The man is suspected of trying to charge $100 for what appeared to be a 37-inch flat screen television. He had even stuffed electronic cables and a manual in the back.

San Leandro police Lt. Pete Ballew called it a variation on the old "rocks in a box" scam, in which a box is presented as containing new, expensive electronics for sale but is actually full of rocks.

Most of us would spot the scam a mile away, but it does make you wonder if anyone would fall for it. I certainly know a couple of people (including my Dad) who might. [The Oakland Tribune via Gear Diary via Slashgear]

Designed for little light displays and maybe as an accessory to a really lousy sales booth, the Ultra Projector is capable of farting out a 320x240 res image from 10- to 150-inches. The lamp is actually just a high-powered LED, which doesn't seem to be replaceable.

The Ultra Projector features no AV-in, just a USB port and 2GB of storage to play back some movin' pictures in a proprietary video file that requires conversion. Oh, and there's no audio. Not just no speakers, but no audio-out either. The company says, "This was done by design as audio is not needed for the applications intended," though their list of intended applications specify that this could be used as a low-cost projector for the deaf. It's claimed as "weather-proof," thought the FAQ specifies that it's not waterproof—we think that means you can leave it out in the rain, but can't take it swimming. It's available for pre-order now, aiming for an August release at a $179 price point. [Ultra Projector, Thanks, Richard!]

At $169, how bad could it be? Answer: horrible, and not even worth that. Perhaps you've heard of the "screen door effect" that's common with low-end LCD projectors. A screen door would be a blessing compared to this. Watching this felt more like being behind the bars of a jail cell than having a screen door in front of us.

After that initial shock, it was time to run some of our projector test patterns, playing them back at the native resolution of this little monster, which is supposed to project video at 920x240 pixels, but we're still not really sure whether that was what we are looking at or not. It's probably closer to a cellphone-like 320x240.

We popped up a white test pattern, and with our precision light meter, measured the lowest light levels of any projector that has ever graced (or sullied) our Midwest Test Facility. At the center of the screen, it was putting out a pathetic 120 lumens, and even that was profoundly uneven, with 70 lumens on the right side of the screen, 80 on the left, and 90 up top. There are dim light bulbs that are much brighter than this. Unless the room was completely dark, we could hardly see an image at all. We didn't realize the term "candlepower" was going to be taken literally here.

What about contrast ratio? Well, there wasn't any. We projected a white chip chart with numerous degrees of white down to light gray (see a shot of the projected chart in the gallery below), and you can hardly tell the difference between any of the chips. It was the worst contrast ratio, or lack thereof, we've ever seen.

We tried watching a DVD, and from the very beginning, it was some of the worst video we've ever encountered. For example, the FBI warning at the beginning of the DVD was not legible at all. It looked like hieroglyphics.

Games fared no better, looking as pixelated as any video could ever possibly be. And don't think we're just being projector snobs here, even though that's exactly what we are. Going into this review, we realized the low price of this projector, but didn't expect the quality to hit such a low point. The projector even smelled bad, like mildew, and made way more noise than we could bear if we wanted to concentrate on watching a movie or playing a game.

The upside? It looks kinda cool. But for $169, not cool enough. If this is a toy aimed at kids, it's not going to work. Even the most bleary-eyed numbskull kids would smell a rat, wondering why a Santa was punishing them. If you have a bad little boy in the house, this might just be the perfect gift. [Senario]

The study showed that both LCDs and plasma displays needed repairs, on average, only 3% of the time. Meanwhile, rear-projection sets had an overall necessity of repairs of 18%. And the worst culprits in rear-projection were DLP TVs. Yeah, apparently those millions of tiny mirrors need millions of tiny fixes—which is really too bad, since my eye favors good DLP over LCD and plasma any day.

Consumer Reports' other conclusion was that neither repair prices nor rates on either type of TV warranted warranties. So don't let that punk kid in a wrinkly blue shirt scare you out of your money better spent on hi-def content. [informationweek]

"If you watch TV in a distance that is less than three times the screen height of your TV, then 1080p is worth the wait. If the distance is greater than three times the screen height, then today's [720p/768p] HDTVs, such as 42" units, offer an incredible value."

What appears to be a 1080p TV, may actually not be a 1080p TV [TG Daily]