'm simplifying, admittedly, but I think the logic is correct.)
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Now people will be watching movies with their cell phones while driving.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
What counts in a projector is contrast (e.g. how much brighter is a "white" projected spot as opposed to a "black" projected spot).
Obviously this depends on ambient light, since the darkest part of the screen (i.e. the "black spot") is illuminated only by ambient light (assuming that 'black' in the projector means 'no light passes').
Illuminance is measured in Lux (lx). Lux is defined as follows.
Lux = Lumen / m^2.
Now, a "good" contrast is 10-15, i.e. a white spot will be illuminated with 10-15 times the lx a black spot is.
Normal ambient light is highly variable; a typical table in a lecture room should be illuminated with about 500-1000 lx; the ambient light on your typical screen in an illuminated room (i.e. not a theatre) will be illuminated with maybe 100-500 lx.
So in order to obtain a proper picture a projector should be able to do at least 1000 lx. Comparison: a typical home cinema beamer has about 2000 lumen and projects an area of about 2x1.12m; this means 2000 lumen / 2.24 m^2 = ~900 lx. And guess what, the picture is just fine when the room is "quite dark" and pretty washed out when it is illuminated.
With the claimed 8-10 lumen - let's assume 10 - you can thus illuminate
10 lumen / 1000 lx = 0.01 m^2
Assuming a picture format of 16:9, that's a picture size of
sqrt(0.01 m^2 / (16 * 9)) * 16 = 0.13 m width
sqrt(0.01 m^2 / (16 * 9)) * 9 = 0.075 m height
An incredible 13 cm x 7.5 cm! (5" x 3" for Americans).
That's a diagonal of 5.8". Makes sense since a 2000 lumen projector is 200 times more powerful and accordingly projects an image with sqrt(200) = ~14 times the diagonal.
Except in the darkest of situations, you will *never* have an usable 50 inch image with a lousy 10 lumen.
Damn, I can see the brand new sound and visual geeky ringtone ...
"dzzzt. help me obiwan kenobi, you're my only hope ! dzzzt."
Phone...pr0n...only a typo apart, soon to be one.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I think a real hit would be a cell phone that emits microwaves.
For those of us that want to reheat the morning coffee on the way to work.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
As if it isn't bad enough that brain-dead shit-heads can force their choice 'music' upon us via 1000 Watt car audio system, now we can look forward to them projecting Goatse.cx and Tubgirl on any available surface.
I think we should stop technology now. I've had enough.
They speak of an "impressive VGA resolution" but no numbers in the article. Someone has any idea of the number of pixel this thing can output ?
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
They're in the development stages, but so far they can barely cut through a piece of dried tracing paper and the beam dissipates after a few feet. Also the battery usage is horrendous. Expect them out this year!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
This must be the first time I heard anyone say "perfect lighting conditions" and mean "total darkness".
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Every (working) cell phone emits microwave radiation (300 MHz - 3 GHz).
Well, this sounds like the opening of Star Wars. Pity it won't be a holograph.
YouTube video:
HERE (And yes, this is directing to where I posted it on my own blog. Sue me. That's how I roll. The clip is FUCKING BRILLIANT and you can still click on it to go to YouTube. I'd just like to measure how many do.)
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
I'll pay an extra $5 for an LED flashlight in my phone. If I get video projection for free, cool.
"If you're not passionate about your operating system, you're married to the wrong one."
The revolutionary change - squeezing a viable video projector into a cell phone - has been achieved. ...but don't overlook the fact that now it's just a matter of incremental improvements, cranking up the power and improving efficency.
/. that people so enjoy trashing new technologies based on correctable/improvable limits? kinda like dissing hard drives in general because the first ones were 10MB, and never giving 'em a chance to grow to 1TB.)
Yes, it's pretty weak at this point.
(What is it about
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
n/t
>The inverse square law only applies to an isotropic source - a light that's being emitted in every >direction (like a candle). This is why lasers stay bright at a distance. Utter, utter nonsense. Lasers in the far field follow inverse square too. This applies when they shine lasers at the retroreflectro array on the Moon. The beam diverges at (say) 1mR, so at 1km, the beam might be (say) 1m^2 in "area". The intensity there will be 1Wm^-2 if the laser is a 1W laser. At 2km, the beam will be twice as wide, so the area projected onto a screen at 2km will be 4m^2, so the intensity will be (1/4) Wm^-2. WELCOME TO THE INVERSE SQUARE LAW. Who on EARTH modded this guy up to +4, Insightful?! Oh, wait, this is SlashDork. Parent : PLEASE go to alt.lasers and educate yourself.
"Absorbing your worst..."
Moderators are on crack today. Parent is completely and utterly wrong about basic physics and is sitting at +4 Insightful.
You guys are supposed to be geeks! Surely you know that lasers aren't really completely parallel, right? Diffraction limits and all that? It's impossible to have a completely parallel light source, and thus all light sources follow the inverse square law -- lasers included.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Microvision seem to have faked the videos of the Picop in action, which is a bit of a poor show (http://www.microvision.com/video/elevator.wmv?autoplay=1 or http://www.microvision.com/video/soccer.wmv?autoplay=1). The projection probably looks very washed out in well lit environments, so they decided to fake it instead. I'm sure it looks good in the dark though. The only issue I can think of is laser speckle, but I've never seen a laser projector in action, so I don't know how bad the effect is going to be.
Another player is http://www.lightblueoptics.com/>LightBlueOptics who are using a clever scheme where they are bouncing the lasers off of a Fourier transform of the desired image. Laser speckle may be an issue with this system too. These things are obviously going to have to be cheap if they are going to be for mobile phones, which suggests that slightly beefed up versions for home cinema should be pretty cheap as well.
So... that's where the message from Princess Leia came out of ;)
This sounds so fuckin' cool!! The only problem is: I have to figure out what the fuck I would want one for.
Anyways, I can't wait to have a phone that is a:
shitty game platform
shitty camera
shitty video camera
shitty projector
Oh well. I guess it doesn't matter anyway, since Verizon will cripple the shit out of it.
You can perfectly well have an amount of something but refer to the amount of its unit: four inches, for example, where the amount is four and the unit is inches. In this case, one might not have a respectable amount of inches.
You can refer to http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=amount for the definition of amount. Just think: one potato is a small amount (or number, see discussion at dictionary.com) of potatoes. The amount is one, the unit is potatoes. A farm can have a respectable amount of acres, though "acreage" might be more acceptable to the prescriptivist crowd. Not so weird though, at least to me.
But what do I know; I am just one speaker of yet another amalgam of regional English dialects.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/technology_news/4244056.html?series=43
Ill expect for this... software company
I would like to project hello.jpg in a crowded subway (tube) while taking a video of the ensuing pandemonium. And then post it on the net.
C|N>K