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The Pocket-Sized Projector Has Arrived
mallumax writes "David Pogue of New York Times has reviewed the Pico, which is a pocket projector from Optoma. The review is quite entertaining (Pogue projects the images on to a plane's ceiling, leaving passengers baffled) and detailed. The highlights are: It is a pocket-sized projector which runs on batteries and can project images and videos from a variety of sources like iPhone, iPod and DVD players with a 480x320px resolution, with a maximum screen size of 65 inches at 8.5 feet. It uses a non-replaceable 10,000 hour LED lamp and a DLP chip from Texas Instruments. The battery lasts for 90 minutes and can be recharged through USB or with its own power cord. The device weighs 115g and comes with an inbuilt speaker which is practically useless. If you want one, it will set you back by $430."
Angus Young has already said he wants one. Something about it having its very own power chord, I guess.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
It's a laser, so it should last like, 40 million hours or something. A tad longer than your average incandescent bulb.
It's an LED with an anticipated life of 20,000 hours. That's, like, a war-crime's amount of PowerPoint.
Can 'War Crime' be a unit of measurement for terribleness and quantity?
It sure is replaceable! Only $430!
A non-replaceable lamp on an LCD projector? No thanks.
Given that its a "10,000 hour LED" it should last over a year of continuous use. At 8 hours a day every day it will last 3 years.
At more realistic (but still high) levels of usage... say, 4 hours 4 times per week, we're looking at 12 years.
In other words, you'll probably have upgraded multiple times before the bulb burns out.
The Pico I remember used laser diodes, not just a LED light.
The lasers allow much greater efficiency - traditional projectors, like LCD Monitors, actually use more energy to display black, because it has to activate the cells to block light.
In this case, the lasers just shut off, reducing power usage to what's actually needed to make the image, not to make a full while screen all the time.
I don't read AC A human right
Mod parent idiot. First, it's a DLP projector, not an LCD projector. Secondly, it has a rated lifespan of 10,000 hours. That's more than a complete year of life, or 13 years at 2 hours a day. Probably more than you'll actually want to use this projector.
Also, while I'm boarding on flamebait, I'd like to point and laugh at the person who replied to me a couple of days ago when I posted about this claiming this device didn't exist.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Or you can lie in bed and point the thing straight up. In a dark room, you'll have yourself a huge, bright movie playing on the ceiling.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
It's 20,000 hours. Short, but that's 250 8-hour days of continuous use.
Your math is off. 20,000 / 8 is 2500 8-hour days of continuous use, nearly 7 years.
Eh? I divided 20,000 by 24 and got 833 days of 24 hour continuous use. Which is really closer to six-plus years of life, even if you assume 8-hour days, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
2500, I think you mean. If it died in less than a year, I'd be upset. 10 years is a lot better.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
It's actually 2,500 days :)
$430 to keep pens from leaking onto my shirt? No thanks...
Thank you and god bless.
You had me until that part. Sorry, bro, no brownie points for you.
Then he spent some quality time with the Air Marshall and DHS ...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Being able to carry one in your laptop bag for impromptu meetings is a key use. Having one to project the latest episode of [insert favorite show here] from your cell phone is one of those cool applications you buy it for, even though you'll probably never use it that way.
BTW - not every presentation occurs where there is a mounted projector. In the architecture field, for example, we often give presentations to smaller clients (churches, non-profits, individuals) in class or meeting rooms with nothing but a table, some chairs, and four white walls. These people don't have their "dream buildings" yet...which is why we're working with them.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
A non-replaceable lamp on an LCD projector? No thanks.
That's 4 cents an hour to use it, if you factor the cost over 10,000 hours. That's 32 cents per 8 hour day. If you use a projector in a business setting for 8 hours and you can't afford 32 cents per day, you, sir, have bigger things to worry about.
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
Poor form sir, poor form. What good is a paranoid rant without some mention of jew bankers, the international money cartel, black helicopters, and the plan to turn Mississippi into an al-quaeda training camp?
-1: discredit to the white race.
That's not much more than the cost to replace my *replacable* lamp for my home theater projector. Which is rated for only about 3k-5k hours.
