Two tiny projectors hit
ATHENS, GREECE -- Projectors for giving PowerPoint presentations have always been huge, heavy, bulky and only semi-portable. Their sheer heft has limited when and where you could present. But two totally new projectors -- one built into a laptop and the other tiny enough for a pocket -- let you always be ready to make your pitch.
One of the strange things about Silicon Valley is that half the people there, it seems, are always ready to make their "elevator pitch" -- the 30-second "story" about a company's product, services and other benefits. The reason is that the other half of valley residents, it seems, are venture capitalists or represent other companies looking for deals, partnerships or acquisitions. The "elevator pitch" is usually oral, but increasingly involves a cell phone presentation (shown on-screen). They all want to be able to present real PowerPoint anywhere, anytime.
Likewise, digital nomad types who travel the world need to present, too. But who wants to lug a full-size projector from city to city in India in summer, for example, when you've also got to carry a suitcase and a laptop back full of electronics? Lot's of people are crying out for radical portability in the projector market. I've told you in this space about a smattering of research projects and prototypes of "pico" projectors researchers are working on that could be built into cell phones or sold as stand-alone projects.
Suddenly, two near-future solutions have popped up on the radar. The first is from the Taiwanese company ASUS, the company that makes the super popular ASUS Eee PC. The company has reportedly designed (and shown a prototype of at Computex) a new laptop with a projector built right in. Details are few, but it appears from firsthand reports that the projector goes at the top center of the laptop lid, and swivels for pointing the projection where you want it.
ASUS has gained a reputation lately of moving very fast at shipping innovative products, so we just might see this productized very soon. Keep watching this space and I'll report on all future developments in ASUS's projector laptop.
The second mobile projector to hit this week is a stand-alone pocket-size projector from Aiptek called PocketCinema V10, also demonstrated at Computex. The device reportedly uses 3M mini projection technology, which throws up a screen as big as 50 inches diagonally. The PocketCinema V10 connects via a 3-in-1 AV jack or plays media from an SD card or its 1 GB of internal memory.
Will these products be bright enough, usable enough and take an acceptable toll on battery life? The proof will be in the pudding. In general, however, it's great to see this kind of innovation -- unless you're a chiropractor.
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