Projectors

June 23, 2007 When too bright just ain't bright enough... Comprehensively eclipsing the previous champion (Christie's LX120), Sanyo's new PLC-XF47 is the new holder of the LCD projection brightness title. Pumping out 15,000 lumens (roughly 10 times the brightness of a 100w globe), and throwing its picture up to 15 metres, the system also comes with the optional ability to stream High Definition content wirelessly from a PC. Which is great, except that even with a US$30,000 price tag, it still only projects in 1024x768 resolution. Read More

June 14, 2007 Miniature projectors embedded in our cell phones, handheld game consoles and other personal electronics appear very likely to play a major role in the future of information display. Projecting a large screen display on a wall appears the most effective way we can currently envisage having a large screen inside a small form factor. One of the problems will of course be that a handheld device projecting a large screen might not lead to a stable, vibration-free and easily readable display. Now German scientists from the Institute for Photonic Microsystems in Dresden have combined a compact laser projector system with inertia and yaw rate sensors to project vibration-compensated images. The sensor system detects the slightest motion and rotates the image to compensate for it, ensuring a steady picture, even in a moving vehicle. The system could be commercially available within two years. Read More

June 12, 2007 Totally transparent projection screens can now become part of interior architecture with the invention of a rear projection screen that looks simply like a piece of glass when it's not in use, producing crystal clear images that appear to be floating in the air. The CristalLine glass and acrylic screens come in flat sheets that can be cut, bent, folded and shaped to produce unique projection media that will no doubt be popular in retail, corporate and trade show applications, not to mention the awesome stage effects they could help create. Read More

May 31, 2007 The collective intelligence of the world’s technologists seems destined to give us the miniature projectors we’ve been promised for so long that will likely revolutionise personal infotainment in mobile devices, the automotive industry (driver assistance, Head-Up Display, etc), medical electronics (acquisition of biometrical data, positioning aid for X-Ray diagnosis and treatment etc), production technology (projection of reference points for drilling, pattern generator for tailoring of steel plates), and Metrology (structured lighting). Earlier this week we reported on the XXXX and now comes the news that a full color laser projection system based on a two dimensional micro scanning mirror technology will be shown at at the LASER 2007 show in Germany next month. The system contains an ultra compact projection head and a separate laser and signal processing unit. It allows the projection of arbitrary images and video sequences with a geometrical resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, 256 brightness levels per pixel and elementary color, and 50 hertz frame rate. Read More

May 29, 2007 For years we've been promised micro-projectors the size of a remote control, a matchbox and even a sugar cube that will liberate visual content from the tiny screens of our mobile devices - but none have materialized onto the market. Explay's oio, the standalone version of which looks about the size of an iPod nano and packs some pretty cool features, was recently demonstrated to a press conference - and given a release date of 2008. It looks pretty close to production ready... We live in hope. Read More

September 19, 2006 Miniaturised projection systems have been spoken about for a long time, but with several viable technologies seemingly close to market, the day when you can carry a video projector at all times, just in case you need it is close. In February, we wrote about the matchbox-sized PVPro projector and now news from Faraunhoffer suggests that not-too-far down the track your handheld, digital camera, portable media player or phone might have a projector built-in. That’s the promise of a new technology for projectors that does not use conventional micro arrays, instead containing just a single mirror that can be rotated around two axes. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS in Dresden and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF in Jena have developed an alternative to micro mirror arrays and the result is a projector the size of a sugar cube. Read More

February 17, 2006 Miniaturised projection is one of those technologies that has been promised for so long that it has developed the permanent stench of vapourware. Now we’re confident we can say it’s time is nearing, with both DigiSlide and Light Blue Optics showing miniscule demonstration units in the last week. Light Blue Optics’ PVPro technology for miniature projectors is now available to potential partners as a demonstrator unit, which is only 62cc in volume, and is similar in size and shape to a typical matchbox. Projectors based on PVPro technology can be used to display images from a range of mobile devices, including laptop computers, personal media players such as the video iPod, digital cameras and even mobile phones. Read More

December 14, 2004 Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany have built a prototype pocket projector with a tilting micromirror that builds up the picture line by line for legible graphics and text. Future models are likely to be no larger than a cube of sugar and could be incorporated into a mobile phone, allowing the miniature projector to be always on hand to present PowerPoint slides to a small group of customers or for quickly consulting an online journal. It could also provide useful orientation in unfamiliar towns by projecting a street map onto the wall of the nearest building. Read More

A new ground-breaking holographic 2D projection technology could result in a new generation of pocket-sized digital video projectors and miniature projection displays incorporated into other handheld devices. Digital video projectors produce large, high quality images are becoming increasingly popular as they grow cheaper with mass production, but the technology is limited in its miniaturisation, preventing projectors from being incorporated mobile device markets. Holographic projection of 2D (rather than 3D) images represents a compelling alternative to conventional image projection. Video projectors based on this holographic technology can be made very small so a projector could be integrated into a laptop, a PDA, or even a mobile phone. Read More