texas instruments

Comfortable shoes and a light breakfast go a long way. We were able to bob and weave through the crowd at Texas Instruments‘ Infocomm booth to slither up to what has to be the coolest item of the show: The Optoma Pico Projector.

About the size of a mini-remote, this small wonder connects to your gear (in this case, an iPod) via an “A/V IN” port for sharing photos, video, and presentations. It serves up a 20-inch display, but can go as high as 90 inches in a super-dark environment (although, we’re not certain anyone wants video living on an iPod blown up that much). The prototype that we saw had a USB port for charging the device-no batteries required. Hard specs and pricing are still up in the air, but the Optoma Pico Projector should be under $400 when it gets U.S. shores in early 2009.

Check out the video below to see the Pico in action:

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Earlier today, Texas Instruments released a statement that it would be supplying the muscle to an upcoming Optoma pico projector-now we get a glimpse of the product as Optoma introduced the first Pico projector based on TI’s DLP Pico chipset.

Smaller than most smart phones, the 4-ounce Optoma Pico Projector connects to media devices such as MP3 player, digital cameras, mobile phones, and the like, and allows users to project an image that’s “up to 100 times larger” than the small screens on those mobile devices. No hard specs yet, but we’ll try to dig deeper while on the floor. It’s set to launch in Asia and Europe later this year, with a worldwide release in 2009.