Thinking outside the box

Interesting new technology from Mitsubishi Electric, as highlighted on EMT Worldwide.

Mitsubishi Electric has announced that it will demonstrate a new multi-touch (MT) interface for its Seventy Series DLP cubes at ISE 2010. The new interface transforms a standard multi-window display wall into an interactive workspace that can be used by several users simultaneously.

The multi-touch technology, developed jointly in Sweden by Mitsubishi Electric and i3 Sense, uses laser sensors instead of the more usual infra-red (IR) detectors or capacitive touch overlays. As well as offering greater accuracy and responsiveness, the new system is much less susceptible to interference from sources of IR radiation such as sunlight. The technology makes it possible to create reliable multi-touch, multi-user interfaces in normally-lit environments such as control rooms, shop windows, or other public areas.
Mitsubishi has developed a multi-touch option for its Seventy Series DLP cubes that enables the entire display wall to become a single multi-touch interface. Multiple users can interact with the display at the same time, with the software tracking the hand movements of each user from one cube to the next completely seamlessly. Users can change size, orientation and position of any window by simply ‘grabbing’ it or ‘dragging’ the corners to the desired position. The ease with which users can work together and manage multiple sources offers exciting possibilities in applications such as command and control.

Daniel Quitzau of Mitsubishi Electric Sweden commented: "The Multi-Touch option creates a completely new class of user interface called a Natural User Interface (NUI). The strength of NUIs are that they are completely intuitive. The technology removes the need for the operator to have specialist training or to be aware of how the data is being managed. Configuring a display really does become as simple and as intuitive as arranging paper on your desk. Users are becoming much more familiar with touch interfaces through products like the iPhone. Windows 7 ships with native support for multi-touch applications and so it’s likely that we will see rapid growth in the use of multi-touch applications over the next few years. With this technology option now available in our control room displays, Mitsubishi Electric is very much at the forefront of this technology."

The Seventy Series cubes are available in 50in, 60in, 67in and 80in screen sizes in 1024 x 768 pixel and 1400 x 1050 pixel resolutions. All can be supplied with the i3 Sense MT option and it is possible for the system to be retrofitted into existing installations. Seventy Series products have built-in processing and interchangeable input cards to enable sophisticated multi-input display walls to be created without an external processor. For more ambitious projects, Mitsubishi’s VC-X3000 image processor and D-Wall software suite can be used to create powerful turnkey control room solutions.

Thinking outside the box

The perils of un-moderated Twitter feeds

Today’s Telegraph reports on an unfortunate incident involving a TV station, a digital signage system and an un-moderated Twitter feed. A recipe for disaster if ever we heard one!

TV station managers suspended following Twitter ‘gang rape’ billboard

Two senior staff in an Alabama news station have allegedly been suspended after a billboard with a live Twitter feed seemingly accused its own presenters of rape.

By Tom Chivers
Published: 4:38PM GMT 30 Nov 2009

The unfortunate juxtaposition was caught on camera Photo: THE PALMETTO SCOOP

The advertisement, for WPMI-TV in Alabama, showed the station’s anchors, Greg Peterson and Kym Thurman, with their top weatherman Derek Beasley, alongside the latest headline and the words “Right now on Twitter”.

Unfortunately for the station, at one stage the top headline on Twitter read “Three accused of gang rape in Monroeville”, and the misleading juxtaposition was caught on camera by a passing motorist as he drove through Mobile, Alabama.

The resulting photograph soon found its way on to a South Carolina blog, the Palmetto Scoop, and then on to social media site Mashable, before being sent around the internet in a series of emails and blog posts.

Now, according to various websites, two of the station’s senior staff have been suspended, allegedly over the billboard incident. However, the station has yet to confirm this.

WPMI-TV is a local affiliate of NBC, covering the south of Alabama and much of Florida.

TV station managers suspended following Twitter ‘gang rape’ billboard – Telegraph

InAVate – DLP cubes go interactive

DLP cubes have been given an interactive facelift with a new laser based multi-touch system from Mitsubishi. The groundbreaking technology is set to make an appearance at ISE 2010 following a successful debut in Sweden at signage show, Sign Scandinavia 2009. Video content shows a demonstration of the technology that, according to Mitsubishi, offers huge advancements in terms of speed and accuracy when compared to traditional IR based touch technology. See a video of the system in action here

