ROA International just released a portable cubic projector “INNOCUBE”, which you can project your smartphone’s screen on a wall and enjoy movies, internet contents, photos etc displayed on your smartphone.
This small cubic projector (45x45x46mm) is compatible with MHL/HDMI compliant smartphone, tablet, iPhone/iPad, and laptop.
With the accompanying tripod stand (extendable from 127mm to 202mm), why don’t you turn your room into a home theater and enjoy a movie with your friends or family members?
The folks over at bēm wireless might be on to something new, as they deliver a new idea which is currently being incubated over at Kickstarter. I am referring to the Kickstand portable projector which will come with its very own integrated kickstand, allowing it to showcase a large image from a tiny package. This is one revolutionary, foldable product which is easy to carry around, allowing those who live out of a suitcase to simply toss it into a briefcase before leaving the hotel room for the next business meeting. Heck, families too, are not left out of this, as it can be set up to be an instant home theater in the blink of an eye.
Bryan Katzel, Director of Marketing and Development for bēm, said, “We’re very excited to show our consumers the Kickstand. There’s absolutely nothing like it on the market. We’ve integrated incredible technology into a beautifully designed form factor. This projector can take a tiny image from your smartphone, iPad or USB drive, and project it up to 90 inches across in high-definition (720p)- even on the ceiling. That’s huge!”
The Kickstand will feature a unique patented mobile design that comes complete with an anodized aluminum frame, in addition to bēm’s signature soft touch finish. Apart from that, you will find a hideaway directional swivel which would pave the way for an easy setup, and it can easily be folded back up for storage. There is also an assimilated remote control that doubles up as a lens cover to deliver the added convenience and functionality.
The integrated kickstand is what inspired the name, where it will go about to prop up the projector using a vertical orientation, allowing you to project images on the wall, or perhaps even the ceiling if you so desire. The Kickstand would come with a WXGA 1280 X 800 resolution for higher widescreen resolution (720p). and if you set up the projector a single foot away from the wall, the image will measure 9” across. Should you decide to place it 10 feet away from the wall, you eyes will be treated to an image that is almost 96” across. Connectivity options include an HDMI port, USB port, and Auxiliary Audio Out for multiple connecting options. Expect the Kickstand to retail for $799.99 if it is ever realized, but if you decide to pledge early on Kickstarter, your faith will be justly rewarded.
Sony is releasing 2 new Handycam models for serious sports or outdoor activities. The models are dustproof, shockproof, 10m waterproof and -10℃ low-temperature resistant.
Release date is June 21.
They feature the CMOS image sensor “Exmor R”, image processor “BIONZ”, high-performance “G lens”, and “Optical image stabilizer (active mode)”.
“HDR-GWP88V” (Pictures 1-2) It has a slim body that weights only 210g. It also has a cool “Projector” function, so you can project movies you recorded on a screen or wall and enjoy watching them without having to connect the unit to a PC or TV. If you set “HDR-GWP88V” 5m away from the wall or screen, it will project to a 100 inch screen. If the distance is closer than 5m, it is capable of projecting to a well-lighted wall or area. It incorporates a stand to keep the body positioned when it’s used as a projector.
The interesting “Omakase Auto” function distinguishes between 99 different scenes including under-water mode and takes clear bright movies. Other good functions include “Smile Shutter” that detects smiles and catches the moment that the subject is smiling, and “Photo Simultaneous Record” that takes photos while taking a movie.
Estimated price: 60,000 yen Color: black
“HDR-GW66V” (Pictures 3-7) The body is lighter than “HDR-GWP88V”: 188g. And just like “HDR-GWP88V”, “HDR-GW66V” has useful functions to help your filming such as “Omakase Auto”, “Smile Shutter” and “Photo Simultaneous Record”.
Estimated price: 45,000 yen Colors: white and blue
Gigabyte said that we’d have at least a few BRIX mini PCs to choose from. At Computex, however, it’s showing four new prototypes that could lead to a much larger catalog. Two of them are run-of-the-mill designs with AMD Kabini and Intel Haswell processors — nice enough, but more evolution than revolution. The other two are decidedly more exotic, though. One includes a wireless charging pad to charge a smartphone in a pinch, while the other carries a pico projector for on-the-spot presentations. Although Gigabyte hasn’t mentioned whether or not these BRIX models will reach production, we’d wager that the conservative systems are more likely to reach our desks.
It wasn’t too long ago that Sony kind of introduced us to its inaugural Laser Light Source Projector with 3LCD technology, but now it’s time for the company to let us know a little more about the device. For starters, Sony’s officially dubbing it VPL-FHZ55, and it’s also emphasizing that it’s indeed the world’s first laser projector to be powered by 3LCD imaging tech. Just as we’d heard back in January, the lamp-less VPL-FHZ55 can deliver 4,000 lumens of color light at a maximum resolution of 1,920 x 1,200, which Sony says should be more than enough steam to “deliver bright and vivid color reproduction.” The VPL-FHZ55 is expected to be available later this August, however there’s no word on how much you’ll have to spend to add one of these to your setup. But, while we wait for those details to come to light, perhaps you’d be interested in perusing the gallery below.
If there’s something that you need to be careful with, it’s definitely your bike when you’re riding late at night. I’ve had one accident where I woke up in the hospital, and I was on a cycling path! Needless to say, good lights are paramount to keeping you riding safely in the dark.
Lumigrids is a concept LED projector for bikes that aims to improve night rides. The device would project a square grid onto to the ground, allowing riders to see the terrain ahead, akin to what some jet fighters use(d). The concept calls for the LEDs drawing power from an internal battery or the rotation of the bike’s wheels, like a dynamo of some sort.
