Mini projectors spark worries about "visual pollution"
By Donald Melanson 
posted Feb 27th 2008 8:34PM
posted Feb 27th 2008 8:34PM
Texas Instruments and others have been touting mini (or pico) projectors without hesitation as of late, but it seems that not everyone is quite so excited about them, with some folks now even warning about a number of potential dangers. One of those naysayers is Future Laboratory founder Martin Raymond, who told the BBC that while the projectors (likely to be used primarily in cellphones) are "appealing initially," he has concerns about the devices causing "visual pollution," adding that there could be "inappropriate showing of things that maybe other people shouldn't be seeing." Needless to say, he also foresees new laws and legislation controlling the use of the technology. No matter how things shake out, however, the one thing that seems clear is that the humble laser pointer will soon be about as antiquated as the spitball when it comes to juvenile means of public embarrassment.
[Via About Projectors]
[Via About Projectors]
Gimme a freaking break. Is this really news? What no HD-DVD bashing this afternoon?
Let the teacher harassment begin!
"does it play doom?"
"yes, yes it does. Here, let me show you on the back of this big lady's coat..."
*deletes the porn-to-share folder from his cellphone*
laser pointer to the crotch to the principal just doesnt compare to shining a video of some dude getting plowed in the ass onto his presentation lol wish i could go back to jr high with one of these
wow, now that would make a great last day at school. Showing everyone the "epicness" that is 2girls1finger.
2 girls one cup.
screw that, I would show everyone Hatchet vs Genitals and watch them scream.
theres two...
2girls1cup AND 2girls1finger...
theres also tubgirl, goatse, BME Pain Olympics Soft/Hard, Kids in Sandbox, Chocolate Rain, etc. etc.
don't forget 2guys1cup!!! Youtube it!
"inappropriate showing of things that maybe other people shouldn't be seeing."
yeah because porn is absolutely rampant on pdas, ipods and psp screens across america already. Rarely a day goes by i don't see someone watching a double penetration scene on the bart train.
Lets stunt technological development over the few random instances that are sure to happen.
Porn on the go is always good. Why do they make technology for?
Porn on the go is always good. Why else do we need technology for?
I actually tattle on this kid jacking off to some porn in Engineering Principals.
He got suspended for like 2 weeks.
Darn, I forgot to ad:
(lol, not an advertisment)
I also got him suspended for a week for "hustling" 5 dollars witht he AskJud fake tarot website.
Hmm, if peewee herman owned a psp....
Err could he not wait til he got home or is he really that horny of a bastard?
if you're gonna be commenting under my joke, show Paul Reubens some respect.
let those of you who have not wanked cast the first load.
"On July 26, 1991, Reubens was arrested in Sarasota, Florida for masturbating publicly in an adult theater."
From wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peewee_Herman#Arrests
When I was a kid, I used to shine an old Kodak Carousel slide projector out my bedroom window at a big tree across the street. Black and white face shots worked best, the ghostly images were barley perceptible. I got quite a reaction out of a few of my neighbors.
I can't wait to Goatse a movie theater.
Dammit, comment system. Sorry, that was just meant to be a reply to the article.
wow thats great, I used to set up mirrors as a child all over my local neighborhood and then shine laser pointers on them and have them reflect like some weird grid in the night. worked great in winter at the beginning of snow storms and in fog( we gt more than anyone else, 210 days per year). However I didn't use your run of the mill laser pointer, as they weren't available in 1982. I used a high power visual effects laser. A nice beryllium one. I did it until a visit from the pigs. I'm talking a 6 block radius with mirrors in trees and such. This will be fun to use. ghostly apparitions anyone? Welcome back to your youth. Mr. Unibomber guy
@SOOPERGOOMAN
Beryllium laser? No such thing, at least commercially. Some argon lasers use laser tubes manufactured from Beryllium Oxide ceramic.
To steal an idea from Tyler Durden, I can't wait to have the ability to shine an image of a cock (the bird, of course) onto a presenter's face. I only regret that by the time this technology is in my hands, we will have a new administration. :)
Oh please STFU Martin Raymond...we've suffered from visual polution for over 50 years. Ever heard of highway billboards or television?
How bout those fucktard boxers who paint goldenpalace.com on their backs.
