Slashdot Mirror
A Widescreen Laser Projector In Your Pocket
Edis Krad writes "Redmond based company Microvision is in the last stages of developing and releasing a portable, laser-based projector, code-named 'Show WX.' The projector has a resolution of 848 by 400 pixels (WVGA) and, since it uses laser-scanning rather than LCD to form the images, it does not require a lens to focus, allowing it to display images virtually in any surface. The device comes with its own user-replaceable battery, which means you could take it with you anywhere you want. Although there is no pricing information on their website, according to this local news video, it could cost at least $200."
And project an image of my ass onto a car window as I pass someone?
...
Because you're sitting on a goldmine if it can.
What? It can't? *sigh* Oh well. A man can dream, can't he? A man can dream
My work here is dung.
Are you just happy to see me?
Particles, stuff that matters.
$400 to $500 USD according to the manufacturer site; not $200. Dang, $200 would have been awesome.
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
"In" any surface? How am I supposed to see it?
"On" a surface makes sense. "In" a surface would entertain Morlocks.
Just the thing for Morlock porn tho.
This could be very useful in the cooperate world. Instead of dragging around charts projectors and things alike; have this nifty device in your pocket and your presentation is ready.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
It is not about how long it is, it's the aspect ratio that matters.
This, combined with something like "The Sixth Sense" That I saw over on TED.com would be amazing, since the only pitfall to their device was that it was an actual projector you had to wear around your neck.
Now I can project even more realistic UFOs on low clouds near the airport!
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
Laser projector? How can you project a raster image using a inherently vector system?
I don't get it. How does it know how big the pixels should be?
(Or maybe it's obvious and I just need a beating with the clue stick here)
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Unfortunately, it drops to 1/4 the resolution and makes the brightness increase and decrease constantly when trying to display any copyrighted material.
Project a movie or an e-book on your ceiling. No more tired arms from holding books up. I'm getting one of these babies!
. . . iPods are the natural application for ultra-portable projectors. Having a projector built into a portable device that stores all my favorite movies would be sick. Of course, the MPAA would have something to say about that.
mini laser projector + netbook = crazy disco scene that can fit in your pocket. whip it out on the subway on friday night with some dance techno and colorful visualizations to have the swingin'est ride to the bar ever.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
I was thinking about this the other day as I was on a plane jammed into a seat with a laptop. I'd love to see this hooked up to something like:
The wall wart
This would make netbooks seem bulky by comparison.
I went to http://www.microvision.com/ and it seemed to me to be a bunch of photo shopped pictures with promises of working with manufactures maybe, sometime in the future to make things kinda like the ones they were talking about. Vaporware.
There's no price, and demo of this thing working, because it doesn't exist yet. But they do have CG mockups in 10 different colors!
Hands in my pocket
... are the two limitations of small projectors. They claim 10 lumens while most conventional mains-powered projectors are typically 1000-2000 lumens. That makes the product usable alone in a darkened room but not much of anywhere else. Their claim of "movie capable" battery life rather than a specific time period leads me to conclude that they watch shorter than average movies.
I predict that, like the pen scanner, this proves to be a geeky cool but practically useless device.
It's called the SHOW WX, not SHOW WV. FTFA: "WX stands for "wide experience", referring to the wide image format, wide color range and wide always in-focus operation."
As a VJ, I could really use one of these instead of hauling around my huge HD projector, since I only project at 320x240 anyway (to keep real-time video mixing fast). Hopefully the battery really lasts as long as a movie though!
when the resolution is at least 1024 wide (1280 preferable) and it can project with more than 10 lumens of light! (Their Macromedia Flash demo thing on the website is waaaaaay optimistic about how bright it will look). The slashvertisement site "specs" also conveniently leaves off critical information such as what resolutions it can accept (and downscale), what types of cables are included, what type of battery and real estimates of battery life, exactly how much power does it pull (can you operate it live with the usb or just charge), what the image latency/persistence is like, how it deals with 4:3 ratios, etc.
Neat product though!
Here's a video from dl.tv: http://dl.tv/2008/01/ces_2008_microvision_show_proj.php
There's no mention of battery life, and it looks like the framerate might be terrible, but it's a real product!
Hands in my pocket
Gen-1 was limited to near-the-pocket use [Think Geek]
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
"In" any surface? How am I supposed to see it?