I'm not exactly a gadget freak but I have to say I do want one of these (not at this price though). With the ability to store a whole bunch of video on a tiny device and the major problem of having to watch it on the little screen, this seems to fill the gap nicely. You just need a flat surface (as the review says, back of the seat in front of you on a plane or whatever) and you can watch it comfortably. And it still fits in your pocket. Why isn't everybody making them?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
meh, typical projector bulbs can run $300-$500 anyway. (That is also one of the many drawbacks of DLP TVs)
for those around here that remember 1998, the Rio PMP300 was the 2nd but the most important MP3 player that came on the market. Not exactly ripping it up at 32 MB of RAM but an important introduction nonetheless and ultimately led to Creative and then Apple following with their MP3 players. Given that, in 10 years we may all have them on our key chains next to the USB terabyte drives.
"The people on the plane were baffled when they saw *porn* on the ceiling . ." and you thought cell phones were annoying when they came out . .
If you're interested in facts I'll tell you what they are and I'll give you sources - Chomsky on The Big Idea
3M makes and sells a very pocketable battery powered projector already. It has been for sale for a couple of months. Has better specs too, and it's cheaper. I'm not sure why we have articles that ignore stuff like this. I know we can't be experts on everything, but man, the author couldn't do a quick google search for pico projectors?
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
Power Point? Who the hell is going to be using this thing for Power Point?
Sheesh, it fits in a your pants pocket. So does a video iPod. Add porn to this lovely mixture. Do I have to say anything more?
Well, Mr. Gates, three meters is nine feet. Perhaps I'm mistaken in assuming that's nine feet diagonal as monitors are usually measured, but that's twice as big as my TV, which is over twice as big as any screen I've ever owned.
It doesn't say that the room has to be smaller than three meters; that's the maximum size of the projection.
Free Martian Whores!
Not surprisingly, the tech specs (http://www.optoma.co.uk/PicoIntro.aspx) don't say how bright the thing is.
The review claims 9 lumens - pretty dim.
Not to mention if they can't spare 4 cents an hour, they wouldn't be able to afford the electricity to run a full-size projector in the first place.
While vi became vim, this is a huge jump in functionality for Pico
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
It sure is replaceable! Only $430!
The $430 price is only for new adopters. It'll be $19.95 by the time you have to replace it.
No HD, no wireless, no shaver. Lame.
This is where's it's at.
-Matthew Riley "TofuMatt" MacPherson
I have a website
traditional projectors, like LCD Monitors, actually use more energy to display black, because it has to activate the cells to block light.
That may be true in LCD shutter technologies, such as an LCD monitor. This baby uses DLP technology, which is essentially a chip covered in tiny steerable mirrors. To produce black, they simply aim the mirror off-screen. It costs essentially no more energy to produce black vs any other color.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I must be old. I read the title as "Pocket-protector"
Looks like the webserver got bombed. Here is the cached site as of the 25th of October. Google Cache: http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:d-yiI5QQzfQJ:www.optoma.co.uk/PicoIndex.aspx+http://www.optoma.co.uk/PicoIndex.aspx&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox
I suspect the opposite is true, and it will find acceptance mainly as a display for iPods, netbooks, etc. As a replacement for business or home theater projector, it is mostly just less bright, since the size usually doesn't matter (most conference rooms have a projector available anyways). But screen size is a real limiting factor in making smaller iPods, laptops, and PDAs - they are totally size-limited by I/O (screens and keyboards).
When will LEDs hit 'big' projectors (720p+)? I'm pondering a home theater setup, but the cost of bulbs is turning me off. Especially when I remember in school if you didn't shut down properly or bumped the overhead, Poof.
Second. Where are all the 'important' stats on this projector? Lumens, Contrast Ratio, etc.
This opens up entirely new uses for a projector for the nerdy crowd:
Some examples/ideas:
* Projector tiling
* Cheap, portable 3D Scanning
* Real-time photo sharing (obvious)
* Portable video-conferencing, telepresence (think projector-screen-like avatars around the screen with a tiny projector attached to each of them)
* Pseudo-Invisibility!! (Think helmet-mounted camera, white t-shirt, dorky looking wearable projector mount)
* Head-Mounted Projector applications (other types of invisibility, "Virtual Cockpit", freaking people out at night clubs, etc.)
