Just recently I read an article about the upcoming Microsoft Xbox Motion Sensor that allows the users to control games with our bodies. Unlike the Wii, this means that you do not have to hold anything to interact with the console and game.

This new product is being called “Project Natal” and is basically a sensor for the Xbox 360 which tracks movement, listens and executes commands from the console… don’t know what I’m refeering to? then watch this trailer from Youtube:

If you’re from the digital signage industry you’re thinking to yourself “The future of Digital Signage interaction?”. If you’re like me, when something catches your attention you start brainstorming on how this can be applied to the digital signage industry.  If I was working for Microsoft I would recommend and provide directions to the management team to push this product out to businesses to use as a digital signage console…. and not just a gaming console. Let’s think about this, most digital signage players out there in the market are using desktop PC’s, embedded PCs or some form of a PC – fundamentally that’s what the Xbox 360 is – and soon it will have a sensor. In my eyes,  I can potentially see this used as a digital signage player and not just a gaming console.

In the past, many top digital signage gurus predicted that the next “big thing” in digital signage was going to be interaction and guess what…. they were right.

Lets imagine this scenario:

• You walk into a clothing store and you’re having trouble picking a dress for the night out with the girls.
• Now like in the example in the trailer, you walk up to the dsx (digital signage xbox) and you contact your best friend to get advice on which dress you should wear.
• In the application, you have the virtual product catalog of all the dresses available in the store.
• The application takes a picture of you (measuring your body size, height etc) and you start trying out the different dresses (virtually).
• Along the way you and your friend discuss whether the dress is suitable or not.
• When you found some of the dresses both of you like  you add it to you’re favourite list.
• You then press the “TRY” button or say “Let me try these” and the shop assistant brings in the dresses for you to try.
• All the transactions and  information end up being recorded online so that the next time you visit a store that has the dsx you can retrieve this previous information.

This is one of the many applications I can see working for the digital signage industry and I can’t wait till we trial one of these units.

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Category: Digital Signage Blog News, Digital Signage Blog Products, Digital Signage Blog Video

It’s the holidays so I decided to take the family out to Oceanworld Manly Australia so the kid could experience and see the tropical and temperature fishes, sharks, snakes, lizards and insects. I’ve been there before so I wasn’t excited as the kid, but when I entered the first section of the venue (Middle Level – Level 2) my excitement grew. Yes… I saw digital signage being used around the floor which wasn’t there the last time I visited.

I’m always on the lookout for digital signage so this was a great opportunity for me to understand how Oceanworld implemented their system and if any, recommend ways to improve their setup. At each of the tanks, there was a 15-17 inch LCD screen displaying information about the fish or animal inside the tanks. This was located above each of the tanks and it eliminated the need to have a static board with this information.

Here’s an image of the screen:

Digital Signage at Oceanworld Manly Australia

Digital Signage at Oceanworld Manly Australia

I noticed that some of the screens had one static slide (I’m assuming that the system was using powerpoint), however there were other screens which had pictures of each of the different types of fishes in the tank at the bottom of the screen. This however wasn’t initially obvious to me or to the people I asked as the time it took to rotate to the next slide was several minutes – I wasn’t going to stand around and wait for several minutes just to find out more information about each of the different types of fish in the tank. Overall, the solution was quite average and may need to be reviewed. Here is our recommendation of things that may need to be improved:

1. LCD screen location – to view the screen, one would need to step away from the tank and tilt your head slightly up.  I think the screens could have been strategically better located so the visitors would actually see the information whilst looking at the fishes in the tank. Just as a thought, maybe install a waterproof screen at the back wall of the tank??? We talked about strategically positioning your screens in one of our previous posts called “Location, location, location“.

You’re probably thinking “waterproof screens????”… yep here’s a video from youtube to prove it that it does exist.

For more Digital Signage videos visit the Digital Signage Portal.

2. Use touch screen technology to enable the visitors to interact with the fish tank. Currently, visitors like myself would not be standing around to wait for the next slide so why not get the visitor to initiate the slide change. Otherwise, decrease the time it takes for each slide to rotate and also place a reference on the screen stating that “The below fishes can be found in the tank”. Make the image of the fish at the bottom of the screen that the information is referring to more noticeable – either fade the other images or highlight the current image. We talked about touch screen technology in one of the previous posts called “To touch or not to touch – that is the question“.

3. I also found that the solution installed was using the Windows XP operating system. How did I know this? We that was easy because there was that typical windows notification balloon at the bottom right hand corner of the screen. Maybe disable all Windows XP notification messages.

Digital Signage Error Message

4. On another screen there was also a notification that it found the Wireless network. This is definitely a security issue as the SSID of the wireless network was clearly visible to the public. We talked about digital signage security issues in two of our previous posts called “How secure is your digital signage solution?” and “Secure your digital signage solution – here’s why“.

Well that’s my recommendation based on what I saw and I apologise in advance if I misrepresented the solution and setup but I hope our readers can learn something from this post.

Do you have any digital signage experiences you would like to share with us?
Send us an email to info@digitalsignageblog.com or feel free to comment here.

P.S: For those who are interested in going to visit Oceanworld, there is a 15% discount if you enter after 3:30pm. Overall, the kid had fun and we will most likely visit Oceanworld again in the near future.

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Category: Digital Signage Blog News, Digital Signage Reviews

In this current day and age, quite a number of technologies are now using touch screens.  For example, gaming consoles such as the Nintendo DS, Mobile phones (iphone, blackberry storm, various PDA’s) are all using some form of touch screen technology to further increase the interaction between the user and the device.

Why interact with digital signage?

The main reason why businesses would want to interact with their customers through digital signage are:

• To provide targeted and specific information to the viewer e.g. Medical surveys whilst conducting eye sight tests.

• Traffic analytics – to understand how many people interact with the system. One system that I could think of is a Health Checking system. A weight scale connected to a digital signage system could potentially be setup to perform the following:

- The system will request for the persons age and then it will measure and display their weight

- Based on the information gathered, the system will then display the recommended weight and potential health related problems associated to the persons weight.

- Obviously at the same time, there will be an area for advertising and this space can be sold to businesses in the health industry.

• Any form of relationship requires a two way communication – to connect and build a strong relationship with your customers or clients you need to basically involve them in the decision making process. So if it’s to buy a new car, a digital signage signage solution at the car dealership should have the ability for the potential buyer to modify the colour or shape of the car as this can influence their purchasing decision.

So now the question is whether you should use touch screens in your current digital signage deployments. We cannot provide you with the answer to this question but what is important is to understand what the clients requirements are and then to assess whether a touch screen meets these requirements, but most importantly if you are planning to use touch screen technology in your digital signage solution, make sure you thoroughly look into the system usability i.e how can people interact with the system. Here are some examples from a youtube user that shows unusable touch screen systems – she refers to them as the “Usability Hall of Shame”:

For more Digital Signage videos visit the Digital Signage Portal.

My prediction is that touch screens will become part of the standard deployment for any future digital signage projects as we have seen touch screens mainly used for way finding, product catalogs, directories and gaming but is this all digital signage touch screens can be used for?

Feel free to submit your answer as a comment.

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Category: Digital Signage Blog News, Digital Signage Blog Video