Touch projector

Check out this beautiful demo of Light Blue Optics' 10" Light-Touch projector:

Here's how their Holographic Laser Projection (HLP) technology works.

Microsoft Research is showing their new 'Mobile Surface', which is a projected touch display. This is very similar to LBO's light-touch product announced at CES:

Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft are working together on touchscreens for your body, called Skinput. The idea is to combine pico-projectors that project on your skin with special armband containing piezoelectric cantilevers - sensors that can measure pressure, acceleration and force - which know which part of your body was pressed based on the sound it made (on the skin, muscle or skeleton).

This is all rather weird and cool - it can be used for gaming, or text inputting for your mobile phone. Check out this interesting video:

Light Blue Optics have created quite a stir with their Light-Touch pico-projector reference design. The small projector (up to 10" image) include an infra-red sesnor for the touch-ability, and sports a wide throw angle which allows it to project onto the table it is sitting on:

The projector itself is based on Holographic Laser Projection (HLP). LBO's system uses a coherent laser to illuminate an LCoS that displays a hologram which diffracts the laser to create the original image. A diffraction pattern of the desired 2D image is calculated (using LBO's own algorithms) and displayed on an LCoS microdisplay.

The 'holographic' part refers to the way the image is created. The final projected image is not 'holographic' in any way - it's not a 3D display.

According to LBO, HLP have several advantages compared to other projection technologies (DLP, LCoS and Laser-Beam-Steering):

• Low speckle
• Always in focus
• Efficiency, Brightness and color gamut
• Wide throw angle - creating large images at close proximity to the projector aperture

Here's a nice video from LBO showing how HLP works: 

Light Blue Optics has announced their first product, the Light Touch. This is a small touch-projector (based on HLP) that can project images up to 10", and includes an infra-red sensor for the touch ability. The Light Touch is a reference product and will be made available to OEM customers and other partners.

The Light Touch runs Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 for applications, has 2GB of internal memory and a micro-SD slot. It also includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, so applications that connect to the internet are possible. LBO think that the Light Touch is not just as a consumer device - it also can be used in retail spaces, the workplace and the home.

Light Blue Optics are going to launch their first product, the "Light Touch" at CES (Jan 6th). LBO's pico projector modules are Holographic Laser-based, and allow the user to touch the projected image to provide user input.

Light blue optics concept

Their modules support WVGA-QVGA images at 10 lumens. LBO’s proprietary technology has an ultra-wide throw angle and the ability to correct for optical aberrations using software. The projectors can switch between conventional front projection onto a wall and a novel table-down projection mode where the device is placed on a table and the content is projected down onto the surface in front of it (as shown above). LBO has recently raised $15 million.

For more information on LBO, check out our interview with their VP of BizDev.

Funai Electric and Nippon Signal has developed a new laser projector that can also recognize finger movements on the image - basically a touch-sensitive projection, like Light-Blue-Optics' system. They are using a sensor that recognizes the intensity of light that is reflected back from the projected image.

One of their ideas is to project two images - a large one for display, and a small one for control (as seen in the photo above). The two images are projected from the same light source using a beam-splitter.

They are showing a prototype now, but the companies say this might be commercialized as soon as 2010.

Via TechOn