...is a note played on an electric guitar played simultaneously with the note whose frequency is approximately 50% higher. The simple ratio means you get nice interaction between harmonics, even when the guitar is heavily distorted. They're very popular with many guitarists and are easy to play. Bands ranging from Hawkwind to Nirvana made/make great use of them. They don't usually come with projectors.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
20k hours is almost three years of continuous use.
Posting AC doesn't undo moderation.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
+ -pants.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
When it goes on sale in two weeks, it will give parents a completely portable backseat-of-the-minivan movie theater for the kids.
Sure, provided you're driving at night, or with all the windows painted over.
"Pocket projector."
I can't believe no one made this pun before now.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
7 years! that isnt enough time. We will hardly be able to cover the new TPS Coversheets;
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
And yet there is no more redundant modifier on the great-grandparent post. You sir, are wrong.
Who cares if the lamp is non-replaceable (not an LCD, anyway).
What is a pocket protector doing with a lamp anyway? I've been ridiculed enough for using one without a lamp, why would I want to light it up and draw even more attention to it?
Is this some new kind of nerd bling?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Now you'll be able to tell the geeks, because they will be the ones with the pocket-projectors.
I think you missed the point. It's one thing that the breeders have their children watching movies in the relative privacy of their own vehicles. What you should be afraid of, is that you will be subjected to all this in places you thought were safe.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
This baby uses DLP technology, which is essentially a chip covered in tiny steerable mirrors. To produce black, they simply aim the mirror off-screen. It costs essentially no more energy to produce black vs any other color.
Then gray must be even harder because it has to aim the mirrors back and forth rapidly.
No he isn't. Somebody else just "fixed it for ya"
On second thought, let's not go to the internet. 'Tis a silly place.
You could try building your own! You'll need an array of them, and a heat sink. Probably a parabolic reflector too, but very doable.
moox. for a new generation.
TFA states that it's a 20,000 hour bulb, not 10,000 as the summary suggests.
Just FYI.
Yes it does, if you're posting while logged in to your account. The only way to *not* undo moderation is to make sure you're posting from a browser that's not logged into your account.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
It does if you are logged in and click the checkbox to Post Anonymously instead of signing out. Being signed out might still do it if they base it on IP or session info, but I can't say for sure.
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
The term you're looking for is "genocidal".
On a related note, using powerpoint with an ingenious device like this one should amount to some civil offense in a district court.. abuse of technology or something. It is quite clear was this device was made for.
Sooooo funny uvajed_ekil. I hope you always find a place to plug-in your cord.
A little known fact about /. : Anonymous Coward actually has infinite mod points, but since he can't help but post to every discussion, he reverts all his modding.
If he is watching 8 hours TV a day, no wonder he cant do division!
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Hmmm, the summary says 65 inches. Less than three meters, but a hair more than two. I must not be getting your point.
Free Martian Whores!
Even better, imagine making short clips of those creepy pale black-eyed children from Japanese horror movies and projecting them at random...
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
He obviously didn't use the decimal system. Stop thinking in terms of base 10!
Face your daemons!
or in other words, if the device gets even smaller and gets embeddded in laptop PCs the lifespan of the bulb will be a non issue.
You're remembering the PicoP from Microvision, which is the only "pico projector" that will use lasers http://www.microvision.com/pico_projector_displays/howitworks.html . Everything else is just a small DLP.
There is no sig.
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
Speaking as a parent, I .. . .you got me.
You are not the customer.
Can 'War Crime' be a unit of measurement for terribleness and quantity?
I find it really difficult to get a new measurement out of my head until I've found a place to use it.
For example, I'm 200 pages into writing a romance novel for the sole purpose of using the line 'He was hung like Armageddon.' I've never even read a romance novel.
Hmmm, the summary says 65 inches. Less than three meters, but a hair more than two.
[citation needed]
Please provide the math by which you arrived at hair more than 2m.
Face your daemons!
It's a laser, so it should last like, 40 million hours or something. A tad longer than your average incandescent bulb.
I'm not sure if we're talking about the same product, but the one in TFA uses a non-replaceable 9 Lumen LED rated for 20,000 hours (/.'s summary says 10,000)
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The XBOX version or the PC version?
