Epson and Philips ready mini projector for portable gaming and beyond
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Jun 13th 2007 8:44AM
posted Jun 13th 2007 8:44AM
Get ready for personal projection kids now that Epson and Philips have released this tiny joint reference design. Immediately available for OEMs, the 0.47-inch (diagonal) 3LCD panel is capable of projecting an 800 x 600 pixel image with the aid of Philips' 2.8 x 1.4 x 1-inch driver and 1.7 x 2.5-inch Ujoy lamp system. Perfect for portable gaming systems, camcorders, and PMPs assuming somebody picks this up for mass production. Hear that Microvision, the big boys are comin' for ya.[Via Impress]
Chris - Check out SID in San Diego next week - should be some hot stuff from Microvision there. Sept. 24, in the afternoon presentation.
Dwayne- Checked it out, but not really with it, That's always been more of your thing. Hope all is well.
That looks neat. I would picture something like this appealing more to road warriors that don't want to lug a giant projector around an airport. 800 x 600 is enough for PowerPoint. Maybe I'm just a big nerd, though.
I'd like to see this as a wireless network standalone media player. small enough to move anywhere and a nice control system through a web browser or similar.
Whats the wattage on this thing? Projectors are notorious for their high heat and power requirements. If you still need to plug the thing into a wall or carry a giant battery around with you the thing isn't worth much. there are already lcd projectors small enough to fit in a large coat pocket.
If you can fit it into say, a standard boomerang game controller you could build a whole system into one and play it on any handy table or the back of an airline seat. We won't even go into how cool it could be in a smart phone
Not sure if these are even in same class, because Microvision's projector is eventually supposed to be small enough to integrated into a mobile phone. Even their most recently publicized prototype was about the size of an Andes mint (http://www.getpicop.com/oem.html). They'd be lucky if that Philips/Ujoy system fits into a 6" box!
Quick follow up... Microvision (http://www.microvision.com) has a CNN video clip touting that the latest prototype was a "sugar cube sized full projection display"... Don't know what else their system needs to run the thing, but WOW, that's quite a difference in a few months time!
That certainly throws a new light on things.
Brilliant!
This
Sorry everyone.
Sorry!
Hmm where was this when they were still working on the Wii..
But ya know.. I could still see this as an addon using USB on the back of the Wii..
Could be possible.. I know Ill be crossin my fingers..
Interesting article, Thomas. However, were you aware that Epson and Microvision jointly hold 25 patents on MEMS? That is, they are in a joint venture:
http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=EP1719010&F=8
Whatever happened to your projector project Dwayne? I rewrote the story of our SUKI and almost included it.
Interesting article, Thomas. However, were you aware that Microvision and Epson have some 25 patents together?
http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=EP1719010&F=8