When separated, the keyboard communicates with the screen via Bluetooth and can act as a keyboard (duh), microphone, speaker and game pad. It also serves as a remote control when the pico-projector is used.

Apparently the F-04B’s 12.2-megapixel camera takes “nice pictures for a phone”, but the touchscreen could do with being a little more responsive.

The phone was first shown as a prototype at CEATEC 2008, but Akihabara News says that Fujitsu and Japanese carrier, DoCoMo, have “officially” announced it as the Separate Keitai F-04B. No word yet on what OS it runs, availability or pricing (inside or out of Japan). Definitely a unique idea. [Akihabara News]

It’d have essentials like wireless broadband connectivity and a battery, but I’m hoping that by 2020 we’ll have cooler stuff than a laser-projected keyboard. Their time has come and gone already, no? Less of that, more interactive holographic display technology, please. More wacky 2020 shenanigans at: [Ericsson via MobileandNotebook]

Pico projectors were all the rage when they were in development, but as the first wave of products hit, so did a reality-induced malaise: They weren’t that great. Fortunately, 3M’s MPro120 goes far to outshine the original MPro110.

The Price

$US350, just like its predecessor.

Verdict

What a difference 10 months make.

While the 12-lumen projector isn’t noticeably brighter, the throw is substantially tighter, so at the same distance you get about 25 per cent more picture. In terms of use, I could comfortably watch a screen of about 32 inches on the 120 (as opposed to the 110’s 20 inches) and could get nearly 50 inches out of it in a very dark room before the picture just got too blurry to enjoy. A 32-inch screen size may not be great shakes in the age of $US1000 50-inch plasmas, but in a dorm room or other close quarters, it sure beats a laptop.

Connections & Accessories:
• VGA adaptor for laptops
• Composite adaptor for AV sources
• Female-to-male RCA converters so any video output kit for your phone, iPod or camera will work
• Small Gorilla Pod-style tripod
• Built-in flip-down stand for just a bit of lift

When I reviewed the MPro110, I bitched that it was pretty flimsy too. Not so with the MPro120. It’s sturdy, has nice firm buttons for volume and brightness, and has a focus dial on its face that stays where you put it. The MPro110 and MPro120 are so different despite their naming, my theory is that 3M shot the guy who built the 110 and hired his arch-nemesis to build the new one.

Does this mean you should buy a pico projector? If you have $US350 to spend and find yourself in situations where a very portable 32-inch monitor that requires relative darkness would come in handy, go for it. It’s still not good enough for corporate presentations, and it’s still not a true theatre-on-the-go. My thought is, if it got this much better in just 10 months, why not wait another 10 months for even more improvements—and perhaps a tiny cost drop? [Product Page]

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.

Not much further info was given, but shot in the dark: the specs will probably be similar to every other Chinese-made media player out there.

As far as I remember, the Sunview PMP was the first media player with a built-in projector; it claimed a 53-inch throw. The more recent Nikon S1000pj camera projects a 40-inch image.

As for the Mirage, sounds neat…but yeah, I think I’ll do fine with a battery-powered pico projector for the moment. [Yinlips via Cloned in China]

Light sources using lasers for display applications, such as laser TV’s and pocket laser projectors, are expected to have superior properties in terms of size, weight and power consumption. For this reason, R&D activities aimed at commercialization of these devices have expanded rapidly over the past several years. Up to now, only red and blue laser diodes were commercially available, while green lasers (*1) were obtained by frequency conversion of infrared lasers. Gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductors, commercially available for blue LEDs, are also expected to be the key material for light-emitting devices in the green region. However, the material has been plagued with a phenomenon where the luminance efficiency shows a rapid decline with increasing wavelength.

At Sumitomo Electric, we have overcome this problem by developing a GaN crystal which inhibits the efficiency drop, resulting in room temperature pulse operation of a laser diode emitting in the pure-green region at 531nm. It is the first green laser diode in the world.

Sumitomo has applied for 60 patents on the technology, and are currently entertaining offers to use it in a wide range of applications. [Sumitomo via Crunchgear]

While projectors traditionally use lenses to offset the throw of the image (pretty effectively, I might add), the floating ball (suspended from an electromagnetic base) can rise or fall in space to make projection even more flexible. Plus, the projector is not just a projector but a series of microprojectors, allowing users to display multiple images to and from multiple angles. So little Billy can watch the latest Power Rangers on one wall while you pretend to watch CNN on another.

Of course, by the time microprojectors are good enough for home theatre use, we’ll probably all have HD imaging paints anyway and just cover our walls with electronic wallpaper. (A guy can dream, can’t he?) [Yanko Design]

In the most abstract sense, the iJector is fine: it can project videos at a reasonable brightness to diagonal sizes of 50 inches, plays back amplified stereo audio, and has a proper “made for iPod” device certification. It’ll work with just about any video-enable iProduct—possibly, though not definitely—excluding the iPhone 3GS.

Now, look closer. That (up to) 50 inches of projected imagery will be resolved at a comically low 557×234 pixels, and will cost around $US700 when it ships in Japan next month, which means by the time you smuggle it to the US through your chosen Japanese gadget importer, you’re looking at nearly $800 for a device that can push fewer pixel’s than your iPhone’s teeny little screen.

Your only consolation would be that it comes with a remote, I guess, and that it can at least accept composite video inputs and functions as a regular projector. Still, no. [Impress Watch]

Each of the docks connects to the console in question, and include speakers, a headphone socket and connections for the Digislide projector (although the prototypes only had wires to manually connect the projector, the end products will let you just slide in the projector to dock properly).

The guys at Digislide are targetting an October release for the gaming docks for all the consoles – the only reason a PS3 model wasn’t on display is because they ran out of time. They’re targetting a $150-$200 pricepoint for the docks, but at this stage it’s impossible to say ow close they’ll land. Hopefully we’ll hear more closer to October.