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Beam's Android-powered projector fits in your light sockets
Let's face it: most projectors aren't very useful outside of home theaters or boardrooms, even if they're packing some smarts. Beam may get you to change your mind, though. Its namesake Android-powered projector runs apps, streams media from your mobile gear (through AirPlay or Miracast) and starts tasks based on the time or what you're doing. You can play a video message when someone gets home, for instance, or load Netflix as soon as you turn on Bluetooth speakers. However, the design is the real party trick. While the 854 x 480 resolution and 100 lumen brightness are no great shakes, you can screw Beam into any standard light socket -- you don't have to hunt for a free wall outlet (or even a wall) if you're just looking to show off some vacation photos.
PicoPro: A laser projector about the size of an iPhone 6 Plus
Several times in the past, TUAW has done reviews of pico projectors - projectors that are so small that they can be slipped into a pocket on a backpack or in a briefcase. Designed to make presentations on the road less burdensome, pico projectors have always had one Achilles Heel - the visual quality of the image they project. A new projector from Celluon called the PicoPro (US$349) aims to bring high resolution and contrast, long battery life, and noise-free operation to tiny projects. The PicoPro was introduced to the world at CES 2015, and TUAW is one of the first sites to get a hands-on look at the new device. Specifications Dimensions: 6 x 3 x .5 inches (152.4 x 76.2 x 12.7 mm) Weight: 6.7 ounces (189.9 grams) Resolution: 1920 x 720p (16:9 aspect ratio) Interface: HDMI/Miracast/DLNA Battery life: 2 hours for wireless, 3+ hours for cabled Contrast Ratio: 80,000 to 1 Design Design-wise, the PicoPro is a tiny box that's smaller in length and width than an iPhone 6 Plus. It's divided into two "sections", one that contains the actual projector and the other containing the various ports (HDMI, micro-USB for charging, headphone). There's no need to focus the PicoPro, as it uses lasers to project the image and has infinite focus. It focuses as sharply an arms-length away from a wall as it does from 10 feet away. The PicoPro comes with a small carrying pouch, and with iOS devices you'll need to supply your own digital AV adapter to connect to the HDMI cable. Unfortunately, PicoPro doesn't support AirPlay, so all iOS and Mac connections will be through the HDMI cable. For those who are fans of this site who use other mobile platforms, a slightly less expensive version called PicoAir is available for $299 that works only with the wireless Miracast and DLNA interfaces. It's a stylish little device, and one you won't be embarrassed to pull out of your briefcase. Function With any projector, the proof is in the viewing. Just how bright is the image, and is it easily readable? Can the projector be used in a bright room, or does it require near-darkness. How much noise does it make? And does it do a good job of projecting Keynote and PowerPoint presentations? To test the PicoPro, I connected it to an iPhone 6 Plus using the Apple Lightning to HDMI connector and an included HDMI cable. My test documents were a number of Keynote presentations that I use while teaching an iOS class. Holding the PicoPro in my hand and wandering around my home office to find "targets", I was able to clearly see the bright image from the projector on a variety of surfaces. Your best bet will probably still be to project onto a reflective screen in a slightly-darkened room, but I was able to project slides onto a textured ceiling in daylight and clearly read all of the text. Even on a very saturated blue wall with some daylight coming through windows, the text on my slides was very readable. The color reproduction of the PicoPro is incredibly good, and the image is sharp from edge to edge. The fact that you never have to focus is worth the price of admission. I don't know how many times I've watched as a hot projector has slowly gone out of focus. There are some additional positives - it's absolutely cool in operation and creates no sound at all. No more raising your voice to be heard over the scream of a cooling fan! Following is a video of the PicoPro from "Eli the Computer Guy" at CES; note that the flickering is due to filming the projection with a digital camera - in reality, the image shows virtually no flicker unless you're moving it around. Conclusion Up to this point, I haven't been impressed with any of the pico projectors I've seen. However, that has changed with the Celluon PicoPro. The image quality and brightness out of this tiny box is stellar, and to think that it does it all without making a sound or getting hot. There are no expensive bulbs to burn out (those often cost just as much as the PicoPro itself!), and using an iPhone, an adapter, and this projector makes for a featherweight presentation tool. My only negative is that the device doesn't support AirPlay. The non-HDMI, wireless-only version of this project will sell for $299, and it would be awesome if Celluon would support iOS - the choice of enterprises everywhere. We were also unable to get word on a shipping date and retail outlets for the PicoPro. Rating: 3-1/2 stars out of 4 stars possible
Sony's new 4K projectors: choose between 'cheap' or lasers
Sure we can spend all day at CES checking out ridiculously large UHD TVs, but if you want to max out your home theater then a projector is the only way to go. Luckily, Sony has two fresh choices here at CES 2015 if you can afford them. First up is its VPL-VW350ES, which qualifies as the value option by bringing its 4K capabilities for under $10,000 -- hardly cheap, but until now the cheapest option has been the $15,000 VPL-VW600ES. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the laser-powered VPL-GTZ1. We saw it last year as a part of the Life Space UX concept, but for the last few months, New York's well-heeled customers have been able to pick one up for just $50,000. Naturally, Sony brought two of them to CES, showing off their "ultra short-throw ability" to beam a 4K image on a wall from just a few inches away. Perhaps the perfect choice for someone with more money than space, we will sadly have to pass on taking either one home, for now.
