There won’t be any sales in New South Wales Australia.

The law here classes battery operated devices that “emit a laser beam, that may be used for the purposes of aiming, targeting or pointing” as lethal weapons. (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/bill/soalelapb2008705/) .

NSW Premier Morris Iemma says people caught with the devices could face between two to 14 years in jail. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/21/2222662.htm)

Solid state red (and infrared) lasers have been around a while, then came green, more recently blue/purple. There may have been gas-based and crystal-based lasers of a variety of wavelengths for a long time before solid state, but for small electronic devices without an abundance of power to squander, SS is where it's at. The higher the frequency (and energy), the harder it's been to make a stable, reliable solid state device.

Am I wrong?

"Help me Obe Wan..."

Now that they have the display (100" screen? Drooolllll) all they have to worry about is a keyboard. (And no, voice command/Minority Report UI/projected keyboard need not apply).

Now the laser does sound like the better technology, for everything from projecting your movies onto your folded up tray on an airplane or onto your teachers bumm in class, however no costs have been mentioned or speculated on.

The DLP chip might be a shed load cheaper, or one or the other might use very very little power, which would be good for any intergrations.

The thing is about the laser one, I do not know any full sized projectors that use 3 lasers to create images... what sort of quality are we talking about in this first generation tiny lasser?

Just wondering.

"First use: Schoolkids projecting porn on the school walls

Second use: Schoolkids projecting embarrassing pictures of other kids, and pictures of themselves beating up other kids.

Third use: Highly paid professional adults projecting porn just about everywhere."

The correct description for these three situations is "Benefits"

If this laser projector technology was really ready, it seems very strange to me why nobody has made available a similar device using the readily available (and a little more bulkier) frequency-doubled green laser. Obviously a fondamental frequency green laser is smaller and more energy efficient, but is not indispensable do create a device like this.

Another point; if you use a laser projector like this with a 100 inch screen, it better have some really powerful (and potentially dangerous to any fool that looks into it) lasers, which are also energy hungry, and you will need a very very dark room.

Even if 3 extremely powerful 1-watt eye-searing (imagine what kids would use this for if built in a mobile phone!) lasers are used, 3 watts total of light spread out on the area of a 100" screen isn't very much.

With regards to LEDS, the fabrication of colours was red->green, a very long pause, and then a dim blue (Gallium nitride).

Blue colour from electricity was probably first noted by a guy corresponding with Faraday (http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/sic/index.html), and if that were possible to fashion into a laser the technically the article is correct.

In terms of commercial manufacturing, I don't know, but I thought also that the blue laser was harder to produce

The main problem with voice command/recognition software is that English has too many Homophones, dialects, accents, etc. That is not the only language on Earth, however. It isn't even the most widely spoken (although it comes close as a 2nd language).

I don't speak any myself, but I understand tonal languages are ideally suited to machine control. In the future we may find ourselves typing to our computers in English, but talking to then in Chinese.

Never mind the 100" screen from low wattage, Can it project an image directly on my retina? How many watts would that need?

Im a mobile dj and one of these would be an absolute boon . The majority of venues that have screens are out of focus or so badly in need of a clean they are too dim . I can hook this up and just point it at the screen . Instant fantastic picture from any angle . Also good for places with no projector . I have my own in my pocket . Gimme I want one !

When? I want one too :P