Projecting an image...

One of the gadgets that many organisations have come to take for granted in meeting rooms and for doing presentations is the projector.  In recent years they have become smaller, quieter, cheaper and brighter through technology such as DLP (Digital Light Processing) taking over from LCD.  Remember when they first came out, there was so much fussing around with users not understanding how to connect their laptop computers and match the resolution required so as to fit the whole screen on the projected picture.  And to be fair to the users, the systems software on many computers didn't make it easy to achieve this either.  However today, things usually go much more smoothly.  I have used shareware (iPodShow) to project video/slides via a traditional projector using my music player rather than having to drag my laptop along everywhere.

Already the size of these projectors is coming down.  The term pico projector is now in use to describe the tiniest ones available which some mobile phone manufacturers are now planning to incorporate into their devices within two years.  I only hope that people will think twice about boring audiences with Powerpoint just because they are able to share slides with those present simply by whipping out their cellphone.  It is the quality of the presentation and the story being told that we need to improve in many cases rather than the ability of the presenter to project the image.  Rather it is the total image they convey which is often overlooked by the presenter - something Max often addresses in his blog.