Toshiba prototype is a simpler, lighter Google Glass rival... with a catch
Nearly every tech company wants in on the wearables game, but they can't all be Google Glass or Apple Watches -- not that they have to be. But hey, here's Toshiba -- and it's got a Toshiba Glass prototype to show off. We'll say this right at the start: this remains a reference product that the company's showing off at CEATEC in Japan this week. And yes, technical specifics (let alone a price) aren't being discussed yet, but the vision for Toshiba's eye-based wearable prototype is a gentle, predictable one. The hardware is the combination of a tiny projector, attached to admittedly normal-looking frames. However, there's actually a special kind of one-sided reflective glass to catch the projection. The projection module itself is kind of bulky, but actually lightweight... which is great, until you realize that this prototype requires a constant wired connection to work.
RomoCart turns your living room into a video game
Looking for something new to do with your iPhone-powered Romo robot? Well, you could always use it to turn your living room into a race track. Ken Kawamoto and Tomoaki Akitomi have paired the remote controlled phone-charger with a pico projector and an RGB depth sensor to turn their living room into an augmented reality video game -- a two-car racer inspired by Mario Kart. RemoCart, as it's called, isn't a particularly fast paced racer (the Romo is pretty slow), but it has all the hallmarks of the classic Nintendo game: cars, a race track and special items and weapons that can turn the tide mid-race.
Microsoft's RoomAlive turns your den into a video game level
Remember IllumiRoom? It's the Microsoft Research project that pairs an Xbox Kinect with a projector to extend your TV onto a wall, resulting in an immersive (and hallucinogenic) experience. Redmond has just revealed that IllumiRoom 2.0 is now called RoomAlive and is a huge leap over what it was last year. The new system projects content throughout a room that you can interact with (or shoot), as shown in the insane video below. Instead of a single Kinect and projector, it uses multiple "procams" consisting of off-the-shelf projectors, Kinects and a control device. Microsoft claims that it's completely auto-calibrating and self-locating, enabling it to calculate the entire 3D geometry of your room in minutes.
Sega's created the projection-mapped kids' sandbox of the future
If grown-ups can have flashier, fancier toys as the years go by, why not kids? Sega's latest games machine will in arcades... as well as car dealership waiting room, and real estate offices. It's not any old regular video game, though -- it's an interactive sandbox that projects images based on what players are building. Sega calls it "Eederu Sunaba" or Picture Appears! Sandbox (a loose translation, but hey), and it's equipped with sensors that can determine the height differences on the surface of the (non-sticky) sand, along with a projector to make the magic happen. If a kid (or an adult -- no judgment here) piles up sand to make a hill, the projector beams an image that makes it look like it's covered in grass, or even in snow if the hill's tall enough to be a mountain.
VizeraLabs reupholsters furniture with the power of light
Looking for the perfect chaise longue? That's no easy feat even on the best days, but the process is made even trickier since stores rarely seem to have their full collections on display. That's precisely the problem a San Francisco startup called VizeraLabs is trying to tackle, and its team has built a curious little projector to help. You see, instead of displaying reruns of Doctor Who on your wall, it's used to project different fabrics and finishes onto whatever surface it's pointed at, be it a wall or an armchair.
