Jul 06

The Fourth in Ohio: Still “Made in the USA”

By Michael Curran DOOH Trends, Electronic Contract Manufacturing, Electronic Manufacturing USA, Technology Comments Off

Everyone at Micro Industries gets together around July 4 every year to celebrate the fact that we still manufacture products here in Westerville, Ohio. This might sound unusual, since American electronics manufacturing has largely moved to the Far East over the past 30 years. Corporate consultants and Wall Street analysts believed that profits from manufacturing should fund new ventures, in higher-profit growth markets . . . like financial services. We all know where that led—to huge bonuses for executives and Wall Street managers, and to a massive recession for the rest of us. Without reinvestment, a lot of U.S. manufacturing quickly became obsolete, especially in the technology sectors.

One advantage at a privately held company like ours is not needing to worry about any negative reviews from Wall Street. Micro Industries continues to invest in the manufacturing resources that help us remain competitive worldwide. In electronics manufacturing, the cost of labor is only a tiny portion of the overall costs—typically, just 3 to 5 percent. More than 80 percent, however, goes for materials. To stay competitive, we have to shop globally for our components. Unfortunately, this also means that we have to guard against inferior Asian components and a flood of counterfeit parts.

A case study by Charlie Barnhart & Associates shows that when all costs are considered, OEMs have never achieved significant savings by shifting manufacturing to Asia. This was always the case for low-volume, high-mix production. Now, as Asian manufacturers invest in the capital equipment necessary for producing advanced electronics, it’s also true for medium- and high-volume production. And this doesn’t factor in the appalling piracy of intellectual property (think about iPhone clones, for example). If Apple can’t protect its IP in Asia, it’s not very likely that any other U.S. company can, either.

The Fourth of July represents the United States’ great independent spirit. Yet, even as we celebrate, we rapidly become more dependent on a global economy created on Wall Street. Companies make quick profits and executives get obscene bonuses, at the expense of workers and customers. America’s greatness has always been driven by dynamic leaders whose vision disrupted the status quo. Today, though, we see only consensus building to placate a financial model that is devastating the American economy and others. The Information Age has made it possible for our leaders to gauge the response to their decisions even before choosing a direction—which only ensures that we’ll sink deeper into mediocrity.

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Jun 30

Fishing the Elk: Unplugged in West Virginia

By Michael Curran For Fun, Infrastructure, Technology Comments Off

Nothing is more relaxing than fly fishing. After my son completed his college finals recently, we packed up the truck and headed for the Elk River in eastern West Virginia. The Elk is one of the last streams in the eastern U.S. with a population of wild trout. As any fly fisherman will tell you, wild trout offer the ultimate challenge.

Elk River in West Va.

The trip to West Virginia was uneventful—freeways past cities and towns with strip malls and fast-food chains. We even saw a digital billboard near Clarksburg, WV. At Elkins, though, we left the freeway for a winding, two-lane highway. We snaked through narrow valleys and over larger and larger mountains. After 90 minutes of seeing only an occasional house or farm, we reached the small inn where we were the only guests.

I tried to call home to say that we had arrived. There was no cellular service and my iPhone was useless. The only phone in the place was a pay phone with a bad handset. Fortunately, the innkeeper had a dial-up modem that I used to send an email. Being an email junky, I didn’t know how I would survive the stay.

We went fishing the next day with a local guide, driving an hour farther into the mountains. We didn’t pass a house or farm until we reached an idyllic setting deep in one of the many valleys. Our guide had just retired after 31 years teaching forestry in the local high school. Lumber and coal mining are the major employers in the state and the evidence was everywhere.

During lunch, our guide asked what I did for a living. I talked about the design and production of computers systems. He said his school had installed a computer a few years ago and that it had made his life easier. He had entered students’ test scores into it and the computer calculated their grades at the end of a term. The man just laughed when I asked if he had a computer at home. He is on a party line, one of the few left in the country. The folks who share it with him, he said, wouldn’t be too happy if he tied up the line with a dial-up connection.

I soon began to enjoy my own freedom from the constant stream of emails. We spent the next two days in places even more remote, chasing the elusive rainbow, brown and brook trout in the crystal-clear Elk and Williams rivers. By the time we left, I had almost forgotten the lack of a broadband or cellular connection. Then, as soon as we reached the freeway, my cell phone came alive with hundreds of emails.

