The last 3M projector was a mixed bag: Passable video quality was tainted by poor build quality and low battery life, and the overall experience, while promising, just wasn’t quite there yet.

The MPro120 is a replacement for the MPro110, and on top of the verifiably awesome image quality from its liquid crystal on silicon imager, it multiplies battery life by a factor of six, adds speakers and pushes the life of its 12 lumen lamp to 20,000 hours, and keeps the prior product’s $US350 price tag. Another difference: Assuming this thing been tightened up on the quality front, people might actually buy this. The MPro120 is due to land on September 1. [3M]

COMING SOON TO A POCKET NEAR YOU: THE MPRO120
3M’s New Handheld Projector Set for September Launch
ST. PAUL, MINN. (August 26, 2009) – This fall, Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters are coming to a pocket near you! Less than a year after launching the MPro110 – the handheld digital projector that won the “Grand Award” in the gadget category of the Popular Science 2008 Best of What’s New Awards – 3M announced today the September debut of the MPro120, the newest member of the MPro family. The MPro120 provides improved functionality, increased portability and an expanded feature set.
The MPro120 is the first projector to incorporate 3M’s MM200 projection engine, the next generation of the MPro family. As announced at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, the MM200 engine uses an advanced liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) electronic imager and boasts enhanced image quality with a full colour gamut. The MPro120 provides users with a robust battery life of two to four hours (depending on brightness setting) – enough to watch a full-length film – and, in full brightness mode, achieves a brightness of 12 lumens. Featuring an integrated flip stand, tripod, stereo speakers and a variety of input cables, the MPro120 is ready to use “out-of-the-box” with a wide range of today’s most popular video output gadgets. And, as with its predecessor – the MPro110 – the MPro120 will be the ideal projection solution for laptops and netbooks. Available optional accessories include an adaptor cable for Apple® products, component video cable and car charger.
“Following the success of the MPro110, the MPro120 will further reinforce 3M’s leadership position in the development and implementation of advanced projection technologies,” said Mark Colin, general manager, 3M Projection Systems Department. “The functionality of the MPro120 represents technical achievements that were manageable only by the long-term commitment to research and development that is 3M’s hallmark.”
The MPro120 will be on-sale September 1 with an estimated price of $US349. Optional accessories are sold separately.

Really though, somehow Hoffman manages to capture the tone of the event, the absurdity of so many of these products and the people selling them. If only the clip included 200 pans of identical digital cameras, flat screen TVs and journalists proudly toting official CES 2009 backpacks, you’d be missing nothing other than the smell and complimentary after hours booze.

[via bbGadgets]

Revealed at CES, this Coke vending machine from Sapient has a completely interactive touchscreen front panel that lets you view the product before you purchase it—just like how you would in the grocery store. Simply select which bottle of pop you want, give it a spin to peruse its ingredients, marvel the barcode, and check out whatever else you need to know about it before purchasing it (with either cash or a credit card).

Sapient’s Coke machines are set to be available sometime soon in the 190+ malls owned by the Simon Property Group. However, the rest of the world may have to wait until 2010 until they could touch one of these babies. View the very first hands-on first impressions below. [Engadget Thanks Peter!]

Using the iPod-esque controls and the screen, the user can display and record measurements, adjust case lengths and convert measurements between imperial and metric. Definitely a smart design, but when DIYers might be able to get their hands on it is unknown. [Gearlog via Newlaunches via Coolest Gadgets]

Japan’s Nikkei and Reuters are both reporting that losses for the fiscal year ending in March could hit $US1.1 billion, with Nikkei saying they may even drift closer to $US2 billion. This is, as they say, the exact opposite of the $US2.2 billion profit forecast Sony previously cited.

At fault are, well, the financiapocalypse of course, which has resulted in subdued demand for HDTVs in the American market and elsewhere, as well as a booming yen that has driven up the price of exports. Stocks for all of the Japanese tech companies plunged today from the news, with Toshiba, Canon and Panasonic all down in the neighbourhood of 7%.

So the idea of Sony shuttering a major division by the end of next month rings a bit more true now, doesn’t it? Who will get the axe?

[NYT, Variety]

The bad news is that it’s a Korea-only phone (shipping next month) and according to Gearlog’s Sascha Segan no one seems to know much about it.

But on the good side, the phone runs on Samsung’s TouchWiz UI, can project any of the visual media stored on the phone, animated Korean kids stories and DMB-T mobile TV signals, or functions as a de facto flashlight.

Segan says Samsung reps promised more details soon. For now check out more pics on Gearlog, or take a peek at CrunchGear’s video below. [Gearlog and CrunchGear]