Lenovo Reveals Crazy Cool Laser Projector SmartPhone Concept Called the 'Smart Cast'

[FoxKat]

An interesting article on Samsung's R&D phone... A not-so-shining future the sad demise of the projector phone TechRadar

And here is the one I remember from the past...

It's here... The Pico Projector mobile phone

 

[Narsil]

I don't think it would have much use in a work environment but I travel quite a bit for business and spend about a month and a half to two months of the year (in total) living in hotels. I like to watch movies and TV shows on my tablet but prefer to route them through the hotel TV. The problem is quite a few hotels disable the external inputs so that you cannot do this. I can only assume this is to incentivize you to buy their $20 pay-per-view movies.

When I'm at a hotel that does this, I make do with my laptop or tablet but a tiny projector like this would be very handy, especially one built into my tablet.

 

[PereDroid]

I've never seen a hotel disable inputs on a TV and in fact the last one I stayed at, the Hilton Garden, had a separate panel on the wall for every type of multimedia you could possible want except maybe Display Port.

You staying at Joe's No-Tel Mo-tel or something bro?

 

[FoxKat]

I've never seen a hotel disable inputs on a TV and in fact the last one I stayed at, the Hilton Garden, had a separate panel on the wall for every type of multimedia you could possible want except maybe Display Port.

You staying at Joe's No-Tel Mo-tel or something bro?

At Joe's No-Tel Mo-tel, your privacy and discreteness is our number one concern. Such so that we eliminate all manner of large screen display of your NSFW content on our hotel room TVs. It's because we care.


"At Joe's No-Tel Mo-tel, we'll keep the light off for ya."

 

[Narsil]

I've never seen a hotel disable inputs on a TV and in fact the last one I stayed at, the Hilton Garden, had a separate panel on the wall for every type of multimedia you could possible want except maybe Display Port.

You staying at Joe's No-Tel Mo-tel or something bro?

Primarily Marriott's, Residence Inns are my preference. Most RI's work just fine w/HDMI inputs, some not at all, and some display video but the audio doesn't work.

 

[FoxKat]

Primarily Marriott's, Residence Inns are my preference. Most RI's work just fine w/HDMI inputs, some not at all, and some display video but the audio doesn't work.

The reason the audio may not work could be due to the multiple audio channels. It often depends on what the audio is set to versus what the source is. For instance, if the audio on the TV is set to "stereo", but the source is 5.1, you'll not hear any of the center track on the TV, only faint surrounding "room" noises from the set, or things such as cars going by and the like. Since the center track usually is all the voice content (think that the subject is right in front of you, "front and center"), I found that to be a big problem with a TV where my father-in-law was staying at a rehab. Most of the TV content was 5.1 but the TV was only playing the right and left channels. There were entire TV shows he couldn't watch because he couldn't hear them talking. Then out of the blue commercials would come blasting in at ear-deafening levels. Or you'd hear music but no voice.

 

[Narsil]

That very well could have been the issue trying to watch DVD's, which is what I was doing. The DVD defaults to 5.1 but I don't recall hearing anything. I'll definitely check the source audio configuration the next time it happens.

 

[Narsil]

The reason the audio may not work could be due to the multiple audio channels. It often depends on what the audio is set to versus what the source is. For instance, if the audio on the TV is set to "stereo", but the source is 5.1, you'll not hear any of the center track on the TV, only faint surrounding "room" noises from the set, or things such as cars going by and the like. Since the center track usually is all the voice content (think that the subject is right in front of you, "front and center"), I found that to be a big problem with a TV where my father-in-law was staying at a rehab. Most of the TV content was 5.1 but the TV was only playing the right and left channels. There were entire TV shows he couldn't watch because he couldn't hear them talking. Then out of the blue commercials would come blasting in at ear-deafening levels. Or you'd hear music but no voice.

I'm posting this from the Orlando Airport Residence Inn. They have a box on the back of the LG LCD TV which disables all the physical buttons except power and volume. You can't even change channels without the remote which is not an LG remote. Fortunately, pulling the CAT5 cable from this box restored the input and enter physical buttons, allowing me to HDMI into the TV.

BTW, in a non-coincidental coincidence, this R.I. has in-room On-Demand movies.

Marriott, as a Platinum-level Rewards Member, when it comes to blocking HDMI inputs, I have but one thing to say:

 

[kodiak799]

BTW, in a non-coincidental coincidence, this R.I. has in-room On-Demand movies.

Yeah, shocker. I should use my phone for that stuff more often, but I don't have much time for tv when traveling for work.