CES Day 2

Celluon:

I went to the booth three different times, but the working model of the PicoBit was out at meetings each time I got there.

I did see the mockup of the unit however. It looks a lot like the ViewSmart, although it has additional features like the HDMI input and a couple of extra buttons on the bottom side of the touchpad.

It looks enough like the ViewSmart that I wouldn't be surprised at all if Celluon and ViewSmart are are somehow related. 

You can see the HDMI connection at the back of the unit, and the buttons toward the back of the top of the unit. The top of the unit is all touchpad. (and it's size compared to the PicoPro) On the lower picture, you can see the little projector door that is like the one on the ViewSmart.





Later in the day, I had an interesting experience, I saw a booth where  a PC about the size of a paperback book was being demoed. I asked them if they could put a screen in the computer. There was a bit of language difficulty. I took out my PicoPro and showed it to them. To say they were excited would be an understatement. I ended up taking the guy down to Celluon's booth, last I saw he was dragging one of their people back up to this booth to connect the two.

Longhaocomputer.com 


Sumitomo Laser Module:

Pretty much everyone in the manufacturing portions of the consumer electronics business is pretty tight lipped. They were very open that the laser modules were targeted for projectors -- the ultimate use, but they mentioned some other uses as well. 

This is a box they had on the display with the two now in production laser modules and the smaller one (next to the dime) that is in development. (that's small!)

Learning about MEMS Manufacturing: memsindustrygroup.org

A little more mundane, but important for understanding MicroVision.

I stopped by this booth and grilled an engineer for about 45 minutes about how MEMS are manufactured. It was very useful. I'll do a full post about it when I can compile one. The quick summary, lots of chemistry, silicon, coatings, layers, and the parts handling - very interesting methods. 

Beam 

Beam Labs

Beam is a light fixture that has a projector integrated in it. It's cool. Sony has a similar thing going in LifeSpace. Use it to share pictures, etc. The image is not touch interactive, though, and as they move the light up and down it has to be focused. (sound familiar) 

They let me compare to the PicoPro. The image from the PicoPro was at least as bright, and stayed in focus - as we know.  The presenter was suitably impressed with the PicoPro. (I mentioned MicroVision -- and that the image can be touch-interactive. I think they'll call.)

I took the picture below. The projection was pretty good, but the lighting was not optimal for projection at their display. (although unless fixed, difficult to keep in focus.)

There's more, but these are the highlights.