Daniel Quitzau, manager of large display and play-out solutions at Mitsubishi Electric Europe, explained the new system is based on sensing technology rather than a touch overlay. “As far as I’m aware,” he continued, “it is the only multi-touch system that uses laser sensors and not IR. Because you are using lasers there are no problems with interference from other light sources, for example sunlight.”
Despite having obvious advantages for use in applications such as shop windows, Quitzau said the technology really comes into its own when used in DLP cubes. “The projector in the DLP cube actually creates IR itself. This means there is a lot of calibration required to create a good system and, even then, it’s not really good enough.”
The system generated keen interest when demonstrated at Sign Scandinavia in Stockholm. Quitzau said Mitsubishi received leads from sectors ranging from industrial to retail.
Currently, the products that are ready for market use back projection screens but Quitzau thinks the interactive DLP cubes will be ready at the beginning of next year. He revealed the company was looking at a possible launch at ISE 2010 when the “final tweaks” had been made. However, whether ISE is used as the launch pad or not, Quitzau did confirm that the technology will definitely be on display at the Amsterdam show.

InAVate – DLP cubes go interactive

Dallas Cowboys’ Diamond Vision screen confirmed as world record

From www.diamond-vision.tv 

The world’s first four-sided, centre-hung, stadium video display consists of four Diamond Vision LED video screens, with the two main high-definition sideline displays measuring 22m high by 49m wide, and two Diamond Vision end-zone displays measuring 9m high by 15.5m wide. Weighing 544 tons, the screens are suspended 27.5m feet directly over the centre of the playing surface and stretch from nearly one 20-yard line to the other.

With a total viewing area of over 1,058 square-metres, the Diamond Vision display is equal to around 3,268 52-inch televisions, and is comprised of 10,584,064 individual LEDs.

“This was probably the most exciting project we’ve ever been involved with,” said Mark Foster, general manager of Mitsubishi Electric’s Diamond Vision Systems. “The Dallas Cowboys are one of the most innovative teams in the NFL, and their new stadium reflects that. These scoreboards and displays are the realisation of the Cowboys’ commitment to their fans and the sport. We are very proud that the Cowboys organization turned to Mitsubishi Electric to deliver their vision as part of this incredible project.”

"We’re extremely proud of our world-class Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Vision screen,” said Dallas Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones. “We have designed everything about Cowboys Stadium to provide an unequalled experience for our fans, and this screen is the centrepiece of what we have created for them.”

Mitsubishi Electric has now been recognised by Guinness World Records five times for its accomplishments, and the Cowboys’ board is the fourth Diamond Vision screen to be honoured by Guinness. The first came in August, 2003, for the World’s Longest Video Display at the Hong Kong Jockey Club Sha Tin Racecourse in Hong Kong. In March 2005, GWR recognized the Diamond Vision LED display at Turner Field in Atlanta as the World’s Largest High-Definition Television Screen, and in September 2005 the Mitsubishi Electric video board at the Japan Racing Association Tokyo Racecourse was certified as the World’s Largest Television Display. In 1993, Mitsubishi Electric was recognised for designing and installing the world’s fastest elevator — capable of travelling at 750 meters per minute — at the Landmark Tower in Yokohama, Japan.

Mitsubishi Electric, the Official Large Outdoor Video Display Provider of the PGA TOUR, was the first company to introduce large-scale video display boards for the 1980 Major League Baseball All-Star game at Dodger Stadium. Since then, Mitsubishi Electric has been recognised as the leader in visually stunning displays for sports facilities, advertising, entertainment and communications. Other installations include the first-of-its-kind high-definition display at Yankee Stadium the first 32:9 ratio HD scoreboard at AT&T Park in San Francisco Times Square’s first HD display at MTV studios traffic-stopping marquees at Bally’s and Caesars Palace in Las Vegas a massive 11-screen display at Times Square in New York City and the largest indoor HD screen in North America, the 10m x 33.5m screen at the Colosseum in Las Vegas.

Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Vision News

New stadium kicks-off with Mitsubishi Electric screens

Barcelona’s RCD Espanyol football club hosted the first game in its new, purpose-built stadium in Cornellà-El Prat on August 2nd. Two 7.6 x 4.3 metre Diamond Vision screens and more than 90 Mitsubishi Electric LCD displays help maximise enjoyment for visitors to Spain’s most modern sporting venue.

LED and LCD displays supplied by Mitsubishi Electric are a central feature of the stunning new facility, rated as a four-star venue by UEFA. Two Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Vision screens overlook the 40,000 seat stadium, while a network of over 90 large screen LCDs installed throughout the complex ensure visitors are kept entertained and informed wherever they happen to be.

Installed in opposite corners of the ground, the Diamond Vision ODQ15 screens are 7.68 m wide x 4.32 m high with 15 mm dot pitch / 30 mm pixel pitch. Mitsubishi’s quad LED structure ensures a genuine 21 mm Dynamic Pixel Pitch as each LED is re-used to form adjacent pixels. The Diamond Vision’s 5,000 cd/m² light output and wide viewing angles ensure fans get a clear view of the action wherever they are sitting, with true colours and clean whites – essential for both sports teams and advertisers.