I envy the people we had met on our trip. Their lives don’t yet include what is coming even to rural West Virginia—the complexity and stress of being instantly available to anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world. For myself, I hope someday to spend more time on a wilderness stream, less connected to the world, pursuing trout.

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Jun 15

Report from New England: A Retail Solution for University Kiosks

By John Curran DOOH Trends, Fanless Computers, Interactive Digital Signage, Kiosk Software, Retail Kiosks Comments Off

John Curran of mCosm

This week we have a guest blogger: John Curran, CEO of mCosm, our affiliate company.

PCs today are commodities with little differences between brands except for logos and prices. When it comes to interactive kiosks, however, product selection is both complicated and critical to project success. For a good example of how to choose the right kiosk, check outside the meeting rooms at a large New England university. (I can’t name it here, but you know the school.)

Unattended kiosks should be sturdy, easy to install, and have consistent BIOS for the life of a project. For this project, a software company supplied the university with an event-management system. This involved installing small custom kiosks to serve as automated “room card” displays outside each of the meeting rooms in a conference area of the university’s student center. Thanks to the EMS, students walking down the hallways could tell at a glance what meetings were in progress.

university conference room digital signage

Micro Industries Touch&Go Pricechecker used as Conference Room Digital Signage

The original kiosks were the only units available with the application programming interface (API) needed to integrate with the EMS. But they also had a drawback—they used 5V DC power and had to be within eight feet of an electrical outlet. The prohibitively high cost of installing additional outlets meant that most of the kiosks were situated beyond eight feet. Not surprisingly, this led to continual hard-drive failures. Worse, performance was very slow and the kiosks were prone to overheating. The kiosk vendor didn’t offer repair services, either.

Looking around for an alternative to these troubled room-card kiosks, the university settled on the Pricechecker unit from Micro Industries. Our retail kiosk might sound like an odd solution for an academic setting, but it worked extremely well. The Pricechecker is a hardened kiosk with a patented passive cooling system to keep it from overheating. Power Over Ethernet Plus means it can be placed as much as 300 feet away from an outlet. The Pricechecker also has consistent BIOS to ensure that the applications won’t be affected when new units are added.

The university developed a simple graphical user interface (GUI) to replace the first application. (It helped that the EMS had a well-documented API.) Today, the university says, its Pricechecker kiosks not only provide rock-solid performance, they’re also less expensive and have larger, brighter displays than the original units.
Clearly, not all kiosks are created equal. A kiosk that combines ruggedness, performance, style and price come only from a company that designs, manufactures and sells it directly to the user—a company like Micro Industries. Give us a call sometime.

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May 24

Report from NYC: The SGH Launch Party

By Michael Curran Creative Content for Digital Signage and Kiosks, DOOH Trends, Digital Signage, Digital Signage Content Management, In-store Social Networking, Interactive Digital Signage, Retail Kiosks, Technology Comments Off

With all the glitz and glamour of a Hollywood premier, Sunglass Hut opened its flagship store on Fifth Avenue late last month. SGH then hopped the Atlantic to open its London flagship store with just as much fanfare on Oxford Street the very next night!

A steady stream of celebrities, dignitaries and SGH execs talking with the press caused chaos on the New York sidewalks, where passersby strained for glimpses of Rachel Bilson, Coco Rocha, Zoe Kravitz and many others. Inside, we were greeted by an exquisitely choreographed show, with sleek models snapping pictures of other models posing in chic sunglasses. Everyone was encouraged to try on shades and pose for SHG’s innovative Social Sun system.

What exactly did Big Apple glitterati have to do with digital signage? We were invited to Fifth Avenue because Micro Industries Touch&Go Paige® is a key component of the fun. Our mCosm team developed the software named “Social Sun” by Sunglass Hut. Social Sun lets customers try on sunglasses, digitally capture and compare their looks, and share the images with family and friends. You can email the pictures, post them to Facebook or even upload them to the Social Sun page on Sunglass Hut’s website. In-store, you can also post pictures to our fantastic Touch&Go Messenger 65—in New York, our pictures joined the photos of the partiers who packed the event.

Micro Industries Mike and Mandy Curran

Sunglass Hut CEO Fabio d’Angelantonio said he wanted to make the Fifth Avenue store a better showcase for the company’s products than the simple glass counters for the shades Luxottica makes for such fashion houses as Prada, Chanel and Polo Ralph Lauren. “The New York and London flagships provide an opportunity to make the brand a consumer destination that showcases sunglasses like no other retailer in the world,” d’Angelantonio said later in London. Consumers own far fewer sunglasses than shoes, which he believes leaves significant potential for the category to expand if sunglasses are seen as essential fashion accessories.

