Being a gadget junkie, I love hearing about these kinds of things.

Just 12 months after demonstrating a working prototype of the world’s smallest projector, Redmond, Wash.-based Microvision is unveiling a full functioning, self-contained prototype that should be available as a real product—possibly from Motorola—later this year.

Dubbed SHOW, the lensless PicoP projector is designed for the home and business use, and uses tiny lasers to shoot a WVGA (848 by 480, roughly DVD resolution) image on virtually any surface that isn’t a dark color or textured. It can even project onto curved and uneven surfaces. So, from a distance of two feet, it could project a two foot diagonal, full-color image on a white T-shirt. From five feet away, it could show a five-foot image on, say, a white wall or ceiling.

This thing isn’t much bigger than a deck of cards:

It would be great for people who travel for business, since it means not having to lug a projector around (even the travel ones are quite a bit bigger than this).  But beyond that, I could see some additional uses.  Take an ultraportable PC (an oQo or perhaps even something like the Nokia 880) and hook one of these up along with a fold-up bluetooth keyboard, and you could have a portable desktop-like system without all the bulk (you could probably carry it in your pocket; if you had a fairly large pocket).  Or, since the projection engine is so small, it could even be embedded in laptops or ultraportables to begin with. 

It accepts input from any video-capable device, so (as shown in the picture), you could take your movies or pictures along on an iPod and show them without having to use a TV or carry a large projector.  The projected price is given in the article as $200 to $300 (which is a steal compared to the prices of current projectors; although to be fair the other projectors have better resolution).

Linked via Slashdot.