What's the average lifespan of a shark, cause I'd hate to need to replace a burnt out laser on one of those frickin' things.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
I really hope you're not serious...
I'm probably going to wait until I can get one with a pocket projector protector.
I think its uses in business will be limited without a way to connect it to a laptop for a slide presentation
on the article... 9 lumens
I was looking at the information on the I saw the "throw distance" of 1.9...
and I started to think that this device could only be throw 1.9 meters and how I could totally throw it further.
Sure, provided you're driving at night, or with all the windows painted over.
Well, it's not like opaque windows could make minivan soccer moms any worse at driving...
A laser and and LED are two completely different things, except that they both occasionally excel at rendering retinal tissue useless.
How's $50 for a 400 W bulb every 20,000 hours? It helps when you save a lot building your own 1080p projector from a $380 kit and an LCD monitor.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
According to my numbers, 65 inches == 1.651 meters.
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
The fact it's an LED makes me feel better... most projectors I've ever worked with have been rather fragile in the bulb area...
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Actually as long as the post comes from your IP it undoes moderation. Have you noticed the slowness in the preview button returning the first time you use it in a day, that's because slashdot is reaching out and scanning your IP for open proxies, they also attach that IP to your posts and moderations.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I say anyone really happy to see me would be packing at least 720p in their pocket.
So US$11.25?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Two meters is about 78 inches (I used to build 2m R/C sailplanes), so it's almost-but-not-quite 2m. To be precise, 65 inches is 1.65m.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
or contractions?
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
I remember that the guys behind the beagleboard wanted to build a portable mini projector... Is this what they were building?
It does - I've done it before and was given the message that my moderation was undone. The AC logged in, but checked "Post Anonymously", which only hides your user name and ID from the post. Not the same as logging out and then posting anonymously.
Best "String" Ever!
"Also, while I'm boarding on flamebait ..."
- how do you spice that? ;)
- Does that give you any heartburn?
- your grocery bills must be amazing!
- the ironing is delicious
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Seriously , nine ?
I struggle with 2000 in daylight.
Interesting, How do they deal with the speckle problem created by the coherent light source?
So screw LED sign of Ignignok or Er in an odd location. This projector + Smallest iPod w/video + reasonable sized external battery pack, and you have "terrorist" device that will have Boston PD shitting themselves! Porn will be everywhere!!!
Video graffiti!!!
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
iWant1
... or are you just happy to see me?
Seriously, though, are they coming to Europe?
yeah!!! a full 9 lumens...
Never having seen it actually in use, I couldn't say. Could be that they deliberately detune it a bit when it goes through the combiner.
After that it works a lot like a CRT monitor, constantly redrawing the screen.
I don't read AC A human right
Idea for a massive new industry: bathroom stall movie screens "brought to you by" X.
Dunno for sure, but there are a few ways to deal with the problem, most of which are covered under patents, of course. Basically the idea is to quickly (i.e. above 30 Hz or so) vary the phase of the light over a wide area so your eye doesn't have time to perceive the speckle.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
An even cheaper version will be available from Digikey in Jan. http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail?name=296-23836-ND
With 2 hours of battery life, you won't be running this thing 8 hours for 1 day in a row, let alone 250... the LCD usage should last 5-10 years even with the most heavy usage that should occur in practice.
Other components are (perhaps) just as likely to fail within that huge length of time.
It should also be noted that 20,000 hours is about the expected lifetime for the backlight on regular LCD panels too, and these backlight generally aren't replaceable in most LCD monitors. I wouldn't worry about it - like your computer monitor you'll probably replace it before it stops working, or if it manages to reach the EOL the comprable replacement is going to be dirt cheap by that time.
LED. I believe Microvision's Pico projector is the manufacturer that is/was planning a laser-based Pico projector.
It would seem they had a great plan, but another company (Optoma) has now beaten them to the market with a LED projector.
So most likely Optium will now command the market, and the Laser projector will suffer the same fate as Betamax/Laser disk.
That is.. unless Microvision really does get the Laser projector out fast, and consumers buy theirs instead for some reason.
But if their target market all buys the LED projectors before the Laser projector could be finished, they'll have noone to sell to.....
