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Portables Hardware

Matchbox Sized Color Projectors? 193

Posted by CmdrTaco from the I'll-believe-it-when-I-see-it dept.
Justin Nolan sent in a very brief link about ultra small projectors which says "Upstream Engineering is willing to provide miniature color video projectors for use with portable video player, travel TV, laptops and handhelds next year. Upstream's patented technology, called Photon Vacuum, maximizes the amount of photons sent to the target from the light source in a minimum space and allows the creation of devices free of a variety of components currently used in projectors that unnecessarily waste energy. Photon Vacuum enables the smallest projector designs in the world, ultimately to a size of matchbox. The company says is going to push the power consumption of the whole device ultimately to below 4 watts while still gaining a travel-TV sized color projection" You can also read Upstream's website for almost as little information.
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Matchbox Sized Color Projectors? More

Matchbox Sized Color Projectors?

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  • Cost (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cartzworth ( 709639 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @11:41AM (#8490773) Journal
    Are they going to be 2k US+ like conventional projectors? Will they force the price of conventional projectors down?

    • Re:Cost (Score:5, Informative)

      by surstrmming ( 674864 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @12:03PM (#8490890) Homepage
      The new Swedish "OptiLight" projector [optilight.nu] for should drive prices down later in 2004. It's expected to retail for $500.

      • Re:Cost (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The native resolution is 640x480. For anything more demanding than analog TV (HD, computer display, etc), that's horrible.

      • Re:Cost (Score:5, Interesting)

        by jafiwam ( 310805 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @01:04PM (#8491255) Homepage Journal
        Yeah, and at 700 lumens you'll have to climb in a cardboard box to see the thing.

        Other portables are around 1000-2000.

        Wall/ceiling mounts are 3000-4000 lumens.

        You get what you pay for, even if it is Swedish.

        • Re:Cost (Score:2, Interesting)

          by texaport ( 600120 )

          Anything that saves me from spending $350 on a friggin light bulb ($700 if you carry a spare) is a welcome trend.

          Even Thomas Edison could make a bulb that lasted beyond 70 hours with proper cooling...

        • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @01:49PM (#8491442)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re:Cost (Score:3, Interesting)

            by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 )

            If I were buying a proper projector for home cinema I'd go for 1900+ but something cheap and portable to show up charts or a slideshow of my graphic work would work fine with 700.

            What light output is right for you really depends on several factors. Room lighting, the screen you project on, how large that screen is, these are all factors. Also, the display technology plays a part: if you get a DLP projector, you will need to have a bulb almost twice as bright as one in an LCD projector, if you want to ha

      • Re:Cost (Score:3, Informative)

        by janbjurstrom ( 652025 )

        Well, at 640x480 I'm not so sure. Seems way too lo-rez, especially for vaporware, no matter the price... (And reading the articles in their archive, I'm Swedish -- too, Mr. nickname-from-nastiest-'food'-in-Swedish-cuisine ;) -- they claimed "600x800" in October 2002 [kistaapplications.se], article in Swedish.)

        Furthermore, their current data/spec. on rez and price are (still) their own "target values".

        From what I gather, they do have some new kind of cooling system (patents pending), which they claim is good enough to make next-

  • Cheap! (Score:1, Interesting)

    by The Real Chrisjc ( 576622 ) *
    Does this mean that projectors will get smaller, cheaper and more high quality?
    The holy grail!

    Chris

  • Already gone... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Site says it's down for "software upgrade".

    Anyone got a mirror?

  • Now if only.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by penguinrenegade ( 651460 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @11:42AM (#8490784)
    They made the projectors to fit inside of a Matchbox car!!!

  • making a big screen (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DavidDeLux ( 650471 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @11:45AM (#8490797)
    Now, if lots of these min-projectors could be put together in a matrix, will this mean that, finally, big screen TVs can be produced more cheaply. (If one mini-projector does dead, just swap it out).
    • They claim that a single unit can project a "TV Sized Image". Assuming they meen a small screen TV (32") you would probably want at least four of these to start giving you a big screen image. I somehow don't think that would be cheaper than buying a single unit, and you're multiplying your points of failure by four (any one of four units dies, and your image is pretty much useless).

      Now if this tech could be scaled up to make larger brighter projectors that are still small and low on power consumption, th

      • Re:making a big screen (Score:5, Insightful)

        by wideBlueSkies ( 618979 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @12:01PM (#8490879) Journal
        >>small screen TV (32")

        I remember a time, not long ago that 32'' was considered big screen.....

