There's DIY mischief and then there's next level DIY mischief, and we'd have to say that Julius von Bismarck's Image Fulgurator is one of the best scare-the-squares toys we've ever come across. A sensor detects camera flashes of nearby victims, triggering a projection of the image or text of your choice onto their subjects -- and into their photos. Anyone using a digital camera will notice the trick immediately, of course, but marks with film equipment won't ever know what hit 'em -- although they might remember the weirdo with the pistol-grip camera thing standing next to them. Check the video after the break.

[Via Core 77]

Ariel Waldman contributes Movie Gadget Friday, where she highlights the lovable and lame gadgets from the world of cinema.

Last month on Movie Gadget Friday we reviewed the rough and rugged modified gadgets of the post-apocalyptic era in The Road Warrior. Shifting from stick shifts to spaceships, this week examines the pre-apocalyptic adventure of a team of astronauts tasked with re-igniting the sun by delivering a massive payload in Sunshine. Based in 2057, this near-futuristic film has heavy influence from 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: The Year We Make Contact. With relatively unexplained artificial gravity, inner-spaceship scooters and gold leaf heat-deflecting spacesuits, many of the gadgets and technology are taken for granted in this 2007 release.

3D Projection Cube
Structured as a small room on board Icarus II, the 3D projection deck serves as a way to boost astronauts' spirits and calculate routes. Translucent walls with embedded light-emitting cells make up the entire cube of a room, allowing for an interactive 3-dimensional experience without the need for external projectors. It's unseen yet as to if this experience requires the use of optical tracking cameras for a gestural user interface. Specific cells have the ability to toggle on or off depending on the specific need of the projection. While this gadget realistically blows away any CAVE we've seen (guesstimating these visuals to be upwards of 100 million pixels), the tactile-keyboard-loving-geek in us is still unrealistically holding out for a touchable hologram to toy with. More after the break.

If we were betting souls, we'd say seeing a hologram of Bill Gates is still far more frightening than one of Telstra's CTO, but nevertheless, said exec was recently beamed from Melbourne to Adelaide via hologram in order to "speak at a major function for senior business executives." According to David Thodey, the live demonstration symbolized "what has become possible using the high data speed and capacity of [its] network" -- something the outfit is calling Next Dimension Working. The actual hologram was transmitted over the company's network using the Musion Eyeliner System, a "high-definition holographic video projection system that allows three-dimensional moving images to appear within a live stage setting." Telecommuting just took on a whole new meaning.

[Via News, thanks Brad]

Update: Video added after the jump!

Oh sure, it's not like we haven't witnessed ginormous rotating panoramic displays before, but it seems as if projectiondesign and the iCinema Research Centre of Australia's University of New South Wales are taking their long-standing partnership even further with new applications for the AVIE 360-degree 3D multimedia display. Recently showcased at the International Sydney Festival, T_Visionarium will offer up "an all surrounding 3D spectacle of hundreds of video clips that the viewers can interactively sort and edit," and apparently, the duo is also gearing up to bring the somewhat similar iDome to various training facilities across New South Wales. Unfortunately, we have our doubts about such technology ever being home-bound -- for obvious reasons, of course.

[Via AboutProjectors]

Sure, regular HD is nice -- you really get a gander at an anchorman's makeup, and the stars' wrinkles are shocking -- but does it go far enough? Olympus doesn't think so. The camera company -- long known to bring the goods on the picture-takin' end -- has just created the first 360-degree, 1080i camera and projection solution. Utilizing a proprietary system based around an "axisymmetric free-form-surface lens," the camera can shoot video at horizontal and vertical viewing angles of 360-and-50-degrees, respectively; the images can then be projected in the same range by a separate unit. Obviously, you won't see this in the consumer sector any time soon, but it does open some pretty interesting opportunities for installations and security alike.