At 20,000 hours, you can just toss it and get the n'th gen version -- It's only 2.5 cents per minute. Running it 24x7 is over two years, not accounting for any extra lamp wear from 24x7 operation.
Um, okay...
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
They should make the battery replaceable. I think the battery will die long before the LED dies off.
I'm not sure what you read, but the summary has been edited, I think. My original response was prompted by the term "power chord" in the summary, when it should have read "power cord." Here's a link for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour#Understanding_humour.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Basically the idea is to quickly (i.e. above 30 Hz or so) vary the phase of the light over a wide area so your eye doesn't have time to perceive the speckle.
Given that we're not only combining 3 lasers, we're also left and right starting around 38k times a second, and up and down at least 60 times a second, moving it through more than 3/4 a million pixels equivalents every 1/60th of a second.
I think that varying the phase wouldn't be a big deal.
Then again, the whole thing depends on a bit of light that stays in one spot for only millionths of a second, lasting for hundredths in our perception. It might not be hanging around long enough for the sparkle to be visible.
I don't read AC A human right
So most likely Optium will now command the market, and the Laser projector will suffer the same fate as Betamax/Laser disk.
Well, it might not either - DLP is later technology than LCD, but both persist, and I'd even say DLP is gaining in projector fields.
The LED device is around the size of a wallet. The laser one prototype was the size of one of those small matchboxes. Going by this website, they've gotten that down to a penny. Going by Microvision's own site, they're looking to integrate the laser technology into a cell phone. If it can be made cheap, durable, and effective enough, it'll be able to carve it's own niche easily enough.
I don't read AC A human right
So it should last at LEAST 2.2 years of 24/7 operation. Assuming you haven't broken it before then, not only would you have gotten your money out of it, you should have no problem going out and buying a new one that's 3/4 the size, double the resolution and brightness*.
*Though that'd also double the wattage it needs without some major efficiency gains, so maybe not.
I don't read AC A human right
I know a guy who works on this tech, they can already fit in a cell phone. It's just not affordable. He tells me as the price of the lasers comes down, it will become commonplace to have a projector in your cell phone. I think he anticipated 2010...
Given that we're not only combining 3 lasers, we're also left and right starting around 38k times a second, and up and down at least 60 times a second, moving it through more than 3/4 a million pixels equivalents every 1/60th of a second. I think that varying the phase wouldn't be a big deal.
I've not worked with the laser-based TV systems, but I've had lots and lots of experience with industrial beam-steered lasers, and my experience with those that use visible wavelengths is that they exhibit extremely strong speckle no matter how fast the beam is being moved around. If the beam is being placed in exactly the same spot, with the optical path being exactly the same length, I'd think there's a pretty good chance speckle would continue to be an issue, but I can't support that prediction observationally. The problem is that you have to continuously vary the phase across the entire width of the beam such that the speckle is being changed faster than the eye can perceive. I suppose one way to do it might be by distorting the focusing lens by a fraction of a wavelength such that the optical path length on subsequent scans of a given pixel would vary quickly enough to be below the threshold of perception.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
CNN are still waiting for the Pocket Holographic Projector edition to come out.
Until then, they're happy to fake it.
1) Purchase Pico ....
2) Upload animated "player decoy" Counter-Strike spray into iPod
3) Project onto wall
4)
5) Profit!!!
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
No wonder they didn't post the resolution even under "technical specifications" on their website. (The flash movie may very well say what it is, but I didn't load the damn dirty thing.) 3M's projector has twice as many pixels... And it's about seventy bucks cheaper. Might as well have the slashvertisement for the better product, eh? Gotta put one of these suckers on my wish list for sure. I think this is just the display device to use for a motion simulator.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Trying to figure out whats what here...
microvision.com
Seriously , nine ? I struggle with 2000 in daylight.
From the way the article is written, this will probably be used for very different situations than what you use your projector for. Mine struggles to keep up with daylight, too. However, the closer I move it towards the screen, the brighter it gets, so you sacrifice screen size for brightness. This thing just changes the sweet spot to a much smaller size in order to add portability - I'd see it moving more into the niche of portable TVs and DVD players than going toe-to-toe with the projectors that are out there today. Plus it's cool as shit.
Speaking of War Crimes, have you considered just how horrifying this device will be?