To mark the NYC flagship launch, many of the fashion houses that work with Luxottica provided original artwork, which hung in a private showing room in the rear of the store. Such big fashion names as Dolce & Gabbana, Tiffany, Burberry, Gucci and many more expressed their best wishes in their trademark style.

Guest DJs Fab Moretti and Binki Shapiro of Little Joy provided the music, their rock theme adding to the event’s vitality. Jenny Lewis’ live performance was outstanding. It was a fabulous night that left our little Micro Industries contingent feeling energized and a long way from home. Toto, we aren’t in Ohio anymore!

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Apr 27

Report from Delaware: A New Angle on Digital Signage

By Michael Curran Creative Content for Digital Signage and Kiosks, DOOH Trends, Digital Signage, Digital Signage Content Management, Interactive Digital Signage, Kiosk Software No Comments »

Craig Johnson, Executive Director, and Victoria Prizzia, Exhibit and Interpretive Planning Director, of Interpret Green, Philadelphia, stand beside the Interactive Nature Now Table at DEEC.

Visit the sprawling new DuPont Environmental Education Center (DEEC) at the Russell W. Peterson Urban Wildlife Refuge along the Riverwalk at Wilmington, DE, and you’ll see much more than just water, sky and wildlife. Interactive exhibits and multimedia presentations there highlight the history of the marsh and focus on three of its natural residents—the osprey, snapping turtle and raccoon.

Designing the exhibits that encourage observation, exploration and investigation of the plants and wildlife fell to an interesting, green-savvy bunch from nearby Philadelphia. Interpret Green is a team of educators, artists, media developers and exhibition professionals. The group’s website states that the challenge at DEEC was to design a visitor-centric environment that “cultivates curiosity, inspires interaction, enhances personal meaning, and encourages learning and deeper questioning.”

That’s a big job, certainly. But Interpret Green accomplished it in part by using an all-in-one Touch&Go Messenger 65L from Micro Industries in a novel way. They turned it into a tabletop display, one big enough to provide a full-color, high-definition, interactive aerial view of the marsh and surrounding areas.

I admit, nobody here at Micro had thought about flipping a 65-inch Touch&Go unit onto its back like a turtle. We figured retailers would use the displays for interactive consumer kiosks, digital signage, store maps, advertising, messaging, product information, demos and television. Our friends at Intel were just as surprised as we were by how they use the 65L at DEEC. Seeing the Messenger 65L there became an “aha” moment for one of Intel’s Roving Reporter bloggers.

“It’s really a simple concept,” he wrote. “You take a large touchscreen digital sign/computer and lay it flat on a stand. Suddenly, the world changes.”
It just goes to show that even the manufacturer doesn’t always know how a good product will be used. We’re glad Interpret Green and DEEC showed us something new. When you think about it, a 212-acre wildlife refuge with a $10.9 million, four-story, 13,500-square-foot facility and extensive trail system has a very big story to tell. Naturally, they needed a big, handsome digital display to help tell it. And since the story is continually updating, Interpret Green chose mCosm to remotely manage and monitor the computers to make sure they are always current, operational and performing up to speed.

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Apr 05

What’s “HOT” ?

By Michael Curran Digital Signage, Fanless Computers, Retail Kiosks, Technology Comments Off

When it comes to computers “HOT” isn’t necessarily a good thing. Heat is the major contributor to computer system failures whether it’s from a power supply, a CPU fan or hard drive. Prolonged exposure to high temperatures will cause these devices to fail and take down your system. In a retail environment computer systems are subjected to conditions that significantly increase the probability of failures due to heat, therefore when selecting a computer system for an interactive digital signage application there are a few things to consider.

Today’s retail computers, digital signs and retail kiosks are designed to run under a very specific set of conditions. They’re expected to be in operation about 8 hours a day in an office or home environment (with typical temperatures ranging from about 60 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit) without a significant amount of dust or debris in the air. If you deviate much from these conditions, you can significantly reduce the life of a computer.