ZTE's projector/hotspot hybrid lands in the US with Sprint's help
ZTE's endearingly nutty 1080p projector/mobile hotspot turned a few heads back at CES, and we knew it was coming to the US -- we just didn't know when. You'll soon have a chance to see if those two tastes really do taste great together, though: Sprint will start selling the hardware hybrid (now called the LivePro) on July 11, just in time to power those heated outdoor meetings of your Wes Anderson Appreciation Club. You can connect up to 8 devices to Sprint's Spark LTE network via the LivePro and run your own content through it using an HDMI or Miracast connection, but don't forget -- this thing also runs Android 4.2 and packs a 4-inch touchscreen so you can hog all those movies to yourself too. Feeling more generous than usual? Magnanimously let your friends recharge their ailing phones with the LivePro's 5,000mAh battery and pretty soon they'll agree that Moonrise Kingdom really is better than Rushmore.
Computer trickery makes these shadows 'dance'
You know how to turn crooked vases into an interesting art installation that remind us of Beauty and the Beast's singing pots and candlesticks? We'd like to say magic, but since we don't live in a Disney movie, the right answer is motion tracking and real-time 3D rendering. The installation's creators, artist Laurent Craste and digital agency Dpt., used a hidden projector to make the vases' shadows dance whenever a viewer swings the lamp above them. Their movements even depend on the lamp's swing, so side-to-side swinging triggers the same animation, while a more circular one also shows the lamp's shadows going in circles. Sadly, you can't see this in person anymore (it was displayed at a festival in Montreal in May), but you can watch the video after the break.
Microsoft is building a foot-controlled infotainment platform
Here's something we didn't expect: Microsoft is developing a projector-based infotainment system that you manipulate with your feet. Really. We found Microsoft's Project Ripple at the Augmented World Expo, but it seemed better suited to the local mall. The company admits it's similar, but told me that what we see in public today isn't living up to its potential. Project Ripple just might.
Glasses-free 3D projector offers a cheap alternative to holograms
Holograms are undoubtedly spiffy-looking, but they're not exactly cheap; even a basic holographic projector made from off-the-shelf parts can cost thousands of dollars. MIT researchers may have a budget-friendly alternative in the future, though. They've built a glasses-free 3D projector that uses two liquid crystal modulators to angle outgoing light and present different images (eight in the prototype) depending on your point of view. And unlike some 3D systems, the picture should remain relatively vivid -- the technology uses a graphics card's computational power to preserve as much of an image's original information (and therefore its brightness) as possible.
IRL: Three weeks with Philips' Screeneo projector
Welcome to IRL, an ongoing feature where we talk about the gadgets, apps and toys we're using in real life and take a second look at products that already got the formal review treatment. You'd never mistake me for an A/V geek, since I'm far more interested in what's on TV than how it gets to me. That said, I always felt like I was missing out on being able to try out projectors since they required a complex ceiling mounting process and needed me to know about things like lumen counts, aperture correction and blooming. That's why, when I first clamped eyes on Philips' Screeneo, I thought this was my chance to right that wrong.
Samsung debuts projector-equipped Galaxy Beam 2 smartphone
Chances are your phone doesn't have a built-in projector -- and it never will. But there's at least a small subset of the Chinese market that apparently has a need for an entry-level smartphone capable of projecting dim videos and presentation slides onto a flat surface. The Galaxy Beam 2 sports a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, 1 gig of RAM and an underwhelming 800x480-pixel 4.66-inch display. The battery tops out at 2,600 mAh of juice, so if you're thinking of planning a smartphone movie marathon you might want to bring the charger along. It launched today on China Mobile's 3G network (with pricing TBA), and while Samsung has yet to detail an international release, it's unlikely that we'll ever see the second-generation Beam on this end of the Pacific.
This enormous gas tank is now a wondrous, isolating work of art (video)
Once it stored enormous quantities of blast furnace and coal gas, but these days the Gasometer Oberhausen is a 385 foot tall cylindrical art gallery. Since the early 90s, the gargantuan storage tank has been host to more than a dozen art exhibitions, and its latest display puts its own absurd size front and center. 320° Licht plays on the gallery's tar-black walls, projecting optical illusions that make the surface appear to warp and bend. "This experience is based on the vastness of the Gasometer," explains project sound designer Jonas Wiese. "We tried to work with that expression to make the space bigger and smaller, to deform it and change its surface over and over while not exaggerating and overwriting the original effect of the room." According to the installation's creators, that effect is dwarfing. Viewers are left feeling small, even lost.
