Is There Video Pollution Coming?

Last night I was at Andrew Warner's Mixergy get-together and a guy that came brought a PICO laser video projector that was the size of a Flip digital video camera. This guy was projecting video everywhere in the bar. (It's similar to the one in the above video.) He was playing video from his iPhone on the ceiling, on table cloths, on people's shirts and even if you can imagine it, on the wall.

Everyone in the bar was drawn to him and his projector like moths to a flame. Just watching this made me think of the early days of filmmaking when just seeing moving pictures with no story was novel enough for people to pay admission to a theater to watch a motion picture of a train pulling into a station.

Next I thought about laser pointers and how people would bring them into movie theaters and point them at the screen before a movie and sometimes during. Then it got me to thinking about bars, schools and Tom Cruise in Minority Report. Soon there might be a rash of these little projectors projecting videos everywhere. Imagine sitting in a bar or restaurant and the Cuervo Gold Girls walk by and play a commercial. Or some dorky guy shows off a YouTube video that he's proud of or worse, his favorite adult movie. There is no end to where this could lead and the problems it could cause.

Imagine if you owned a restaurant and your competitor parked outside and projected her commercial on your restaurant's wall? I'm sure you are already thinking of how this could effect you for bad or good and the good could be really good.

What if your iPhone had the processing speed and storage of your MacBook Pro and instead of having to flip open your laptop you just set your iPhone down and it projected it's screen on the wall and projected a virtual keyboard on the table that would allow you to use your iPhone like a laptop?

Now imagine movie night. Where will you set up your portable theater and will you bother anyone with your video pollution?