Pinkie-sized laser-powered video projectors coming soon

Pretty soon those pocket-sized pico projectors are going to look kind of old and clunky, once a Swiss company gets their laser-powered device onto the market.

While some of the smaller pico projectors boast that they are as small as a cellphone, the Lemoptix projector is about the size of your pinkie finger, and is designed to be embedded inside a smartphone or laptop. The imager is still a micro mirror device (MMD), but by using separate red, blue, and green lasers as a light source, they were able to dump the bulky power-robbing color wheel used in LED based projectors.

Resolution is standard definition at 640 x 480, so it's not exactly going to be running your home theater, but that's not the intended use. The tiny light source means that the projector always remains in focus at any distance, projecting a 15-inch image from about 20-inches away. No word yet on how bright it is.

Lemoptix says you can expect to see the projector being used for head-up displays in cars starting next year, with embedded smartphone and laptop applications coming in 2012.