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Fraunhofer’s vest-pocket beamerThe Projector for Your Vest Pocket: Numerous Potential Uses for Handheld DevicesTurning handheld devices such as cell phones, digital cameras and PDAs into projection equipment by installing built-in mini projectors.
Top-quality graphics and text thanks to laser and LED technologies
Variety of applications for professional and private use.
Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology (ISIT) announces that inexpensive mini projectors will be produced.
Hardly larger than a sugar cube – that will be the size of the projector of the future. Presenting PowerPoint slides on the spot while on a business trip or finding your way around an unfamiliar city using a city map projected onto the wall of the nearest building? No problem. Whether it is housed in our cell phone, PDA or digital camera: we will soon always have a pocket-sized mini-laser projector on hand. The prototype of a “vest-pocket projector” has been developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology, ISIT, and it can be admired at this year’s international LASER 2005. World of Photonics trade show (13 – 16 June 2005) in Munich, Germany (Hall B3, Stand 145).
Fast, Small and Powerful: The Vest-pocket Projector
The tiny projector is based on a micro laser scanner chip made of silicon, which is soon to be mass produced at low-cost. The device’s special feature is a tilting micromirror that is just 1.5 millimeters in diameter; it rotates at high frequencies and can display images and graphics with a resolution of 256 x 512 pixels.
Currently, projectors are still operated using high-pressure mercury-arc lamps that are relatively large and expensive, consume extremely high amounts of power, become very hot, and do not offer particularly high performance. For all practical purposes, we can rule out the possibility of miniaturizing the projectors that are currently available on this basis. The laser and LED technology being unveiled in connection with LASER 2005. World of Photonics would be an ideal alternative to this: Light diodes are not only extremely small and bright, they also feature a nearly unlimited service life and low power consumption levels. And above all: They do not become hot, which is another feature that predestines them for installation in the smallest of devices.
OK...there's only one problem with this...who wears vests anymore? :-)
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BJ, first off thanks for the site. Been following MVIS since a CNN story in the '90s.
ReplyDeleteDoes this use any MVIS tech?
Thanks for writing! The whole laser-scanning-micromirror thing says MVIS tech to me...If this isn't the 'picoprojector' mentioned on the recent conference call, I'll eat my hat...!
ReplyDeleteLooks like a very cool application to me. But what I really want is a giant laser TV!