        Now you need a room with an empty wall the size of Texas for a big screen TV. What's next, wrap around TV for 2 or more walls?

        wbs.
        • Ooops...forgot to escape the "<" as &lt; ... I meant to write that as (<32") ... I've alsways seen 32" as the midpoint between "big screen" and "small screen" according to national retailers. My TV is 32" and I consider it a big screen.

        • Re:making a big screen (Score:3, Insightful)

          by ckedge ( 192996 )
          >>small screen TV (32")
          >>> I remember a time, not long ago that 32'' was considered big screen...

          No kidding.

          I have a very different interpretation: On their website (if you go through all the links) you see them repeatedly mention "size of current mobile screens". Think of the mobile DVD players and current "mobile LCD" screens.

          That's right. 8-15 inches.

          Interesting little company, 5 people - 1 "manager" and 4 engineers.
          • 8-15 inches

            When they said "portable TV," I was thinking of the 13" travel-trailer models that are so popular. Still, if something that fits in my pocket could combine a Stowaway keyboard [thinkoutside.com] and contain all the functionality of a stripped-down laptop (think current high-end handheld with maybe 5 GB of storage) and include the full-size keyboard that the Stowaway provides, as well as a projected 13" screen (rollup?), I'd be tickled.

            Sorry for the hellish run-on sentance. You know how it goes when an idea (d

        • Think bigger: How about the outside wall of the neighbours house?

    • Re:making a big screen (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 07, 2004 @12:00PM (#8490874)
      Now, if lots of these min-projectors could be put together in a matrix

      Surely you meant:

      Now, if lots of these min-projectors could be put together in a beowulf cluster ...

    • Cough, um why would use use a bunch of mini projectors when you can use one normal projector? The resolution sucks but other than that it's a popular method.

  • Power Consumption (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jotaigna ( 749859 ) <jotaigna@yahoo.com> on Sunday March 07, 2004 @11:47AM (#8490807) Homepage Journal
    Thats the spirit. Every electric and electronic appliance should go for that goal. While the effort to finally get a cheap, clean and reliable source of energy is good, we must for once pay attention to nature and reduce power consuption to a minimum, that would buy us some time or being able to rely in smaller sources of energy like wind or solar pannels. Size does matter!!,
    Although I dont know what im going to do whith such a tiny proyector, maybe i'll put it in my back pockent and sit on it afterwards and break it. Or have it stuck in a child's ear.

    • Re:Power Consumption (Score:5, Funny)

      by Baumi ( 148744 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @12:38PM (#8491088) Homepage
      Every electric and electronic appliance should go for that goal.

      I don't know - my matchbox-sized fridge isn't selling too well...

      Jens
      • > Every electric and electronic appliance should go for that goal.

        I don't know - my matchbox-sized fridge isn't selling too well...

        Finally, a fridge that Ken can keep his beer cold with.
        Who needs a demanding, anorexic bitch like Barbie when you have cold beer.

        This explains their break-up.

    • Dream on! (Score:4, Informative)

      by Tchaik ( 21417 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @12:38PM (#8491090) Homepage
      Do you actually believe that you can project a reasonable image with _4 watts_ of power? You need energy to create photons. Even with zero heat loss, you can't get a luminous image out of 4 watts. This is vaporware at best.

      • Re:Dream on! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mindstrm ( 20013 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @01:32PM (#8491378)
        Really?

        So... at 100% conversion, how much power does, say, your average 17" monitor put out in terms of light? (not counting heat, etc)

        You might be surprised just how bright 4 watts of pure light is.

        a 100W tungsten incandescent light bulb is about 2.6% efficent.... or 17.5 lumens/watt so 1750 lumens.

        Good tungsten halogen bulbs, 3.6% (3.6W) or 2500 lumens for a 100W source.

        So.. a matchbox projector with 4W of output with a 100% luminous efficiency would give us, say, 650lm/W * 4W = 2600 lumens...

        If you google around for projectors, you'll find that for $2000 you can get around a 2200 lumen projector.

        That's a 200W lamp.

        • Aren't the little bulbs on the christmas lights 4 watts each? that's not much light.

          Also at 4 watts its producing a "travel-TV sized" projection. What's a travel TV? Like 13"? 5"?

