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3M MP160 and MP180 pico projectors bring business casual to your pocket, sort of
The pico projector has always walked a fine line -- the smaller they are, the less features they typically boast. 3M's been cranking out the picos for a long time now, and its just outed two new ones firmly aimed at the business crowd. The MP160 and MP180 are both small (no surprises there), with the MP180 being the most full-featured of the two. That one packs WiFi, a touchscreen, Bluetooth, an integrated MP3 player, 4GB of storage, an SD slot and USB for all your quick, on-the-go projecting needs. The stripped down MP160 doesn't have any of those extras, but both feature external speakers and audio output. As far as the actual projectors are concerned, but the MP160 and MP180 have 30 lumens of brightness and a two-hour battery life with SVGA resolution -- a good showing for projectors of this type. Both are available for pre-order at 3M right now, with shipments in early October. The MP160 sells for $349 while the MP180 will run you $399. The full press release is below. Updated: We actually got to check out the MP180 for ourselves. There are some shots below, but the unit we saw was an early prototype and couldn't keep a connection to a WiFi network. The resistive touchscreen on the device was also pretty flaky. Still it looks like it'll be an interesting little gadget when 3M works out the kinks. %Gallery-102469%
BeamBox Evolution R-2 -- one of the brightest little guys around
BeamBox has just outed its Revolution R-2 pico projector, and while nothing much that could be termed revolutionary has happened in the world of tiny projectors as of late, the R-2 certainly has one thing going for it: it's super bright. That's right, the Revolution R-2 boasts a 40 lumen LCoS chip, which means it should stand out where most picos are much less -- and often around 20 lumens. Other than that it will produce a 75-inch projection with a 200:1 contrast ratio, it's got 1GB of storage plus a microSD slot, A/V inputs and a Mini USB port, plus an integrated media player. The Revolution R-2 is available now for £250 (around $360).
Tiny Miseal cube projector can dock with equally tiny speakers
It may not technically qualify as a pico projector, but this new so-called Miseal projector available from Thanko is certainly at least somewhat pico-ish, and fairly unique as far as tiny projectors go. The stand-out feature, as you can see above, is an included speaker dock (2W, if you must know), which also includes a headphone jack and a line-out port in case you're looking for a bit more wattage. As for the projector itself, you can expect to get an adequate SVGA resolution, plus a whopping 25 nits of brightness, a 100:1 contrast ratio, and an image up to 112 inches in size from a 16 foot distance. No word on a release 'round here, but those in Japan (or those willing to pay the necessary import-related costs) can grab one now for ¥39,800, or roughly $435. [Via SlashGear]
Texas Instruments unleashes pico projector dev kit on the world
Pico projectors have been multiplying like gerbils over the past year and a half, so it was probably only a matter of time until we saw a developer's kit released upon the market, right? Right. Well, Texas Instruments has announced it's doing just that -- released through Digi-Key Corporation. The kit will contain an HVGA resolution DLP projection device, a three color LED, a power supply, and a video cable connected to a BeagleBoard which boasts an OMAP35x processor, supported by Linux. The kit costs $349 and it's available now, so all you would-be miniature projector designers, get to it: the world is waiting.[Via About Projectors]
WowWee Cinemin Swivel, Stick, and Station pico PJs hands-on
WowWee's DLP-fueled Cinemin pico projectors don't really set themselves apart from the other entries in this ever-growing market, but the competitively-priced Swivel, Stick and Station have poised themselves to come out swinging. The Swivel has a 480 x 360 resolution, three-hour battery life, and will retail this Spring for $299. We saw the screen, beaming an iPod nano video at various distances from the screen, and it came through decently despite the bad lighting conditions on the show floor. The Station and pocket-sized Stick both sport 800 x 480 resolution and an SD slot, with supported codecs not yet determined. Those two models are coming this Fall for $399 and $349, respectively. %Gallery-40793%
Cornell researchers building video projector on a chip
We've seen plenty of tiny projector concepts over the past couple of years, but some researchers at Cornell University are taking this idea to its logical extreme by building a whole display on a single chip. The crux of their idea is basing the device on carbon-fiber, since silicon proves too brittle to handle the 60,000 times a second line-scanning frequency of a traditional video display. Carbon-fiber, on the other hand, can withstand all sorts of abuse and keep on scanning. The chip design has an tiny 400 x 500 micron mirror supported by two carbon-fiber hinges, an array of which -- one for each horizontal line -- would be all that's needed to scan lasers across a screen for a full-fledged video display. Supposedly all this can be squeezed into a form factor small enough to power a cellphone-based projector, and the carbon-fiber springs might even work as a way to harvest energy from user movement for powering small electronic devices. Sign us up for both, please.[Via Slashdot]
