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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
Now I can project even more realistic UFOs on low clouds near the airport!
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
Rotating or oscillating mirrors to cause the beam to scan, similar to what laser barcode scanners use.
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!
... 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!
This has been done before, IIRC Samsung released one of the first TV quality raster scanning system for laser shows.
Basically a standard laser show setup uses multiple lasers (to get your RGB) combined into a single beam then passed through a device, such as a PCAOM, which acts as rather like a programmable colour filter. (this isn't the only way it can be done with solid state lasers).
Two sets of mirrors can be steered in the X and Y axis to draw your shapes, beam effects, etc.
In the case of a TV or other raster displays the beam is steered much like you would an electron beam on a regular TV. It scans a horizontal line, moves down scans across, repeat. You can switch the direction of the scan (left to right, then right to left) on alternating lines to speed up the scan rate.
Wikipedia has some info on Laser TV's in general: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_TV and LaserFX has some info on PCAOM's if you're interested in the older tech: http://www.laserfx.com/Backstage.LaserFX.com/Archives/Archives6.html
Early systems actually used multiple projectors overlapping or drawing the first 3rd, 2nd third, etc of the image to make up for slower scan rates.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
I think this is where I'm tripping up. I always assume laser light is perfectly collimated so that the projected dot at 1cm is that same size as at 1m, but I guess the projector uses slightly unfocused beam to generate a larger dot with relatively short increases in projection distance to avoid getting just a collection of horizontal or vertical lines appearing instead of an image.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
NoNoNoNO!!! Bad Xpeter, Bad boy. Do you realize how fucking annoying this is going to be? PowerPoint presentations everywhere. Is that the kind of world you want to grow up in?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
CRT's project an electron beam into a fixed-size phosphor pixel on the screen. This is projecting a laser dot onto a wall (or whatever), I was mostly just not sure how you get an image instead of just a series of lines appearing.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Check the Buzz section of the site: So much for your vaporware...
When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
I was thinking along the lines of "Cool! Pocket porn projector!."
Put identity in the browser.
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.