It appears that Konica Minolta will take mini-projector one-upsmanship to the next level with a new device that measures about 4cm long, 2cm wide, and only .76cm thick—roughly the size of a smallish thumbdrive. When all is said and done, Konica believes that this new projector will be able to throw 20-inch colour images in XGA resolution at distances of about 20 24-inches away from the screen and use less than 1-watt of power while operating. Unfortunately, the device will not be ready for public consumption for another 2 or 3 years, which opens up the door for another company to one-up their one-up. [Nikkei-subcription via Crunchgear via ComputerWorld]

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The Gadget: Australian company Maxon's Visimax pocket-friendly projector.

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The garage, also known as "car hole" in some circles, has traditionally been a somewhat wasted space. Aside from holding vehicles for a few hours of the day, it's often a crap collector, the place for rusty saws and tangled Christmas lights. Electronic House has assembled a list of five garages that have transcended to status quo to home theatre status. This particular theatre was converted from a 3-car garage and features a premium 1080p projector along with 7,000W of surround sound. So while the setup can't haul arse, worry not, it still annoys the hell out of the neighbours. [Electronic House via CrunchGear]

The Gadget: 3M's pocket-friendly MPro110 projector packs a sizeable screen into a tiny, battery-powered package. It's mainly for fast-moving business types, but could it also be an alternative to buying a 40-inch TV?

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Way back in June Optoma promised to release its picoprojector this year, and now there's news that indeed it will. Still reportedly the world's smallest and lightest, it'll go on sale December 1st in Japan at the Apple store, of all places. In case you've forgotten the DLP device is just 1.7 x 5 x 10.4 cm and can produce an image up to 60-inches at a modest 480 x 320 resolution and 1000:1 contrast for 2 hours from its battery. Its expected price in Japan is around $US500, though there's no news yet on when it'll be coming to these shores or what it'll cost. [AVWatch]

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In case you need a projector for your business, or just want the biggest, awesomest home theatre on the block, Sanyo's new offering is a pretty good bet. The LP-XTC50 uses dual lamps, which gives you a pretty impressive 6,000 hours in alternate lamp mode, and up to 3,000 hours in regular single-lamp mode. It has also updated its brightness settings, at 5,000 ANSI lumens, and offers a hi-def resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. Other features include horizontal and vertical lens shift, keystone correction, workable projection at any 360-degree angle and 10 auto-switching filters. This monster of a projection machine will be available on Jan. 9, 2008 for roughly $US10,730. [Crunchgear]

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The Economist has a great piece about researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed a digital cinema projector that uses lasers as the main display technology. In doing so, these projectors are able to display a staggering 80 percent of the colour range visible to the human eye. Previously, the 60 percent range that 35mm film offered was considered the benchmark for other projectors and displays to measure themselves up against.

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3D displays may or may not be the next big thing in home entertainment, but JVC has just announced the first 3D projector intended for home theatres. Needing no special glasses, the JVC DLA-RS2 uses D-ILA projection (that's similar to LCD) and stereoscopic video processing to offer a 1080p 3D viewing experience.

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This may not be as small as yesterday's picoprojector, but Toshiba's TLP-X200U projector is still portable, and touted as being the world's first with talking guidance. Apparently it's designed to make the thing easier to use, and it also talks you through maintenance procedures, with the aim of making it all work better for you, and thus saving you money in the long run. Elsewise it's got 3LCD tech, 1024 x 768-pixels resolution, 3000 ANSI lumen brightness and a 600:1 contrast ratio, and it's wired and wireless LAN capable. It may indeed be "slim, light and compact" and have that voice function, but for an MSRP of $US1,740 I'd expect it to have an LCARS touchpanel and Majel Barrett's dulcet digital tones. [I4U]

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"About the size and weight of a hen's egg" runs the tagline for this projector. That'd be some special large cubic hen then. But this Pico Cube EPP-HH01 from Epoq projector is undeniably tiny—it's just 5.6 x 5.6 x 4 cm across, which Epoq says makes it the world's smallest. It projects VGA resolution images from its LCoS image chip with a 3W LED light source giving it a 80:1 ANSI contrast ratio. It's no high-end video projector of course, but you don't expect that from a gadget of this size. And it does somehow squeeze in a speaker, making it handy for impromptu business presentations and such. It's due to ship this month, for a suitably tiny $US230. [Gadgetcraver.com]

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