If 3D monitors aren’t doing it for you, here are a couple of larger display options — our lucky pals over at Engadget Chinese witnessed the birth of Optoma ’s first two 3D projectors in Taiwan yesterday. Pictured on the left is the HW536 cinema DLP projector (NT$36,900 or about US$1,150), which has HDMI input and projects a 1,280 x 800 image at 2,800 lumens with a 3,000:1 contrast ratio. Next up is the EX762 business DLP projector (NT$79,900 or US$2,490) that also sports HDMI input and a network jack, while delivering a 1,024 x 768 resolution at 4,000 lumens and a 3,000:1 contrast ratio. Just to add a tad more burden to your overdraft, each pair of ZD101 shutter glasses — not bundled with either projectors — will cost you a further NT$4,000 (US$125), in return offering a wireless range of up to eight meters courtesy of Texas Instruments’ non-directional DLP Link technology (so no need to position any external emitters). A couple of close-up photos after the break. Continue reading Optoma joins the 3D party with HW536 and EX762 DLP projectors Optoma joins the 3D party with HW536 and EX762 DLP projectors originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:23:00 EST.

You know who else is firmly situated on the 3D bandwagon? Acer . This fine morning the outfit has busted out two new beamers, both of which are eager and willing to be paired with NVIDIA’s 3D Vision setup for viewing in the third dimension. Outside of that, neither one is particularly awe-inspiring, but if you’ve got a 3D Blu-ray player on the brain, you might need one of these to fully complete the nerded-out basement experiment. Up first is the H5360, offering a native 1,280 x 720 resolution, a 3,200:1 contrast ratio, 2,500 ANSI lumens and an HDMI socket. The lower-end X1261 gets a lowly XGA resolution, a similar amount of brightness and a component video port.

You’ll be forgiven for just glazing over during CES and ignoring all those ebook readers that were raining down , but Liquavista ’s attempt at marrying the endurance of e-paper with the desirability of color is well worth another look . The company has now furnished its LiquavistaColor dev kit with a QWERTY keyboard and also recruited Texas Instruments into the fold, whose OMAP system-on-a-chip is doing the grunt work under the hood. The video after the break indicates that touchscreen interaction is also planned, but the most impressive thing has to be the total lack of any redrawing pauses, which may be the considered the biggest drawback to the many E Ink devices out there. For the more conventional monochromatic crowd, we’ve also grabbed video of the LiquavistaBright, which replicates the rapid refresh skills, but omits the keyboard and OMAP in favor of a more compact form factor and Freescale iMX5x hardware. Slide past the break to see it all

We didn’t think it could be done, but the fine folks at Texas Instruments have just unleashed a tiny, tiny beast in their all new DLP pico chipset. The nHD DLP chipset, as it’s known, boasts 640×360 resolution, a contrast ratio of “better than” 1,000:1, RGB LED wide color gamut (which should more faithfully reproduce colors), a new, and a lower powered processor. Overall, the package is 20 percent thinner and 50 percent lighter than the current generation DLP chipset. We hear the chipset should be available in the second quarter of 2010. The full press release is after the break. Continue reading Texas Instruments unleashes new nHD DLP chipset, now with more pico Texas Instruments unleashes new nHD DLP chipset, now with more pico originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:30:00 EST.

Texas Instruments has just made its OMAP 4 system-on-chip official, and garnished the announcement with the first development platform for it, aggressively titled Blaze. We already caught a glimpse of it in prototype form earlier this month, and the thing is quite a whopper — you can see it on video after the break and we doubt you’ll accuse TI of placing form before function with this one. The company’s focus will be on promoting innovative new modes of interaction, with touchless gesturing (or “in the air” gesture recognition) figuring strongly in its vision of the future. Looking at the SOC diagram (available after the break), you’ll find that its grunt will be provided by the same ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore class of CPU that powers the iPad , though TI claims it will be the only mobile platform capable of outputting stereoscopic 720p video at 30fps per channel. Perhaps its uniqueness will come from the fact that nobody else cares for the overkill that is 3D-HD on a mobile phone, whether it requires glasses or not. It’ll still be fascinating to see if anybody picks up the chunky Blaze idea and tries to produce a viable mobile device out of it — we could be convinced we need multiple displays while on the move, we’re just not particularly hot on the 90s style bezel overflow

If you’ve seen one of those tiny pico projectors , chances are, Texas Instruments ‘ DLP tech is inside. And their latest version, the mHD DLP Pico , may be the first to squeeze into a cellphone that’s humiliating to use. The new, low power chipset drives an optical module that’s 20% thinner and 50% smaller than TI’s last pico projector , which was notably 20% thinner than its predecessor. Resolution has taken a hit in this smaller form factor, dropping from DVD quality to 640×360. But the system claims a 1000:1 contrast ratio (that’s LCD monitor territory) and a wider color gamut thanks to RGB LEDs. Of course, brightness will probably still be the chief issue

Often when I reach for the keys in my pocket, I wonder why the hell we still use them. This dude is ahead of the curve though—he can open his doors by simply tapping his TI eZ430-Chronos watch. The watch itself features integrated pressure and temperature sensors, a 3-axis accelerometer and 128-bit AES encrypted wireless. In this demo, the watch syncs with the receiver box mounted on the deadbolt. A sequence is tapped on the face of the watch—activating a servo inside the box that opens the door. Personally, I would prefer to open the door with my cellphone , but this looks to be a relatively secure and inexpensive solution comparably

Yeah, we know: you haven’t bought a pico projector and you really have no plan to do so. Still, it’s kind of fun to see them doing their thing, beaming little, dim images onto walls from improbably small boxes. The folks at PicoProjector-info are happy to oblige, posting two videos of DLP picos in action at CES. The first is a Texas Instruments model that’s been stuck atop a camcorder (presumably with bubblegum), pointing backward to splay the image of whatever it’s filming into the wall — and to temporarily blind whoever dares pick up said camcorder. Next up is a demonstration of the Samsung W9600 , which we spent a bit of time with ourselves at CES.

Because of its super-compact size, DLP Pico projectors are ideal to cram into all kinds of gadgets. Texas Instruments is doing just that by applying it’s new Pico WVGA resolution chipset into everything from cellphones to digital cameras. It’s not the first digital camera with a projector , but the prototype developed by TI and Asia Optical could mean a significant bump in performance with DLP. Other notable new Pico technologies include: a snap on Pico accessory for the LG Expo mobile phone from AT&T ($179), a followup to the pico-enabled W7900 from Samsung and the Brightboxe gaming projector ($199). Texas Instruments’ DLP® Pico™ Technology Enables More Than a Dozen New Pico Products From World’s Leading Brands New WVGA DLP Pico ™ chipset delivers incredible, native DVD images from the palm of your hand Las Vegas, NV – Jan. 6, 2010, 11:00 a.m.

Google’s little green man has been getting quite an education lately, popping up in a number of e-book readers (why hello there Nook , Alex , eDGe ). Not to be left out, Netronix is reportedly also looking to work with Texas Instruments on assimilating Android into its product line, according to company chairman Arthur Lu (via DigiTimes ). Neither are bad trends to follow in this still-infant industry, but the questions remains as to when and how it’ll actually work. Also on the company to-do list? 3G and 3.5G capabilities, supposedly coming sometime in the middle of 2010