World's Smallest Projector

Texas Instruments (TI Inc.) announced that it’s bringing the next generation of handheld displays to market with the Optoma Pico, a gadget it claims will be the tiniest projector ever made commercially available. Traveling salesmen everywhere, rejoice!

When TI showed off its handheld projector technology at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in January, the company attracted wide eyes and big prizes alike for a prototype device stored in a mock cellphone (and a 3D TV). But the technology, which shrinks TI’s breakthrough Digital Light Processing (DLP) chip and its micromirror mechanics by a couple form factors, live solely in concept form, with no manufacturing partners confirmed—or even really imagined for the near future.

That changes today. TI has taken the wraps off a sooner-than-expected release of the Pico, which will be built in a partnership with the Taiwanese projector company Optoma. The product is slated to hit shelves in Europe and Asia by the end of this year, and should make its way to the United States in 2009. The Pico’s launch price will be under $300, according to Frank Moizio, TI’s business manager for emerging markets.

Although most of the speculation around the gadget has centered around it being integrated into mobile devices such as cellphones and portable media players, the Optoma Pico will be a stand-alone projector. That doesn’t mean it won’t be able to hook up to and project video and slides from many devices, likely including the Apple iPod, PlayStation Portable, ultraportable laptops and plenty of cellphones (maybe even Android-enabled ones?).

According to Moizio, the Pico will provide a clear projection onto an 8.5x11-in. piece of paper for most indoor lighting situations. It’s no home movie theater, but the image will be big enough to share your portable media player content easily with friends.

The battery-powered Pico should manage one to two hours of battery life, which TI reps assured us would be long enough to last through most movies. We’ll certainly have to test it out in the coming weeks for a final answer on that one.

To be sure, TI isn’t the only company jumping on the microprojector trend. Redmond, Wash.-based startup Microvision gave us some hands-on time with a similar, even tinier gadget at CES that uses tiny lasers to scan and project its video. Back then, Microvision told us that to expect its device to hit the market by the end of this year as an add-on for mobile phones, DVD players and gaming consoles. Will 2009 be the year of the handheld TV? Let’s hope so.

[Via Seth Porges from popularmechanics.com]