The line between "in" and "on" varies per language. The submitter is likely not a native English speaker.
great, now teenagers will be able to project their HILARIOUS youtube videos on the big screen every time you go to the movies.
It'll be like laser pointers x 1000
Or are you just happy to see me?
Sharks with Freakin' lasers attached to their heads!
The Youtube video was posted January 12, 2008 :\
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
Does it run on sharks?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
In 1080p and capable of 120hz refresh rate?
???
Better Microvision than Macrovision.
It's is SO going into an iPhone in 2 or 3 years. From that point on consider this : people use the motion sensor to stabilise the image, which will be pretty cool, and secondly, people start making a whole bunch of iPhone apps to make all sorts of "pranks".
Hard to tell what they'll come up with but you just know that kids will have a field day with that. And by day I mean decade.
You just got troll'd!
As freaking cool as this is, it has an inherent problem.
Laser pointers getting aimed at people's faces are bad enough, but this is like having 3 lasers waved around wildly.
A good number of projectors are used to display a screen to a large audience, while a presenter stands in front of it. For the presenter, getting the light in the eye is nearly unavoidable. So with lasers, you're talking serious eye damage if you're in the way.
Are you happy to see me or do you have A Widescreen Laser Projector In Your Pocket?
Now nerds can communicate with girls in a structured manner.
.....
Just Imagine:
*** Start power point presentation ***
Slide 1:
Objective - To go out on date
Slide 2:
Reasons -
- Have money
- Provide intelligent conversation
- Will Listen
Slide 3:
Places -
- Movies
- Beach
'Hey wait, where are you going?'
*** End power point presentation ***
a widescreen projector in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
I heard from a friend who works at a cinema, that some years ago, they tried to build laser projectors. They were incredibly sharp and brilliant. So brilliant in fact, that the viewers got their faces painfully burned. (Dunno if just from passing by. Or from looking at it, which would mean their eyes got damaged too.)
It may only be an anecdote. But I do not trust these things. ^^
Oh, and with the massive parallelism of LCD and DLP displays, I was happy for the not very healthy flickering of line-scan displays being gone. So another point to preferring non-laser devices.
But I am curious what new knowledge the future brings. :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
That is not "widescreen". Well, except in contrast to old-style analog television. But by today's standards, that is downright shitty resolution.
Why not go all the way and paint them with aluminum paint, (like we have done in the American southwest for, oh, 60 years or so). Big payback in required cooling. Equally big difference in heat absorbed by the BIQ, (Building In Question). This increase in albedo, (due to cities where forests used to be), was the driving force behind the OMFG Ice Age in he 1970s. Maybe it will help with the current global warming fad as well.
Just add a few extra zeros to the price. Five should cover it, but you might want to have that sixth zero in reserve for contingency. :-)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I see this as the perfect solution. Now all I need is the problem to solve.
Perhaps if I coupled this with an iPod and beer the problems would present themselves.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
Don't believe the flash
don't
don't
don't believe the flash
seriously, 10 lumens, with all lights off in a closet it might be ok...
OMG!!!
Portable porn projector!
OTOH, if they were mains powered, I could buy one legally, whereas this would be classed as a laser pointer over 1mW, and thus be banned under weapons laws.
The article says that it could cost AT LEAST $200.
I'm not sure what kind of crappy journalism that is.... The author might as well have just said we have no idea how much it will cost, but it will certainly not be free.
Make your own:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Laser-Image-Projector/
Laser light seems wrong for this type of application. Images produced by laser light inevitably suffer from speckle (speckle is one of the hallmarks of laser light). I'd think having speckle patterns overlaying everything would make the images very annoying to watch, and probably degrade the resolution as well. Maybe they've dealt with this? Though that's hard to believe. Wouldn't they be better off with LEDs?
water cooled vibratory waveguide receptacle in her pocket.
"You can't really dust for vomit" --Nigel Tufnel
If it's 840x480 and ~400 bucks now, imagine what they'll be like in a year or two.
Can you imagina a netbook with a relatively small screen, but that you can dim the lights and instantly have a 24' screen projected on the wall?
I dont understand why Microvision gets so much press. (Possibly b/c they spend more on generating hype than creating a worthy product).
Their technology isn't the best out there...
Holy cow! All we need to do is have this working with the virtual keyboard ( http://www.virtual-laser-keyboard.com/ ), and we have a computer that has input/output devices that are mostly light!