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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."
Yes, but being able to project an internet site on an 8 x 11 sheet of paper on the go will be a big asset and very useful. A real computer in a pocket.
Bill
My Nokia N95 has a 5 MegaPixel camera which produces some pretty good quality photos and video. It is hard to appreciate this quality on the 3"ish screen so having a projector would be a nice feature. No idea when I'd use it though, I can hardly imagine whipping out the projector at work or uni to show my mates my oh so cool pics. But this is the first time I've had a phone that does more than just do calls and texts, on a recent holiday I must've taken about 500 pics on the 4GB microSD card in it. Mobile phones are becoming very nice indeed imo.
had to that one of those projected keypads and you have a dream portable computer.
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
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.
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
I think I'm regressing technology wise. The higher I move up the corporate food chain the less use I have for widgets. I just traded my Treo 7XX (whatever it was) for a Motorola W385. I never used anything but the phone and contacts on the Treo and it seemed better suited to some young whippersnapper who would use everything on it. I'm more interested in simple use and strong, solid signal and in addition I don't want to be looking at emails all times of day - I will if they're around so I need to remove temptation. Also, I change companies in a couple of weeks and it seems they are an OpenSuse shop, which would be nice if I was back in college and had the time to try out all the open source software, but really I just want a working productivity package. The good thing is that I use OpenOffice anyway and I have used Evolution before, but I'm going to have figure out a decent data analysis/graphing program.
See now I'm rambling on like my Grandfather did - I remember when we could go downtown with a shilling, get a bag of batter bits, see a movie for two jam jars, get a ride back on the trolley at the end of the night and still have two farthings to rub together...
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.