CES 2010: Casio fleshes out imaging plans

Digital imaging icon Casio has released the details for its upcoming line of enterprise and consumer imaging appliances.

On the business end, the company revealed a new slim and environmentally friendly digital projector. The projector is able to achieve a brightness of up to 3 thousand lumens without the use of a mercury lamp.

Frank Romeo, vice president of business projectors for Casio America, said that the projector used a new method to avoid the weak green lighting which had caused weak brightness levels in previous mercury-free projectors.

By using a phosphor wheel to convert blue light into green, the projector is able to produce a green light with a matching brightness to the red and blue light sources. The result is a projector which can achieve high levels of brightness and clarity without the need for hazardous mercury components.

"Our hybrid source turns over the conventional wisdom that high-brightness projectors have to use mercury lamps," said Romeo.

In addition to being environmentally friendly, the projectors are also lighter and more durable. The new projectors sport a thickness of 1.7 inches and weigh in at five pounds.

The new LED system does not require the warm-up or cool-down time of conventional projectors, creating a longer lifespan that Romeo estimates could last for eight hours every day of the year for roughly seven years time.

In addition to the new projector, Casio also introduced a new line of digital cameras and picture frames for consumers. The cameras will expand on the company's Exilim high speed photography platform, which allow consumer cameras to capture high-speed images.

Additionally, the company is planning a new digital art frame which will use built in filters to apply artistic effects to photographs. Built-in Adobe Flash Lite support will also allow the frames to download and display a number of different clock and calendar display options.