Tech Convergence Will Spur Demand for New ADAS Technology

September!



A new month has a new energy to it. I'm excited that it's September now. (A three day weekend was great, and much needed.) My goal this month is to write more content for the blog, and try to stay on top of other articles that I think are interesting. So stay tuned for increased (improved?) content generation from your correspondent.

Check out this story from Conde Nast Portfolio:





Watching N.F.L. highlights on a cell phone might sound like a good idea. But a lot of consumers don’t bother, mainly because the minuscule screens make Colts quarterback Peyton Manning appear no bigger than a Tic Tac.

Soon, though, that may change. There is a tiny laser in development that will turn a cell phone or MP3 player into a portable video projector. All the user will have to do is point the gadget at a wall to produce an image the size of a 60-inch TV screen.

Microvision, a 140-employee company in Redmond, Washington, has been quietly working on the laser technology for about 13 years—first while developing hands-free displays the military could affix to helmets. The hard part has been finding the right little green beams. A color image needs red, blue, and green light sources. Tiny red lasers are in every CD player; blue lasers are used in Blu-Ray and HD DVD players. But for years, no one made comparable green lasers.

Now, hoping to fill the void, companies such as Corning and Novalux are cranking out miniature greens—freeing Microvision and its competitors, Texas Instruments and Britain-based Light Blue Optics, to move ahead.

Microvision’s technology is the furthest along and the most compact. Existing portable projectors weigh about a pound and work by bouncing light off of millions of mirrors on a fingernail-size chip. But Microvision uses one continuously swiveling mirror to transmit the entire image at 30 million pixels per second, an approach that requires less power and can be achieved with a projector small enough to fit into the back of an iPod.

In July, the company signed an agreement with Motorola to incorporate its projector into a working mobile device. By Christmas 2008, Microvision hopes to sell a stand-alone, iPod-size microprojector as an accessory that can be plugged into a video iPod or cell phone. And by Christmas 2009, microprojectors could be built into the devices themselves. The price? That’s still in the research stage too. 

Comments

  1. HI Ben,

    It is cold stuffs, big impact to my working industries.

    can we chat in this blog?

    Rgds
    Jason Chau
    Malaysian/taiwan

    ReplyDelete
  2. or yeah﹗

    Are you the RD for the PicoP?

    Rgds
    Jason Chaucs
    Malaysian/taiwan

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ben,

    There's something that concerns me with MVIS' approach. It is said PicoP uses a tiny, fast moving mirror to display the image.
    What bothers me is the fact that people drop their cell phones. Frequently. I have a dearly beloved Cingular 8525, very expensive, completely love it; I've taken extremely good care of it, bought a case for it and everything, then by accident it slipped out of my hand and I dropped it. My point: doesn't matter how careful you are, you'll drop it eventually.

    How will MVIS protect the mirror from breaking, or becoming dislocated? Has this been taken into account and thoroughly tested?
    Thanks,
    josh

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good point josh. Even better thinking :)
    --------------------------
    Green coherent light FTW I say.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I like the feature and will definately buy a few for myself, hehe﹗

    But my concern is.... how long the battery and be used to support?

    I don't want my battery go flat after 3 min of usage of PicoP.


    Rgds
    Jason Chaucs
    Malaysian/taiwan

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yeah, Josh, I feel your pain. I dropped a 30GB iPod in a toilet; 2 seconds later it was out, but it never worked again (damaged hard drive). If your cell phone was incorporated into an wearable Eyewear unit, you wouldn't have to handle it as much. Which is not to say you wouldn't ever drop it, but probably less often. (with a lanyard, less often than one might drop their glasses?)

    I'm guessing that the mirror is so small that it would be light enough to not have enough inertia to rip itself out of place (though a small disorientation would have a big effect). Hmm...

    ReplyDelete

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