Texas Instruments shrinks its HD DLP Pico projector chip down to 0.3-inches
We wouldn't say that smartphone projectors have exactly caught fire, Samsung's Galaxy Beam notwithstanding. Part of the problem is the extra bulk required by pico projector components, which is where Texas Instruments comes in with its new HD "Tilt and Roll" DLP Pico chipset. They've now got the size down to about 0.3-inches, or about the size of a pencil-tip as shown above. That should let makers of tablets, smartphones and wearables add 120 Hz projector powers to their devices. It's also the chip used in Avegant's Glyph VR headset -- so it might be beaming a movie directly to your retinas at some point in the future.
Sony laser pico projector module beams out focus-free HD images
If your presentation audience is noticing pixels, then projector resolution may be the least of your problems. Nevertheless, Sony's just introduced a new pico module that'll allow manufacturers to build pocket-sized projectors with high-def, 16:9 images using laser beam scanning (1,920 x 720 with rectangular pixels). That'll bring sharp focus regardless of screen distance, along with high contrast, wider color gamut and reduced laser "speckle," according to Sony. There's also built-in screen distortion correction for off-kilter situations. If you're now scheming about some kind of shark-mounted entertainment system, though, it'll have to wait -- the tech is only available to projector makers.
LG sneaks a new version of its 'Laser TV' projector into CES 2014
Last year at CES, LG introduced the Cinema Beam HECTO Laser TV projection system that could produce a 100-inch screen from just a couple of feet away, and now it's showing off a new version. HECTO2 keeps the same 100-inch screen size, but uses an upgraded laser system to provide a claimed 10,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio that is 10x greater than the original and only needs six inches of space. Just like the earlier iteration and Sony's new Life Space UX laser projector, the Cinema Beam brings speakers, smart TV apps and more as an all-in-one package. Other than a likely still-astronomical price -- the original launched at about $10k -- there's probably one big reason this isn't getting a ton of hype. It's still 1080p, and at a show that's all about Ultra HD, LG may hold off on the laser-projection push until it can squeeze a few million more pixels in.
Keecker is an Android-powered robot that projects video onto your walls
Sure, you could buy a projector for your apartment, or maybe even a TV; people still use those, we're told. Or, you could get an Android-powered projector instead. Solving a problem that not many people seem to have, Keecker is a smartphone-controllable robot that moves around your home, projecting video onto the walls. In particular, it runs Android with Google Play access, allowing you to stream from built-in apps like Netflix or YouTube. (Fun fact: the company's founder, Pierre Lebeau, is a former product manager at Google.) As you can imagine, Keecker also has a built-in speaker, meaning you could use this as a giant music player if you were so inclined. Some might be disappointed by the 1,280 x 800 resolution (especially with a target price of $4,000 to $5,000), but the 1,000-lumen light is at least bright enough that you can watch even with the lights on. (See our hands-on photos from the company's CES booth to see what we mean.) The thing is, even with clear picture quality, the robot is kinda big. At 16 inches wide and 25 inches tall it has a relatively large footprint, so it'd be a stretch to argue that this offers any space-saving benefits, per se. If you buy this, it's going to be because you want the freedom to watch TV on any wall in the house, or because you like the idea of having a projector with streaming apps built in (a better reason to splurge, if you ask us). At any rate, this won't ship until Q4, so you have plenty of time to think on that -- and start saving your pennies.
Sony's Life Space UX demo envisions projectors, screens everywhere
Among the announcements Sony dropped during Kaz Hirai's CES keynote, the Life Space UX project seemed to be most outrageous, pushing an entirely new vision for projectors. We checked out the company's CES demo booth and found out it actually goes even further than that. The prototype 4K Ultra Short Throw Projector shown on stage and in the demo is expected to cost between $30,000 - $40,000 when it launches later this year. Similar to the pricey Cinema Beam projector released by LG last year, it can sit very close to a wall even in high-brightness settings and beam a large, clearly visible image. The combination of zoom lenses, three separate SXRD microdisplays and a laser diode light source make it powerful and sharp enough to put out a 147-inch 4K image that's visible even with the lights on. Its low sleek design and modular setup (it splits apart to reveal speakers and cabinet space within) is made for flexibility and to be "harmonic" with the room when it's off. Other prototypes in the demo (check out the gallery for a better look) included a projector placed in the lamp over a regular kitchen table for Surface-style interaction, a mirror that turned into a high-res, touchable display and ceiling projectors that shot upwards.