Both screens are controlled using Mitsubishi’s XDC-4000 processor which manages all the screen content. The processor accepts DVI, SD-SDI and HD-SDI inputs and has a built-in “picture-in-picture” facility enabling the screens to show more than one video signal simultaneously. XDC-4000 was specifically designed to cover the display requirements of sports venues and features state-of-the-art image processing for the highest possible clarity.

As well as being one of the finest football arenas in Europe, Cornellà-El Prat is also one of the most innovative. Solar cells built into the roof can deliver up to 500 kW of pollution-free power and the whole stadium has been designed for maximum energy efficiency. Mitsubishi Electric LED screens automatically adjust their power output to suit the prevailing light conditions, and sophisticated internal monitoring ensures optimum operating efficiency is maintained. Extremely high build-quality help ensure Mitsubishi LED screens achieve a long operating life, reducing cost of ownership and the need for premature refurbishment.

Mitsubishi Electric also supplied the LCD screens used throughout the stadium’s retail and hospitality areas as well as corporate facilities and a museum. A total of 70 Mitsubishi Electric 32" LDT322V displays and 20 42" LDT421V2 units were installed in private boxes, VIP suites and meeting rooms, with additional displays used in the public areas and entrance foyers. The Mitsubishi displays add extra flexibility to the meeting room facilities, allowing them to be used for conferences or presentations on non-match days. Remote management of the displays allows different content to be routed to different areas of the stadium, or multiple inputs to be displayed on individual monitors via their built-in picture-in-picture feature.

Diamond Vision is perhaps the best-known big-screen technology in the world; its global customer list includes many of the world’s most prestigious sporting venues, most notably the recently-opened New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys landmark stadiums. Along with its world-class Diamond Vision family of LED displays, Mitsubishi Electric offers a range of professional-grade LCDs from 32” to 65” designed to meet the needs of applications such as digital signage that demand reliability, performance and low cost of ownership.

Instore Media and Digital Signage, POPAI Japan

From DailyDOOH

POPAI Japan are holding an ‘Instore Media and Digital Signage’ event on July 31st

The seminar will feature interesting speakers making inroads into Japan’s instore market. Sony, B2B Solutions Department will lead off the event with a speech about their Mirutokuchannel service. The service targets supermarkets and provides value added content such as sale information, recipes, news and advertising.

The second speaker is from supermarket operator Summit and will introduce Summit Vision, their instore media channel. Summit uses a combination of screen, projector and LED technology to deliver instore content to shoppers.

Lastly, advertising agency powerhouse Asatsu DK, will deliver a presentation on Promotional Media development. ADK will cover instore purchase decision making and their vision of the future of instore media.

The half day event comes with a Japanese price tag as well, USD 250 per attendee.

DailyDOOH » Blog Archive » Instore Media and Digital Signage, POPAI Japan

The giant screen technology of the future may be closer than we think

US company Nanolumens claims to be well-advanced in its plans to market a giant portable display system that will be less than one millimetre thick and weigh no more than 45kg.

As reported in InAVate magazine, John Wilson, president of the company said: “Nanolumens has a core technology that permits it to bring the best of display technology to a flexible format. We have a fairly extensive patent portfolio, almost 50 patents issued and filed that cover a very innovative set of technologies that allow us to bring flexibility to display technologies”.

The company has already built a number of prototypes based on the technology but plans to market a very large display within a year. Wilson confirms, “It will be very lightweight and large for markets primarily in out-of-home advertising, digital signage, control room and large format business-to-business applications.”

Wilson continues: “Our view is that much of the industry, particularly in the out-of-home advertising industry, is shifting to digital and there’s a great deal of that market that would be perfectly fine for a 42” or a 50” LCD display that is rigid and just put up on the wall.”

“But, there are an incredible number of applications where either a curved wall or a bend around a column or a very large space that is high up and needs a hanging screen. That is the market we are planning to pursue.”

A startling additional feature of the technology – apparently – is its ability to operate as a portable device. “The fact that it continues to operate and run as it’s transported from place to place because it’s actually a portable device is also significant so we’ve been able to share it with both customers and strategic partners.”

Wilson and CEO of Nanolumens, Richard Cope, have an impressive background between them, having run numerous research and development enterprises. “[Cope] was a programme manager for the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency which is one of the premier research agencies in the world,” adds Wilson.