          I don't think this is going after the powerpoint or home theater markets.
      • Assume I'm in a room with a 100 watt light bulb. Call it 5 x 5 x 5 metres: that's 150 square metres of wall. So, the background is 0.67 watts per square meter. They're talking about 4 watts for a "travel TV sized" screen. Assume 50cm by 50cm, that's 16 watts per square meter. The image should be easily visible in indoor light.

        Don't forget that while the projector won't be 100% efficient, neither is a light bulb.

      • Re:Dream on! (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Only 4 Watts of power couldn't produce a luminous image? Why not look at the output from a 4 Watt laser?

        You could do it twice... once per eye. ;)
      • From the article:
        It is possible to push the power consumption of the whole device ultimately to below 4 watts while still gaining a travel-TV sized color projection.

        Well, a 15-inch LCD panel consumes about 30W, all in. I don't know how big a travel-TV is, but less say it's 7.5inches. Assuming power is proportional to area, then an LCD 7.5-inch travel TV would consume 7.5W. I assume some of that power is absorbed in the colour filters, and some more is lost in the polarizer, and some is used by the TF

      • This is not an easy trick since the etendue law of light in physics requires more space for better efficiency. Our special technology enables us to get rid of a variety of components currently used in projectors that unnecessarily waste energy.

        I hope they are able to do what they claim, but I'm always wary of companies that claim to have overcome the laws of physics.

        Maybe I'm just bitter after getting burned on that anti-gravity skateboard deal.

    • we must for once pay attention to nature and reduce power consuption to a minimum

      That's already a major design criterium for many IC-designers. Mostly thanks to the popularity of portable gadgets like MP3 players and the lack of a powerfull portable energy source that's small and light enough.
      (While you could power a MP3 player with a 7.5Ah lead accu, it wouldn't be very popular because of it's weight and size)

      I've got 2 NiMH rechargeable batteries (AA; 1.2V; 1800mAh), these last for about 1.5h in my M

  • Vaporware! (Score:5, Funny)

    by jonnylawUSA ( 143213 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @11:48AM (#8490811) Homepage
    Sounds like these guys will be up for the 2004 Wired Vaporware awards.

    • Re:Vaporware! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by booch ( 4157 ) <slashdot2010@cra ... m ['k.c' in gap]> on Sunday March 07, 2004 @12:46PM (#8491151) Homepage
      I was thinking the same thing. The biggest tip-off is the talk about maximizing the amount of photons. Really, that's just techno-jargon saying that they want the screen to be bright. Any time you have to resort to techno-babble to explain simple things, it means that you probably can't even do the simple things, much less the difficult things.
      • While it may well be vaporware, I suspect the "Maximize the amount of photons" terminology is an effect of the translation. This is a Swedish company after all. We've all seen bad (or convoluted) translations before, and if you want to throw a little marketing spin on something, why not make it sound cooler than "Lots of visible light with little waste heat."

        The reason those projectors get so hot is that a lot of the light is in the Infrared band. Effectively just more photons, but at a useless waveleng

    • Re:Vaporware! (Score:4, Funny)

      by jackb_guppy ( 204733 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @01:02PM (#8491249)
      It can not be Vaporware, when it is about Photon Vacuum.

      Vapor can not exist in Vacuum.

  • Ubiquitous Projection (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BlueTooth ( 102363 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @11:50AM (#8490821) Homepage
    Obviously this would hinge on cost, but I seems to me that this would make it much more practical to integrate projected images through a living or work space. A lot of futuristic concepts include projectors in their design, but these units are always large and ugly. Having projectors conveniently displaying information and entertainment (TV, artwork, notifications, etc.) on surfaces throughout the house would be "really neat"

  • I see only services offered... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NotQuiteReal ( 608241 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @11:51AM (#8490824) Journal
    ... no product.

    I am sure something useful will come, eventually, but don't hold your breath waiting for anything cool to buy any time soon.

  • I call BS (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MythMoth ( 73648 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @11:51AM (#8490826) Homepage
    There's nothing on that site to indicate that they're anything other than vapourware.

    It doesn't follow that it's impossible - on the contrary, I think this is a technology we'll be seeing very soon - I just doubt that it will be from this company.

    So why do I think we'll be seeing it soon ? Simple, grasshopper. Lasers. It's easy enough to build a poor quality monochrome vector display out of a laser diode and a couple of mirrors on motors. That's expensive and clunky.