Don't kid yourself...we've been FUBAR for a long time.
What they think is true, but who cares!:P
there is always a other side to the coin!
Let's have fun with technology!
That pico projector can be so useful at school in team project.
Way back when laser pointers were new, I went to a stripclub and had a conversation with one of the talent. Seems the Japanese clients used the pointers to accent the more interesting parts. Can't wait for the mini projector to become commonplace.
My God yes, pass legislation about these small devil spawn projectors!! In the meantime, let London become Londistan, prosecute poor vegetable sellers for daring to sell in English units instead of Metric, and deny the common man the ability to defend his house and family, his kith and kin from burglers and assailants.
England = The New France.
Memo to EnglishMEN - get out while you still can.
London will be burning within 10 years. Count on it.
no, london will be flooding & in a nuclear war (ever heard london calling by the clash?)
I don't know what you're talking about, France actually has civil liberties and allows gun ownership.
@bill: racist much? here's an idea: you can get out of england by enlisting, and reenacting the good ol' days in kabul right now! asshat. keep your xenophobic anti-immigrant insanity on the BBC's "have your say," where it belongs.
And France doesn't let immigrants claim anything until they have been there and paying taxes for at least 2 years. So I am reliably informed anyway. Unlike here in the UK where the second you get off the boat we will offer you a house to live in, unemployment benefit and treatment on the NHS.
Still it beats living in America.
Metric IS English units... We've been officially on the metric system for long long time.
In fact, there's only 3 nations still in the dark ages of measurement: Liberia, Burma and the United States.
A new target for mobile phone virus writers.
What about all the light pollution in ever major city which blots out the night sky? I'd rather see something done about that so I could actually see a star or two.
In order to add 3D to a 2D game, point projector directly at a lady's bosom.
Wow, guess I'm the only one here agreeing with them judging by the comments. I hadn't really though about this kind of thing. I'm less concerned about what I might see, but more about what kids could see. A parent has the right to at least try to keep their kids from seeing these kinds of things. The kid probably will, but public places should be a place where they're reasonably safe from seeing it.
Do I think it's going to be as big of a problem as this makes it to be though? No, but you never know. There are some sick people out there, and I can definitely see juvenile kids (and adults) using these. The one thing I would have to compare it to though is Counter-Strike sprays, but IRL.
I think the greatest potential for these is to project fake public advisory messages, like "Elevator Out of Service" or "Subway Station Closed".
All I can think of is...
Best. Rick roll. Ever.
Oh man, I'd be so pissed if someone rickrolled me while I was on the bus or something.
Perhaps a giant "I JUST LOST THE GAME" will do?
I lost.
Well the general population will soon be introduced to goatse and other wonders of the internet.
What about movies and the do not publicly show them law? How is that going to fit into this? Did anyone think about the repercussions of this tech? I just want to be able to hook up my psp slim to it and play outside at night or to look at the funky visualizer while tripping my ballz off on some heightened sense of reality chemicals. If'n you know what I mean. Party kids( ravers) will love this also. I can see many applications for this. Vehicle in dash heads up on windshield gps, broadcasted virtual concerts. A nice summer outdoor scenery movie projected in a fake window in that drab grey cubicle you call werk.
Uber advertising on the bottom of taxis( on the road). Let teh intrusions begin!
this is almost like saying that speakers in phones add to noise pollution. Sure, every now and then someone has an inappropriate ringtone, but there's no epidemic, and there probably won't be one with projectors either.
There are already laws against (for example) displaying images of goatse in public. Why is this news, and why would we need additional laws forbidding what is already forbidden?
Maybe I could foresee changing the already existing laws to include harsher penalties if this sort of thing does indeed become a problem.
But what if you display part of a viacom production tv show TO SEVERAL PEOPLE that would be worse than anything that has ever done before, according to sumner redstone at least.
holy smokes batman, its the bat signal! naranarana!
...and we thought teenagers/people yapping on their cellphone was annoying. Wait until this come out...
You mean I can go around and kill people and then tag their bodies with a mini projector? I'd better not get ticketed for tagging or loitering or "pollution" as I stand there showing off my awesome 8-ball.
Well, there's already noise pollution from people talking on the damned things, might as well complete the package!
There are already $9 laser pointers with porn on them and its not a problem.