“We view the flexible display world as the start of a new emerging industry.” Wilson concludes. “There are a lot of companies working on the challenges of flexible imaging systems. Some working on small wearable devices or small clothing integrated devices. We chose the large format professional market as we felt was represented higher value and was immediately accessible”

AJ Comments: It may seem too far-fetched to be true, but flexible screen technology as described here is indeed a reality –at least in the lab. It may seem strange that it is a small and hitherto unknown US company that appears to be pioneering this technology as a commercial product, but stranger things have happened and it wouldn’t be the first time that a new technology has burst onto the pro-AV scene from left-field. Watch this space!

InAVate – Flexible screen is less than 1mm thick

40” OLED Panels by 2010, Says Panasonic JV

While Panasonic is also cooperating with other partners to develop OLED technology, the Nikkei daily in Japan says a new joint venture between Panasonic and Sumitomo Chemical aims to develop and manufacture 40-inch or bigger OLED panels by 2010.
In an LCD, tiny packets of liquid crystal make up each pixel. These don’t actually radiate any light. Instead they change their structure when hit by voltage, so they need a backlight (cold-cathode or LED). In OLED, each pixel is an array of itsy-bitsy coloured LEDs that glows in corresponding colour initiated by the TV signal.
You can view OLED screens from any angle and they can show a wider range of colours (and black areas are a deeper black). Because they don’t need a backlight they can be much thinner while actually consuming less electricity.

From rAVe Europe

3D displays take a step forward

After visiting the Display 2009 show in Tokyo 2 weeks ago, it seems that commercial 3D displays viewable with the naked eye are edging closer to becoming a practical reality. VMJ here is Japan are already selling 3D LCDs into digital signage applications; companies like Newsight are also now producing product capable of a very convincing 3D effect over a wide viewing angle. But what about “true” 3D – the creating of a 3 dimensional object in space? Impossible? Think again!

As reported in InAVate magazine, a Japanese company has apparently succeeded in creating just such a system.

Sky’s the limit for outdoor advertising

24 April 2009

From the sides of buses, to giant billboards or even the backs of train tickets; advertising seems to pop up everywhere with no surface immune from transformation into a marketing space. And now, even the heavens aren’t safe, as an advanced laser system emerges from Japan, set to revolutionise advertising by creating 3D images in the sky.

Firing hundreds of laser pulses each second creates the illusion of constant points of light in the air, www.burton-jp.com

The New Scientist reported that Burton of Kawasaki, Japan was investigating outdoor advertising uses for a laser system that creates an illusion of many constant points of light.
Burton says that most reported 3D displays draw pseudo-3D images on 2D planes by utilising the human binocular disparity. The company said these systems cause problems, including a limitation of the visual field and physiological displeasure due to the misidentification of virtual images.
To overcome these problems Burton said it tried to develop a “True 3D Display" which produces bright dot in the air so audience can see 3D images in true 3D space.
“Our display device uses the plasma emission phenomenon near the focal point of focused laser light,” the company said. “By controlling the position of the focal point in the x, y, and z axes, it displays real 3D images constructed by dot arrays in the air.”
The New Scientist reported that a practical device could be created by 2011 and said suggested applications included light displays that resembled fireworks and 3D TV.

InAVate – Sky’s the limit for outdoor advertising

“Give your fingers a rest”, advises editor

Barnaby Page of Screens.tv and aka.tv is a highly-respected commentator on the latest developments in digital OOH and other new forms of communication. As such, he is perhaps better placed than most to comment on the latest internet craze/scourge, Twitter. With an elegantly argued case that there is a time and a place for Twittering, Barnaby is perhaps illustrating that, as a serious communications medium, Twitter is reaching – if not maturity – then at least a sober adolescence in the minds of media professionals.

Give your fingers a rest (1)

Barnaby Page – 06 Apr 09, 17:08 PM

With Screen Media Expo Europe nearly upon us, to all those sitting itchy-fingered in the conference rooms (you know who you are) I have just one polite request:

STOP THAT TWITTERING.
Trust me on this: there is nothing to be gained by Twittering conferences in real time, except the irritation of your followers and a spurious sense of “being first”.
Twitter is great for big, unpredictable events unfolding moment-by-moment – things like election nights, Windows reinstalls, soap opera Christmas specials. But when it comes to conferences, what those people who couldn’t attend really need is a thoughtful round-up of key points after the event, all accessible in one place. An article or an email or a blog post, in other words.
Being told what speaker X said five seconds ago, when you the Twitterer aren’t in any position to know whether it’s a trivial throwaway or the lead-in to an important revelation, is useless.
So just don’t do it. The world can wait.

Give your fingers a rest – SCREENS.tv Blog