    A laser diode and a couple of piezo-transducer-mounted mirrors would be a slightly more elegant mechanism, and if you can build a vector display with this, you ought just as easily to be able to build a raster display.

    So all we're missing is the cheap green laser diode and the cheap blue laser diode to complement the existing cheap red laser diode.

    Now, you CAN buy a green laser pointer that's only moderately painfully expensive - and now that there's an imminent demand for blue laser diodes for high density DVD players I'm hoping their cost will plummet.

    I don't have the skills to build this, but I'm hoping someone will get onto it soon.

    D.

    • Re:I call BS (Score:5, Interesting)

      by srleffler ( 721400 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @12:13PM (#8490933)
      There are blue laser diodes on the market now too, I believe. They're probably still too expensive.

      I don't actually expect laser projection displays to go anywhere. The advantage of a laser for projection is its high brightness (intensity in a small area). That's great for vector display where you want to "draw" bright lines. When you use a scanning laser for a raster display you lose this advantage, though. You need the same amount (intensity) of light with a laser as you would with ordinary projection. Unless the laser is more energy efficient than the ordinary projector, you're better off with the latter.

      There are also safety/legal issues with laser projection. Any laser bright enough for a large projection display is dangerous if it stops scanning. The projectors of course have interlocks that shut off the laser if the raster scan jams or stops, but such a system could fail or be defeated by someone with malicious intent.

      • Re:I call BS (Score:3, Insightful)

        by in7ane ( 678796 )
        It's amazing how quickly any discussion reaches the point of worrying about "what if", "someone with malicious intent"...

        Is this going to be the new thing to stop the potential advancement of any new technology? Really this should be a non issue - the equivalent would be your local hardware store worrying about selling boards, nails, and hammers - all at once! And god forbid to the same person (what if someone with malicious intent combines the three to obtain a board with a nail at the end?).

      • Re:I call BS (Score:3, Informative)

        by Cecil ( 37810 )
        I don't actually expect laser projection displays to go anywhere. The advantage of a laser for projection is its high brightness (intensity in a small area). That's great for vector display where you want to "draw" bright lines. When you use a scanning laser for a raster display you lose this advantage, though.

        Funny, the same thing could be said of cathode ray tubes. You know, that technology that is only now starting to be supplanted by LCDs? CRTs were great for line-drawing applications like oscilloscop
        • You NEED at least 5-10 Watt laser power to create a bright image the size of a normal tv. You need a laster spot size smaller than 0.5 mm to avoid pixalation/preserve sharpness.
          A laser with this properties WILL burn holes in skin, wood, paper, cloth or eyes if he stop for more than a few doutzend ms on one spot.

          • Well when your CRT stops scanning it will burn up the phosphors at the center of your monitor, so obviously there is some safety mechanism that could be used to prevent this sort of problem...

            What about if you fire the laser through some sort of 'light fuse' that will cut it off if the laser stops scanning? Might be complicated to build but would eliminate the problem...
            • With my CRT, there is a metal casing around everything between the electron gun and the screen. Electrons have a very limited range in glass, so they cannot penetrate it.
              With a projector, there is free space between the laser and the projection surface.
              How do you stop people from accidentially put their hand before the lens? Or looking into the projector to see if its on?

              I agree that completely stopping would be a rare case, but at those laser intensities EVERYTHING is awfully dangerous.
              • Keep in mind there is also a big red anode right on top of your CRT that carries up to 20kV and in many monitors holds the charge after the thing is off and unplugged. If you don't know how to discharge a CRT, you can very easily kill yourself with most any monitor or a TV. I guess that you would stop them from sticking their hand/face in there the same way that you keep them from grabbing the big red wire inside a CRT -- build it into a box! With a laser projector you do have the luxury of being able to ea
      • Thorlabs Inc. Laser Diodes [thorlabs.com] (Top ad link in google's sidebar) shows two blue laser diodes as being $0.00 each. Maybe someone should try ordering a few thousand of them at that price and suing them when they raise the order cost :)
      • The other advantage is that you need fewer optics to perform correction tasks with a laser projection system. things like zoom and focus and perspective correction can all be taken care of in the software / firmware that controls the mirrors. Think of all the expensive and large optics they are putting into this latest round of "bigscreen" rear projection tv's (the ones thate are ~ 10in deep) -- most have gigantic parabolic mirrors in them and some very specialized lenses to deal with focus. With laser proj
      • You need the same amount (intensity) of light with a laser as you would with ordinary projection. Unless the laser is more energy efficient than the ordinary projector, you're better off with the latter.

