Launched by Sony, the Xperia Touch is a portable laser projector that can display an interactive Android screen on any surface. The device is a portable handheld box composed of metal with dimensions of 134mm x 143mm x 69mm that contains many conventional smartphone parts. However instead of an LCD screen, the Xperia Touch has a projector with auto focus. The device’s touch controls are enabled using the projector’s IR array and 60 fps camera, and can display images on a surface the projector is in physical contact with or at farther distances.
For surfaces in physical contact with the Xperia Touch, the device can project an image up to 23 inches, whereas displays on the farther walls can be up to 80 inches. Image quality has a resolution of 1366 x 768 with 100-lumen brightness, which isn’t top-notch. Audio can be subject to improvement as well even though the device can use NFC and Bluetooth to stream sound.
Some of the innovative features the Xperia Touch has are automatic focus, rotation, and keystoning that accordingly adjusts onto the surface after you orient the projector to a position of your liking. One of the apparent (yet surmountable) issues the projector has involves its touch functions with far away projections since someone trying to interact with the screen would obstruct the pathway between the surface and device itself. To address this design flaw, a front-mounted 60 fps camera will be incorporated into the Xperia Touch’s design with plans for it to use gesture controls.
The camera will track and translate hand movements into touch controls, having a cursor appear on far away projections that can be navigated using your fingers. A click can be implemented by making a pinch gesture with your fingers that control the cursor over anything it hovers above. While the finger control features of the Xperia Touch are still in development, this technology won’t be ready when the device officially launches, according to Sony.
The projector will also contain a proximity sensor that can be used to activate the device if motion is detected. Some of the projector’s other features are a 13MP camera to allow for video calls, and a two-way stereo speaker. The device has USB and HDMI Type-D ports, and the inside of the projector is essentially composed with all the main parts from a mid-sized Android device with 1.65 GHz Snapdragon 650 SoC, 3 GB of RAM, and will have 32 GB of storage.
Battery life of the Xperia Touch is on the low side, and can only maintain one hour on continuous video playback mode. Until its developers learn how to prolong battery life, it’s highly recommended connecting the Xperia Touch to a power source with a cord if it’s going to be used for more than an hour.
Filed Under: M2M (machine to machine)