While you may not think a 4+ minute clip involving a monotone narrator, flashes of light and lots of sensors could hold your attention (okay, so maybe that came off a bit more riveting than we'd hoped), we'd bet the one posted after the jump could. The video demonstrates a fairly svelte automatic projector calibration system, which relies on very little hardware (and time) to work its magic. Essentially, the low-cost method utilizes rear-mounted optical fibers wired into light sensors, which can channel gray-coded binary patterns through a USB connection. From there, a PC determines precisely how the projection should be outputted for the target surface to be completely filled with an undistorted image. We know, it's tough to wrap your head around, but all the enlightenment you could ever want (on this subject, anyway) is just a mouse click away. [Warning: PDF read link]

[Via HackADay]

It's not terribly uncommon to see a manufacturer try to push a product (or platform) into every crevice of your life, and it seems that Texas Instruments is diverting quite sharply from its calculatorish ways of old and making an aggressive push to get that DLP logo slapped on everything you own. While we've seen (literally) the diminutive Microvision display do its thang here at CES, TI is hoping to steal that thunder away by talking up its forthcoming palm-sized DLP projectors. The "fully featured" Pocket Projectors, which are co-developed by OMAP, would weigh "less than one pound," use the .55 DLP chip, and could purportedly connect to handsets or PDAs to beam up that big(ger) screen imagery for a crowd to see. Unfortunately for TI, these devices are not (at least initially) supposed to be integrated units, which could easily get overlooked if those built-in alternatives can muster acceptable quality. Additionally, TI is hoping to get that DLP logo stamped on your brain even when you visit the cinema, as the company now has its technology in 3,000 theaters worldwide and is frequently throwing logo-clad splash screens onto the canvas during pre-show advertisements. So if you wonder why you're strangely drawn to the DLP sets during your next HDTV shopping trip, trust us, it's not the mirrors, it's the marketing.

[Via AboutProjectors]

There are monstrous projectors, run-of-the-mill renditions, small versions, and then there's ridiculously tiny ones, but we've got love for 'em all. It looks like Microvision tends to favor the diminutive kind, however, as the company is looking to showcase its "ultrathin, miniature full-color projection display" at next week's CES. Hoping to cram this bad boy into your next mobile phone, PDA, or other handheld gizmo, the firm is touting its incredibly small form factor as the next coming of mobile displays. Taking up the same amount of space as Apple's 2G Shuffle, the display can project "extremely sharp and vivid" imagery onto walls, bodies, screens, or skyscrapers, with a maximum image size "similar to a big screen plasma TV." Sure, we're fully aware of the sensationalism they're tossing in, but this type of development could refine mobile video and the ability to view it on a decent sized screen, so hopefully we'll catch a glimpse of this miniscule PJ in just a few days.

[Via Uber-Review]

Companies have been lighting up (and drawing attention to) simple brick walls for some time now, and while hitting up a game of Tetris is indeed novel, we're thinking the real profit resides in lightweight screens we use in front projection. This rock-hard display consists of not-so-average concrete with "embedded optical fibers, arranged as pixels, capable of transmitting natural as well as artificial light." When light is projected from the rear, the pixels illuminate to display imagery, which could certainly transform a vanilla office building into an ad-filled poster board. While we're not sure when we can expect these things to start popping up around here, Innovation Lab claims that orders are already backing up, and of course, there's always the live action video after the break to tide you over for now....

[Via We Make Money Not Art, thanks Naser A]

We've seen plenty of alarm clocks that offer different ways to pull you out of bed no matter how hungover, sleepy, or otherwise incapacitated you are. Almost all of these clocks, however, rely on the same old LEDs or LCDs to actually display the time. The Giovannoni TimeSphere may not rumble or fly around the room, but it will project the time on any surface. Fine, yea, we know it's not the first clock with a projector either, but it is one of the more stylish (if 80s-style cyberpunk designs are your thing), and it is apparently the first with a wireless projection unit -- that's what the ball thing sitting on top is, which you position anywhere you like to get the best view of the time. Also, unlike so many of these alarm clocks we keep telling you about, this one is an actual product, available from Oregon Scientific for the hefty sum of $150.

We can't say it was love at first sight for us and carbon nanotube displays, with the first screen cap resembling a Lite-Brite a lot better than a next generation display technology. Well, now we're ready to give this nano tech another chance, since Syscan Imaging has just managed to squeeze a 1920 x 1080 resolution onto a 0.7-inch LCoS microdisplay for use in projection TVs. It's even at a lower cost than competing technologies, and should hopefully overcome some of the current problems with the low yields and color inconsistencies of LCoS. Carbon nanotube displays also run cooler and have zero ghosting, so we're pretty stoked, but we'll have to wait until 2007 for these to make it to shelves.

[Via HD Beat]