You can be Rick Rolled without even being at a computer. Rickroll on opening the fridge. Rickroll has been set free.
Tired of legitimate data sources? Try UNCYCLOPEDIA
Not so good for the regular consumer.
If you're using it to play videos, then suddenly, you need a second device and a wire. If you need headphones, then it becomes three devices and another wire, which means it becomes awkward and tangled to use and store, which means it won't get used unless you are really driven. And if the intent is to share the experience with more than just yourself, you'd need more than one second set of head phones.
I can see a pocket projector becoming much more useful when it includes a decent sound system, has increased luminosity and plays media directly from a USB memory stick, all of which are possible. Though, for a single user, a netbook does all of that and much more.
Remember? TV's allowed us to view things without having to turn out the lights or worry about setting up a projector.
Still, if you happen to be doing lots of small presentations on the road, I can see this device as having real benefit over lugging around a big projector.
-FL
Have you seen the Divistar one sold at Pearl ?
Maybe too big for pockets... but it looks nice, and is less expensive than the Pico.
http://www.pearl.fr/article-PX3140.html
* LED, 20.000h
* 63,5cm (25") image at 1m
* 100:1 contrast
* builtin speaker 1W
* silent fan
* VGA and Cinch-AV
* Screw thread for tripod
* Size: 90x44x80mm
* Weight: 200g
And its 170 euros with 19.6% taxes (aroud 240 US$).
I wait to see such device working, I'm in doubt about light power and image quality with such contrast.
Note: the euro symbol (â) is not recognized in plain old text mode.
-- Laurent Pointal
They are selling a mobile phone + palm size projector
Review:
http://www.cheaa.com/Product/DH/HangQing/2008/11/37964152257.html
http://chinese.engadget.com/2008/08/26/epoq-egp-pp01-kirf-projector-phone-now-shipping/
just for 2000RMB (~285USD).
It claims to have 34-64 inches projected screen at 1-2 meter @ 640*480 resolution, does not mention the lumen though.
Better yet, looks like the speaker is much larger :P And after all it's a cell phone too.
Nope. I've posted AC plenty of times from the same IP without undoing moderation. The only thing the system cares about is whether or not you're logged in when you post.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
A non-replaceable lamp on an LCD projector? No thanks.
Given that its a "10,000 hour LED" it should last over a year of continuous use. At 8 hours a day every day it will last 3 years.
When you consider a "traditional" projector lamp lasts about 3000 hours, $450 for the whole unit is pretty darn good. The least costly replacement lamp I've seen is $100 and that was for a $600 (discounted price) projector, for a total of $900 (granted that gives you 12000 hours of lamp life).
On the other hand, my 94cm (37in) LCD television cost only $600 and its CCF back lighting has a rated half life of 50,000 hours. (I wonder how LED back lit units compare.)
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
This one, at 320x240 probably isn't, but the competitors are 640x480 certainly are. Marketing presentations are nothing like business meetings - they're all pretty pictures with captions.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
This isn't a pico, it's a pocket projector. Different class. Many of the pico units do use lasers.
Or capitalization at the beginning of sentences?
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Technically, it IS a pico, or at least named that:
"David Pogue of New York Times has reviewed the Pico, which is a pocket projector from Optoma.
I was initially confused a bit because I remembered a pico under development a different company that used lasers to increase efficiency and reduce size.
This Pico, at most, is a generational improvement.
The laser one, as far as I know, would be a breakthrough design - a full color laser image producer? That would be a first on the market.
I don't read AC A human right
Wouldn't industrial lasers be far, far more powerful than the ones we're talking about? Plus, wouldn't any individual instance of speckle be minimized by the small footprint of any given pixel?
How hard is it to vary the phase? Given that you mention changing the phase faster than the eye can perceive, wouldn't the fact that we have a mirror moving the beam in the kilohertz sideways mean that the beam is moving faster than the eye can perceive anyways?
I don't read AC A human right
Touché
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
I fail it
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
And so you are correct. I was assuming this was a pocket class unit because of the title of TFS.
This appears to be one of the smaller pico units like the LED unit from 3M, and laser projectors from Microvision and Symbol Tech.
Um... it is replaceable.
The article even mentions it comes with a spare battery (for 3 hours playback time).
Sam