On rough surfaces, the grid will deform, allowing riders to adjust their bikes accordingly. The design won the team from the Sichuan University which developed it a Red Dot award.
It’s unclear what’s next for Lumigrids, but the technology to pull off such a feat is readily available (Microsoft Kinect, Picoprojectors), so hopefully we’ll see something like this go into production sooner rather than later.
Most approaches to capturing 3D models of real-world objects involve multiple cameras that are rarely cheap, and are sometimes tricky to calibrate. The University of Glasgow has developed a method that ditches those cameras altogether. Its system has four single-pixel sensors stitching together a 3D image based on the reflected intensity of light patterns cast by a projector. Reducing the pixel count lowers the cost per sensor to just a few dollars, and extends the sensitivity as far as terahertz wavelengths. Real-world products are still a long way off, but the university sees its invention as useful for cancer detection and other noble pursuits. Us? We’d probably just waste it on creating uncanny facsimiles of ourselves.
BenQ doesn’t see the limelight that often, but their aim is set high. The company announced the Joybee GP3 portable projector which comes with an iPhone/iPod dock that allows users to project content that’s stored on their iOS devices. There’s also a new feature that can wirelessly stream content from other devices over a DLNA connection.
This new projector is the successor to the GP2, and BenQ claims it comes with improved brightness and better contrast. The GP3 can also project images up to 160 inches in diagonally, and it has a 2-watt built-in speaker, although it most likely won’t do the trick in a slightly larger room, so a pair of external speakers may come in handy in this case.
Of course, though, the main new feature on this palm-sized projector is the iPhone dock (using the older 30-pin connection). However, if you don’t have an iPhone, the projector offers several other ways to hook up media to the device, including plugging in a flash drive and microSD card, as well as wirelessly streaming content from another mobile device or PC.
There’s also 2GB of storage tucked inside in case a flash drive or microSD card is too much for you, although that probably won’t be enough for a couple of movies, but an album-full of photos would be the perfect fit. The internal battery is said to last 2.5 hours, which will get you through at least a movie and some, so be prepared to take the charger along with you. The GP3 is expected to ship later this month, but no pricing details have been disclosed yet.
At this year’s CES, Microsoft decided to tease us a bit with its IllumiRoom concept which was shown to expand the visuals of your game beyond your HDTV. After 3 months since its initial unveiling, Microsoft has released a new video showing off the concept once again.
Microsoft’s Illumiroom could end up being a device that would sit on a coffee table in order to work together with the Kinect to project lights around their HDTV to extend the image that is displayed on the screen in real-time. The way Illumiroom would work with the Microsoft Kinect is by having the camera deliver information in regards to the person’s living room, which would help in its ability to project the expanded images. (more…)
Microsoft’s IllumiRoom immersive projected gaming system, first shown off at CES, has broken cover again for a more comprehensive demo, complete with more details of how the “TV expanding” augmented reality works. Still described as a proof-of-concept, though thoroughly whetting appetites for what the next-gen Xbox might one day evolve into, IllumiRoom will be presented at CHI 2013 [pdf link] this week, complete with learning the topography and design of your living room and then digitally manipulating it.
The Microsoft Research team responsible for IllumiRoom is currently using a standard projector with a wide field of view, and a Kinect for Windows sensor bar, though any commercial implementation would probably be designed to sit on a coffee table. Automatic room calibration is included, projecting various patterns and sequences which map the outline of the TV, furniture, and the room’s geography in 3D; future iterations could even identify and track moving objects, such as people, as they move through the projection.
Once the layout of the gaming arena is understood, IllumiRoom’s real magic can begin. Various implementations are proposed, from fully extending what’s on the TV to greater fill the room – making for a more immersive environment – to picking out specific elements to highlight them, such as weapons fire that escapes from the primary display. By changing how physical objects in the room have their own textures projected, furniture could be made to ripple and wobble, change color or desaturate, or have their lighting adjusted.
Alternatively, the IllumiRoom system might just expand on the theme of the current game: having virtual falling snow spread across the living room, perhaps, building up on the actual furniture. The three possibilities, Microsoft Research suggests, are “negating”, “including”, or “augmenting” real-world objects: either digitally masking them, allowing them to remain visible, or adding to them with projected graphics.
“Ideally, IllumiRoom would be directly integrated into a next generation console and new games would be designed for IllumiRoom from the ground up. We envision an API that enables triggering illusions, changing surface appearance, controlling room lighting, inserting objects into the physical environment, etc.” Microsoft Research
While the best result would be if games natively supported, and integrated, IllumiRoom functionality, the system could also fashion a suitable AR scheme by analyzing gameplay in realtime, similar to how Philips’ Ambilight system tracks on-screen colors and matches them with its periphery of multicolor LEDs. The developers also suggest that audio cues could be used, such as triggering a ripple of the surrounding projection whenever the system hears a gunshot sound.
There’s also potential for how IllumiRoom could work with non-game content, such as movies and television; the team fashioned a prototype extended field-of-view camcorder – in effect pairing a standard camcorder with one that has a wide FOV – with the main screen showing the core video and the IllumiRoom projector showing the peripheral footage.
“Can a grenade from the latest Bond film explode in your living room? How would such content be authored? It would be im- portant to investigate how the movie director should deal with the fixed nature of a film and the randomness imbued by the system adapting to the user’s living room” Microsoft Research
Unsurprisingly, there’s still no (public) talk about how IllumiRoom tech and Microsoft’s Xbox ambitions might work together. As it stands, the current projection system relies on a PC for its brain, though it’s worth remembering that Kinect itself started out as a proof-of-concept peripheral, and only later evolved into an Xbox 360 add-on.
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