VMG Blog Pages

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Turn Your iPhone Into a Movie Projector!

"BOISE, Idaho--Imagine you're on a camping trip with your family, and your kids are bored. They want to watch a movie, but you forgot your laptop at home. Hopeless? Not at all.

You pull out your fifth-generation iPhone--yes, this is a story about future technology--power it up, aim it at the wall of the tent, and start projecting their favorite film there.

This is one of the many potential promises of a new microdisplay technology from Displaytech, a recently acquired division of Boise-based Micron. Known as FLCOS, or fast liquid crystal on silicon, the technology is designed to make it possible to project from a relatively small form factor device, and with high image quality and vibrant colors, just about anything you'd want, be it a Disney flick or a complex PowerPoint presentation.

Today, the technology is still in its prototype stage, and when I visited Micron here this week as part of Road Trip 2009, I was shown a demonstration in which things like YouTube movies or ESPN clips stored on an iPhone were projected onto a screen via a small device with a tiny 3M projection engine in it.

Even that was pretty cool, because the little device probably had about the same volume as a deck of cards, and the image quality--in a very bright room--was fairly good, particularly when it came to showing text-based slides. But the most exciting thing to me about the technology is the promise that by late 2010 or early 2011, there's a good chance that the thumbnail-size chip behind the microdisplay could begin to be embedded in commercially available smartphones, like the iPhone."

Read the Full Article Here at CNET

If I was looking for a company to invest a few bucks in, these guys might be near the top of my list. The possibilities of this technology are pretty exciting. Their strategy of selling their technology to a wide range of device makers is sure to make them millions. You can bet that I'll be keeping an eye on this story as the tech hits the consumer marketplace.

Thursday, July 02, 2009

$4 Billion in Broadband Stimulus Grants Tied to Strict Net Neutrality Rules

I wonder if the state could qualify as a borrower under this plan? Maybe we could buy out Fairpoint with help from the Feds and take control of our own landlines. As I had stated in my previous post, the state could then pass control to the local municipalities in order to deliver broadband statewide. I still think this is a goal we should work towards before some other teleco comes in and does an even worse job than Fairpoint. Haven't we been screwed with empty promises of statewide broadband long enough?

$4 Billion in Broadband Stimulus Grants Tied to Strict Net Neutrality Rules | Epicenter | Wired.com