Intel Retail Digital Signage Concept

One of the more interesting things to come out of the NRF convention last week was a retail digital signage proof-of-concept from Intel.

The prototype system combines a translucent holographic overlay display next to a more traditional LCD screen, allowing for different types of interactive content to be delivered on the different screens. The concept demo shows contextual information on the holographic display, overlaid onto the physical items that are visible through the glass. The LCD portion of the installation is evidently intended to have screens on both sides, allowing the unit to support up to three simultaneous users.

The interaction evidently relies heavily on gesture more than on touch. According the Intel’s documentation on the concept, the LCD screens allow customers to use a swipe gesture to scroll through the available advertisements or digital media. The holographic screen, while it behaves like a touchscreen is also evidently gestural, recognizing “pointing” gestures that function the same as touches. This informational overlay onto the physical space behind is basically augmented reality, very similar to a number of mobile experiences that have been gaining traction of late.

Finally, all of the screens use embedded cameras in order to both customize the experience and capture analytics for future analysis. Placement of the selection interface on the holographic screen is adjusted to the customer’s height, for instance. The cameras can also recognize gender and approximate age, so the content on the LCDs can be targeted to the customer. And the system can capture dwell times for the content providing marketers a feedback mechanism for how well each ad is being received by viewers, and the related demographic info. This functionality is all evidently powered by CognoVision, a Canadian company focused on that space.

Intel, while not a manufacturer of interactive signage hardware directly, of course has a vested interest in seeing more powerful computing systems installed in more places, especially if they are powered by Intel processors. This particular concept, which was also briefly presented during Paul Otellini’s keynote at CES the week before, is evidently all driven by a single dual-core i7 chip.

Intel has actually built a number of interesting proof-of-concept units to demonstrate the power of the i7. At CES this year they had a dual-screen touch wall that allowed multiple people to touch little cubes of content.

And at last year’s CES show they debuted a holographic touch screen similar to the one in the retail concept above. It’s primary function was to show off a real-time 3D rendering engine that was powered by an i7 processor.

It’s not Intel’s first stab at envisioning what the future of retail digital signage will be either. Earlier this year they published some renderings and documentation of another concept intended for stores. This one also seems designed for three simultaneous users, although it’s definitely more pedestrian.

Although not intended to actually hit the streets, Intel’s latest retail concept is an interesting vision of the relatively near future of digital signage installations in retail environments.  In contrast to a lot of the digital media that has made its way into retailers thus far, Intel’s concept is highly interactive, and because it’s multi-user it offers the potential to build collaborative experiences as well. It incorporates a number of innovative technologies that we have been paying attention to - gestural interfaces, face tracking, augmented reality.

Along with presenting this concept, Intel also announced a partnership with Microsoft for its Windows Embedded Standard 2011 operating system and a stronger commitment to the digital signage space in general. That’s good news for those of us who depend on more capable and more reliable hardware platforms on which to develop the next generation of interactive experiences in public spaces.

posted by josiah at 11:13 PM 3 Comments »

Miele Inspirience Center

I recently came across an interesting interactive retail experience in The Netherlands from Miele called the Miele Inspirience Center (I’ll withhold comment on the pun.) Miele manufactures and sells a wide variety of residential appliances and commercial equipment.

Because they are a high-end durable goods maker, the purchase decision for their products is a fairly reasoned one for the consumer (as opposed to a supermarket-checkout-line impulse buy, for instance.) Miele makes very well-designed, high-end, extremely durable products that compete more on quality than price. As such, the more opportunity a consumer has to try out and explore the features of its products, the more likely Miele is to make a sale. But in typical appliance retailers that opportunity is limited. Furthermore, since Miele’s residential appliance offerings are diverse (washing machines, vacuum cleaners, small kitchen appliances, etc.) it’s also more difficult to communicate the lifestyle aspects of the brand in retailers.

In order to better showcase the brand, Miele has created showrooms where customers can experience the Miele lifestyle and actually use their products. Here in the US, there are 10 such showrooms (2 right here in the tri-state area). But now at their Dutch headquarters in Vianen they have evidently kicked that experience up a notch, so to speak. Throughout the showroom their are a large number of displays - about 100 - connected to a centrally managed digital signage network. In the pictures below you can see a few of the different form factors of screens in the place - LCD video walls, Apple iMacs, and single screens that are contextual to certain product line locations.

But the heart of this experience is driven by its personalization. To visit the Inspirience Center a customer or dealer must register (online or on-site) including providing demographic information and answering a questionnaire. The visitor is then given an iPod Touch to carry with them throughout the showroom. In addition to providing contextual product information on its screen, the iPod is able to track the visitor’s path through the showroom. This allows Miele to personalize the content on its digital signage to target that visitor’s preferences (as gleaned from the questionnaire) as well as allowing them to gather additional information about the customer’s preferences by evaluating where they lingered and what products they most gravitated towards.

Another interesting thing Miele has done at the Inspirience Center is to integrate scent into the experience. Because of the nature of its products, Miele recognized that the smells associated with its products (fresh laundry, for instance, or brewing coffee) are strongly evocative. Because they generally evoke positive emotions, scents can be purchase influencers. And because of the pre-registration of visitors, Miele can customize the aroma experience just as it does the visual experience.