        For true energy efficiency, you'll need to go with single-wavelength light sources, whether they be LED, laser LED, or something equivalent. With the current projector technology, we will never break 33% efficiency - we filter white light through a variety of technologies (LCDs, color wheels, multiple bu
      • Just out of curiosity, I know the green laser pointer for sale on ThinkGeek is visible as a beam because of the frequency of the color, and its a little souped up. Are there any cool properties like this that a blue laser has?

    • The definition of vaporware is not that things indicate that they could not exist but that there is not evidence that it does exist. I only visited a few pages because it was under a slashdotting, but I did not see anything suggest the means to this mechanism. So, does it mean it is impossible? Certainly not, just as it is possible for Ashcroft to spontaneously start break dancing; however, they have to "prove" they are not vaporware.

      Throw this in with the 1 terabyte removable drive promised a year ago
      • > are people just too damned concerned about things that "could be" than "are?"

        If we were never concerened with what "could be," nothing would ever "be".... er... are.
    • You don't even need lasers - the current generation of desktop projectors use a half inch slab of silicon with a piezo-electric layer and about a million tiny mirrors. That part ought to be cheap. The problem is getting red/green/blue
      light sources (not lasers) that are bright enough, cheap enough and monochromatic enough. They currently use white light and coloured filters - but those lamps are EXPENSIVE and they break fairly frequently.

      Those devices are down to maybe six inches on a side and an inch or
  • with a pocket size projector and DVD players becoming increasingly smaller. I could project things anywhere. Now I just need a good set of small battery powered speakers (with a sub of course)

  • Fake... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by loony ( 37622 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @11:53AM (#8490837)
    Little info and terms like "Photon Vacuum" make this thing sound like the next high end graphics card from the bitboys... If they had a usable product they would give you at least some information - especially since the design is according to them patent protected...

  • Mirror from creators website (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 07, 2004 @11:53AM (#8490838)
    The projector:
    http://www.upstream.fi/index.html

    The Technology
    http://www.upstream.fi/technology.html

    Upstream's unique and revolutionary technology, called Photon Vacuum, practically maximizes the amount of photons sent to the target from the light source in a minimum space. This is not an easy trick since the etendue law of light in physics requires more space for better efficiency. Our special technology enables us to get rid of a variety of components currently used in projectors that unnecessarily waste energy. The current table projectors extract typically only a few watts of light power out of 200W of input power.

    Photon Vacuum enables the smallest projector designs in the world, ultimately to a size of matchbox. It is possible to push the power consumption of the whole device ultimately to below 4 watts while still gaining a travel-TV sized color projection. There are a myriad of possible applications for this technology.

    First in the world, Upstream Engineering introduces a revolutionary optical technology that will enable video projection from matchbox-sized device running on batteries.

    Our expertise covers all the necessary areas from micro-optics to low-power digital electronics. We design custom projectors based on our unique technology.
    • If you have a look at their careers-section, you see this:

      We are constantly looking for talent in optical and electrical design.

      The requirements for Optical Engineers:
      - university degree in physics with good grades
      - experience with Matlab and optical design software
      - proven ability to learn fast
      - minimum 3 years of work experience

      The requirements for Electrical Engineers:
      - university degree in Electrical Eng. with good grades
      - experience in electronics design and preferably embedded software
      -

  • website down (Score:5, Funny)

    by Andreas(R) ( 448328 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @11:54AM (#8490848) Homepage
    The website is slashdotted, here's a screenshot of the projector:


    .

  • Pretty Nice (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CrypticSpawn ( 719164 ) * on Sunday March 07, 2004 @11:55AM (#8490855)
    For people who are often going to meetings, this makes it pretty quick to set up, could go off your laptops power source so no need looking for an outlet, no need to adjust it, nice and fast. If it is priced correctly, I would even buy it just to have since, you never know when a gadget like this will come in handy. Ok okay, yes I was the one to buy the USB laptop lamp, and no I don't use it :(

  • Won't be long. (Score:4, Funny)

    by blair1q ( 305137 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @11:58AM (#8490864) Journal

    Pretty soon, when you fly on an airplane, every time someone leans back their seat you'll hear the person behind them whine "hey! you're keystoning my screen, man!"

