LuminAR robot finally shows us what pico projectors were meant for (video)

Still looking for an excuse to buy a pico projector? We might just have the perfect thing. LuminAR, a project of MIT student Natan Linder, is something like a sentient desk lamp of the sort that will make any dedicated Pixar fan's heart skip a beat. It can follow a user's actions, using a camera to detect gestures and beam information down to augment whichever reality they're currently experiencing. Interestingly, the whole thing is built into a bulb socket, meaning it could be thrown into any lamp you like -- if you can do without the whole automatic motion aspect. It's based on what looks to be a Microsoft Lifecam Show webcam and what is certainly a Microvision Show WX projector, which is both focus and care free. There's a demo video after the break but, sadly, little hope that this thing will be replacing your current desktop lamp any time soon.

[DeeeCoder Posted Jun 11th 2010 2:14AM]

That's dumb, I can't believe NOBODY noticed the fatal flaw of this design. SHADOW !! Imagine how hard it is to type on this thing with your own hand shaow obscuring the keyboard.

[hussainam Posted Jun 11th 2010 5:21AM]

this the first time i felt like a geek
that is really something - i guess for the future-

because i hate geek stuff like robot star wars or so batman too but i love the joker

if apple did something like that they will make a perfect device for the future

[stone5555 Posted Jun 11th 2010 1:14PM]

lol completely useless... the only problem it solves is what do you do when you've got a lot of stuff on your desk and for some inexplicable reason you don't want to move it, and thats not a problem for anyone. in many ways this shows the limits of this generations touch screens. i mean if you're sitting at home noone would ever choose this ahead of a laptop, in fact noone would choose this ahead of any normal touch screen device. stick about 5 of them in the middle of a ceiling on a sliced up sphere chuck the arm in the bin then maybe something good will happen.