With this experience, Miele is clearly at the cutting edge of high-end, personalized, experiential retail. Obviously this approach would not work for every brand, or even most brands, but there are certainly lessons to be gleaned from what they are doing that are applicable even into more mass market and consumable retailing.

posted by josiah at 5:06 PM 2 Comments »

MicroTiles Video Walls

A couple of months back we were working with a couple of strategic partners on a proposed solution for a  client and through that process we talked to a bunch of hardware vendors about various interactive technologies that could be built into architectural spaces. One of the people that we talked to was a rep at Christie, a company I predominantly think of as a maker of very high-end projectors for in-venue theaters and the like. We’ve used some of their products for previous projects. The Christie rep told us about a new product called MicroTiles and sent over a really cool video that showed some interesting interactivity.

Unfortunately that video was sent over under NDA through one of our partners, so I couldn’t write about it at the time. And in the end MicroTiles weren’t right for that project, so I just filed everything away. But I saw a press release from Christie a couple of weeks ago announcing the release of MicroTiles, so I guess it’s fair game now, and it still seems relevant.

MicroTiles are fairly small video cubes that are designed to be easily arrayed together in whatever shape is desired. So the concept is very similar to a traditional video wall. I would say the closest competition it has is the latest generation of ultra-thin bezel LCDs being made by Samsung and others. But MicroTiles have some interesting benefits over traditional video walls. For one thing, they are projection technology, which allows them to be serviced from the front by pulling of the display surface. This allows them to take up not much more space than their 10″ depth.  For another, they are very small (20″ diagonal) with a 720 x 540 resolution. So the overall resolution of a big installation is equivalent to a video wall made up of 40″ 1080p LCD screens. The video Christie put out with the release explains it all pretty well and answers some of the questions I had early on.

One of the things that video doesn’t show much of, though, is interactivity. The original video I saw (below) did show some touch and gestural applications, which was what piqued my interest in the first place. Check out around minute 2:00 to see that. It’s pretty basic stuff, but the fact that MicroTiles are a somewhat unique display technology that can have an interactive experience layered onto them make them definitely worth a look in various scenarios.

At the end of the day, unless you need to do an unusual form factor, the choice between MicroTiles and a high resolution LCD wall probably comes down to price and supportability. Since we are neither dealers nor installers, I can’t weigh in with an opinion on either of those decisions, but any reputable system integrator could surely do so.

posted by josiah at 6:56 PM No Comments »

Medtronic HRS Conference Tables & Wall

We’ve written in this space about numerous multitouch table and wall experiences. While that’s not the only type of interactive experience we are interested in, it’s certainly a technology that we’re excited about and that we see enormous potential for. As time goes by the evidence in support of our belief that these types of experiences are becoming increasingly relevant in the DOOH landscape seems to mount.

Earlier this year medical technology giant Medtronic rolled out a trade show environment featuring both. Their booth contained a 20′ wall as well as four 40″ touch tables. That’s a lot of multitouch. The show was for health professionals, and Medtronic’s booth certainly allowed for a lot of throughput for those professionals to use these multitouch surfaces.

The interactions on these devices can be seen in the video below. Fairly common stuff - moving stuff around with 2 finger gestures, a 2-player hockey game, and a navigable database of product information. Perhaps not the most inspired creative, but large screens and novel form factor probably ensured that it was still a bit fun to use. I’m always happy to see more people being exposed to these types of experiences.

As these sorts of multitouch experiences proliferate, the novelty will wear off and the bar will need to be raised in terms of engagement and utility. That will engender a lot more creative content and interactions and probably whole new interaction models that we haven’t even dreamed of yet.

posted by josiah at 2:47 PM No Comments »

Multitouch Spheres

I recently came across an interesting video of a colorful fluid/particle simulation within a multitouch sphere, posted by an arts collective in the UK called Seeper. It’s a nice piece of interactive art, although apparently still a work in progress.

I haven’t heard much about the Microsoft sphere that “surfaced” (pun presumably intented) last year in Redmond’s research facility, in the midst of their push for adoption of Surface tables. That must be a work in progress as well. Although Microsoft doesn’t seem to be pushing Surface much these days, probably sensing that Windows 7’s multitouch capabilities have a better shot at gaining a toehold in the market. The content on the Microsoft sphere wasn’t nearly as compelling.

I’m not sure whether any multitouch sphere will be readily available as a product anytime soon, but it’s certainly been demonstrated that it’s feasible to build one, so it’s a viable custom project. While it’s a cool and unusual form factor, it seems to me that it lends itself to a fairly limited set of applications.

Global Imagination has been making spherical projection systems for museums for a while. Adding multitouch interaction capability to spheres opens up possibilities for richer experiences, but the speherical form factor is probably still going to be best suited for  globes, planets, or other science center and planetarium installations.

Anyway, it’s good to see interactive artists applying different types of interaction to a novel form factor like a sphere. The fluidity of motion, as you can see in the video, is also nicely conducive to the shape.

posted by josiah at 10:48 PM No Comments »