  • This + Cameraphone (Score:4, Funny)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @11:58AM (#8490866) Homepage Journal
    Put one of these in a cameraphone. You'll soon have people giving slideshows of the pictures they took on vacation straight from the phone. oy.

  • Vaporware? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zone-MR ( 631588 ) <slashdot AT zone-mr DOT net> on Sunday March 07, 2004 @12:00PM (#8490875) Homepage
    Their website doesn't even feature a single photo, prototype, or past products. I'm surprised this article was even approved. It certainly looks like yet another one of those companies which try to persuade people to buy shares, counting on a 'revolutionary' product which the company is unlikely to ever succeed in producing.

  • What technology? (Score:5, Funny)

    by arsenix ( 19636 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @12:01PM (#8490878)
    Are they sure they didn't mean photon vapor? I hear they are working on fusion as well...

    • Re:What technology? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Dun Malg ( 230075 )
      Are they sure they didn't mean photon vapor? I hear they are working on fusion as well...

      Perhaps they are trolling for VC cash, in which case it should be called wallet vaccuum.

  • First of all, I'm guessing PDALive is running a matchbook size webserver and it started to flame so they took it down.

    This product (if it's not vapor) looks like it could be a great advance in this technology. I use a "regular" size projector daily and it's a pain in the butt to move the whole setup when we go on the road.

    The other issue is price; a decent LCD project costs $2K. If they could get the price down to under $500, that would be big. As it is, we have to move projectors quite often due to the c
  • oh boy. now when your rfid chip is read, the ads on the walls can change to entice you as you walk by only to change for the next person's "sale match" item.

    yes, this will be a great tool for on-the-go presenters, but damn, i can hear the smiles on the marketing dept's collective face.

  • I predict Vaporware (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 07, 2004 @12:05PM (#8490902)
    A brief google of "photon vacuum" comes up with a series of papers in the realm of quantum physics http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0954-3899/29/1/311.

    I need to finish reading what papers I can find regarding this concept, but so far it looks like something still in the arena of pure science. One article also refers to carbon nano tubes, so if this isn't vapor ware it will be expensive.

  • practical applications... (Score:3, Funny)

    by way2trivial ( 601132 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @12:13PM (#8490934) Homepage Journal
    the mind boggles..
    take it on a plane that still uses 'large screen at the front' and show your own movies

    following a bus at night- project it on the rear of the bus, drive safely and watch a movie/tv (dear, your are getting to close to the screen)
    put one on the rear of your motorcycle- pointed at your jacket, for various phrases to roll through-- should realy confuse someone somewhere..
    inverted peeping tom- sneak around vidding porn into peoples houses-think what happened when laser pointers first came out- then multiply X the number of porn movies ever made

  • I thought science... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by holizz ( 737615 )
    was about discovery and making great things. But apparently it's about patenting the best ideas.

    Why can't science be for the good of all not just for the ruling class? I hate it when people come up with good ideas then think they have to patent them.

    What would we be allowed to know about physics if Einstein patented his ideas? We'd have to pay to use E=mc^2.

    Science is about profit not discovering great things and sharing them with the world.
    • You completely miss the point of what patents are *supposed* to be for. They encourage the publication of new ideas, so that they'll be available to all (for a licensing fee now, for free when the patent expires in 20 years).

      The alternative is trade secrets: inventors keep their inventions secret to protect their financial gain, but lose everything when someone else figures out what they did.

      Nowadays the meaning of patents has been distorted badly, but they are a good thing in their original formulation
  • Im curious how this 'photon vacuum' thing works.. perhaps they have a patent out, or some actual information ( besides the marketing fluff on their pages )

  • argh! (Score:2)

    by MacJedi ( 173 )
    As if theft of projectors isn't bad enough already!
  • Finally I'll be able to play Quake on big screen!

  • Pocket projectors from other projects (Score:5, Informative)

    by pacc ( 163090 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @12:35PM (#8491070) Homepage
    Optics.org had an article [optics.org]
    this summer about a pair of other pocket projector projects. These includes using an array of lasers to limit scanning or a single higher powered light-source. If 'pocket' is the only thing that matters you might also look into a development of normal bar-code scanners. [symbol.com]

  • Look at a calendar (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mononoke ( 88668 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @12:37PM (#8491080) Homepage Journal
    April 1 is still weeks away.