I don't think you are going to want a $1000+ digital projector confiscated (or smashed in).
The only difference is the potential for actual quality and movies.
I guess advertisers could use them, you could project an image onto the sidewalk for instance. A digital projector could make a good alternative to a billboard. Playing animations, rotating content etc but not being small like a normal massive plasmatv billboard. Because advertising isn't forced into your brain enough now days.
Umm...
1) This is not a feature people are clamoring for, so it's unclear why they're (wasting their money) researching this, and
2) Given the sizes of cell phone batteries and the energy needed to project an image at bright-enough-to-see brightness, "light pollution" shouldn't be a problem,
3) I'll smack it out of your hand if you shine that crap at me!
This may not be a feature clamored for, but it is a necessary step towards a feature everyone IS clamoring for -- a portable display not constrained to a portable form factor.
this just in...
nerds with low social skills and high technology: super fucking annoying
nice i will be able to project everywhere now; school, toilet, on my ceiling, lolz
God imagine what this will be like if they tie it in with video calling! Let everyone see the ugly mug of the person you are speaking to.
Ugh...well, there goes the cinema. I had a hard enough time with the damned laser pointers and nextel/sprint chirping. You know, seeing/hearing it in the 10 minutes before the movie is...sometimes almost amusing. But during....grr.
Enter: Whateverthehellkidswanttodisplayfromtheircellphone/miniprojectingdeviceinthemiddleofyour$10.00movie time.
Just use Geass to put the image into someone's head...
I'm more worried about the inevitable accidents that will be caused by inescapable distraction and disorientation. Seeing projected moving images in your peripheral vision will result in frequent illusions that *will* cause accidents.
To compensate, our brains will have to start filtering out information; treating much of our visual data to be nothing more than "visual noise" that is not processed. As a result, mankind would be conditioned to be less perceptive regarding our environments than we are now.
...
You should be on a committee..
It's hard to type legibly with a Wii remote!
Could projectors really be much more annoying than Nextel phones with the chirp and walkie talkie function?
And in regards to the people above who wondered which people keep inappropriate material on their cell phones...I would have agreed with you until today. At an event my fraternity brothers pulled out their cell phones and went around showing people who were interested videos of themselves pooing. That's right. Multiple people. Don't judge me.
I think the guy's way too paranoid. It's like... phones all have loudspeakers nowadays, do we see so much noise pollution from them? Not really.
Same thing. I can't imagine people along the street randomly shining nasty pictures or something. Even in a presentation, nobody's gonna be disrespectful either.
The only people likely to cause this visual pollution are those who have no respect for others and possibly like to turn on their loudspeakers out loud so everyone can hear what they're listening to.
I think the most interesting thing about Raymond’s comments is not how he feels the technology will be used but that he’s been conditioned to automatically assume that there will be new legislation against some new technology.
As a number of people have piointed out there are already laws to cover public (in)decency, and public behavious in general. We’ve had new technology which “shows things” for some time, laptop screens, portable projectors, gosh even these new fangled 8mm cine projectors with the sound on that 8-Track unit. Strangely none of these inventions caused "inappropriate showing of things that maybe other people shouldn't be seeing."
I suspect the best way of getting a quote published on the BBC’s site is to make sure that legislation is mentioned which in turn will get some MP’s really excited that they could be seen to be doing something to protect out poor public morals.
Projecting handguns just laying around in empty plane seats and other places could also be fun. "It was right there officer, somebody must have got it, but I saw it!!" Imagine the fun being able to empty entire concourses!
Hey Martin Raymond, do something useful with your time and make it so I can try to catch a few z's in an airport without being subjected to crappy cnn news showing standard aspect video stretched onto a widescreen.
I'm also for restricting the use of these devices.. It's already annoying to have to hear the damn mobilephones everywhere with annoying jingles, so having to see them is really a bitch.. User of Laserpointers is forbidden in our country, so I hope they also make these devices illegal..
Where might that be? Great Britain? Everything else is illegal there...
No, probably Lesser Britain, down under.
I don't know why people would use these for cellphones, but I could see one on a portable computer. Add a detachable keyboard and Bluetooth, and that's one sweet computer. For ultimate compactness, add in one of those projection keyboards: http://www.virtual-laser-keyboard.com/