    Someone jumped the gun here.

  • power per square inch? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 07, 2004 @01:00PM (#8491233)
    "The size of the projection will be initially around the size of standard travel televisions."

    Does anyone have a figure for the amount of light needed per square foot for good visibility on a screen with normal meeting room lighting? Assume solid state light source efficiency levels.

    There are two interesting parts to their claims. One is reduction in size, the other is reduction in power requirements. The statement above from their website leads me to believe they're really just reducing the size of the device - the 4W figure is spread over just a few square inches. When they need to cover several square feet the power consumption will increase proportionally, and so will the size of the device to allow for adequate cooling.

  • Upstream Engineering is willing to provide miniature color video projectors...

    Willing to provide???

    Infinium is willing to provide Hard OCP a lawsuit. Television networks are willing to provide good entertainment. The government is willing to provide conclusive evidence of foreign WMD programs.

    A lot of people are willing to provide things -doesnt mean that it will happen.

    I think someone should be willing to provide Upstream an alternative to Babelfish.

  • Willing to? Great! (Score:3, Funny)

    by autopr0n ( 534291 ) on Sunday March 07, 2004 @01:53PM (#8491465) Homepage Journal
    Upstream Engineering is willing to provide miniature color video projectors for use with portable video player, travel TV, laptops and handhelds next year.

    Yeah, most companies would keep this kind of tech to themselves, to impress their friends!
  • Try an uncooled 4-watt bulb squeezed into half a cubic inch of space on your lap. Goodbye, sperm!
    • That's................nothing.

      A laptop dissipates upwards of 60w directly into your lap...your cell phone battery that warms up while talking, is probably about 4w of heat -- if even that. The battery is 3.3-some V, which means its pushing just over 1.2A of current.
  • Upstream Engineering is willing to provide miniature color video projectors for use with portable video player, travel TV, laptops and handhelds next year.

    Now thats either really poorly translated from Japanese or something, or that's a really ego-centric business.. Willing? WILLING? I'm paying you money, you better be willing.

  • Best I can figure... (Score:4, Informative)

    by stienman ( 51024 ) <adavis@@@ubasics...com> on Sunday March 07, 2004 @05:34PM (#8492748) Homepage Journal
    They could be doing laser scanning, but I doubt it. I bet they're using LEDs as the light source. Possibly micro arrays for the actual image, but most likely still sticking with a small LED array that has the three colors, a special lensing system that focuses them through a monochrome LCD (cheap non-high temperature transmissive) and then another lens which then produces the output.

    This would provide several advantages. First, it would be fairly efficient since 4W of LED power is still fairly efficient (though still 'hot' and not close at all to the ideal 100%). The cheap LCD display due to the lower heat. Small size, especially if high index refrective lenses are used.

    Disadvantages are many. Traditional projectors use a bulb which, for all intents and purposes can be modelled as a point light source. Optics are easy, comparatively. For a LED array the optics would be...non trivial. I suppose they could be using single LEDs but even then the leds are seperated, which still makes the job difficult. Another is that the smaller the package, the smaller the optics. The smaller the optics the worse the image. There's a reason you'll never get 4 meter telescope pictures out of a 10cm telescope. The resolving power of the lenses is limited by their size. The LED element will be huge compared to the lens size, and the picture is simply going to be poor.

    It'll happen, through this speculative idea or through another, but real multimedia projectors for a given size projection have to be at least as large as the lens has to be for the quality you want. The only thing they might be able to make gains on without ruining the quality are lamp efficiency, lower heat output (these are coupled), and the design of the lens systems currently needed to throw a decent image across a room.

    -Adam

  • Mini Projectors in Film (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jhhl ( 513935 )
    In the Boorman film ZARDOZ (1974), the futuristic denizens of that film use mini-projectors like these in their rings for interfaces. You can also see Charlotte Rampling and Sean connery in various states of undress.
  • The local newspaper Kaleva here in Oulu Finland ran a story about them and their prototype:

    Kaleva's story [kaleva.fi]

    Bigger picture [kaleva.fi]

    The caption of the picture says: Prototype and a matchbox. World's smallest videoprojector consists of a lightning machine, which captures light more efficiently. There is also text about the future screen resolutions and the cost of the thing, 700? at first and later 250?.

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