In a retail environment computers are expected to run as much as 24 hours a day reducing the life expectancy of a typical retail computer to about 1/3 of its normal life expectancy. Most in-store computer systems are hidden away in cabinetry or fixturing or are hung from ceilings where the temperature could be as much as 20 to 30 degrees above ambient conditions. Retailers are also very susceptible to the impact of dust, from exposure to the outside, from cardboard boxes and even generated from receipt printers. This dust is drawn into the computers by fans and can significantly reduce the efficiency of the computers cooling systems eventually causing critical components to overheat.

To compensate for these issues computer component manufactures like Intel have designed thermal failsafe mechanisms into their chips like the Intel® Core™ i7 processor to protect the CPU in the event that the chip is subjected to temperatures outside its normal operating range. This minimizes the damage to one of the more expensive components in the system but it doesn’t prevent damage to other key components like the power supply, processor fan or even the disk drive where all of the systems application programs and data are stored.

When evaluating computer systems for a retail application the primary criteria for selecting a system should be the ability of the system to deal with the environmental stresses in a store.  A number of vendors like Micro Industries have developed “Retail Hardened” or “Ruggedized” computer systems that can survive in typical store environments. This typically involves using more expensive passive cooling technology, industrial grade components and mobile or solid state disk drives. All of these factors increase the cost of the system compared to standard retail computer systems but it will minimize the amount of downtime that a retailer will experience and downtime in retail translates into lost sales opportunities.

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Mar 12

Report from Las Vegas: More of the Same.

By John Curran DOOH Trends, Technology Comments Off

This week we have a guest blogger: John Curran, CEO of mCosm, our affiliate company.

Aside from Intel, there weren’t many new, big-name vendors at the Digital Signage Expo (DSE) in Las Vegas last month. A few vendors had smaller booths this year than last, or had disappeared altogether. LCDs weren’t much different from 2009, and many booths looked like the TV aisle at Best Buy. Most PC-player-based software had identical features and functions, the only difference being the interfaces. And it was difficult to learn much technical detail, because most sales reps delivered canned demos that gave only a 30,000-feet overview.

I imagined some poor attendee (maybe it was you) visiting DSE in hopes of finding the best solution for his or her company’s digital-signage needs. It wasn’t a pretty picture. There were only disconnected elements of solutions, from vendors that all looked the same, their prices included. Hardware options varied widely, including store servers with line extenders and LCD TVs, low-end players, high-end players, PC players with LCD monitors, all-in-one digital systems, video walls, etc. Add mounting and cabling, and the whole hardware side started to resemble a high-school science project.

Software options for digital-signage management were even more confusing. The choice came down to broadcast versus narrowcast, influenced by whether you needed to update information hourly, daily or just a couple of times a month. You also needed to know how the software would integrate with your graphics-production workflow, what file formats and fonts to support, and how much training was required to run the network. Finally, you had to know how a software choice would affect the hardware required for deployment. Whatever the solution, it was expensive to buy and operate.

Even worse was this question: How would you know whether a particular solution would meet your needs over the next four or five years? Only a handful of vendors at DSE probably could be helpful here, especially digital-screen and player vendors affiliated with technology providers. But this involves more of a channel strategy than integrated solutions for a vertical market.

Despite all these issues, digital signage is a growing market, predicted to reach $4.5 billion in 2013. For that to happen, however, users must find the technology easier to evaluate, buy, deploy and operate. This will occur only through market consolidation that provides users with one-stop shopping for digital signage from viable vendors. Maybe we’ll see progress at DSE 2011.

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Mar 03

The Message Was Clear: Grab Their Attention and Keep It

By Michael Curran DOOH Trends, Interactive Digital Signage, Technology Comments Off

Anyone walking around the Intel booth at Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas last week couldn’t help but notice our new Touch&Go Messenger. After all, an 82-inch LCD is hard to miss, even in Vegas. AVTechnology even named it one of the five highlights of the show.

Retailers looking to grab their consumers’ attention will love the Messenger 82. This all-in-one system features a Samsung full-HD display with an interactive touchscreen, Intel’s i7 processor technology and Microsoft’s Windows Embedded Standard 2011. It’s ideal for either display or kiosk applications in large, open retail spaces. Just imagine using this big, beautiful unit in a mall, airport concourse or department store.

We make the Messenger 82 in America-in Westerville, Ohio, to be precise. It continues what we consider our Touch&Go heritage of stunning picture quality, high performance, and elegant styling. Intel processors deliver breakthrough performance and improved power efficiency. The Messenger 82 also uses Intel® vPro™ technology, which gives you remote management capabilities, reduces down time and lowers your total cost of ownership, the TCO.

The 1080p, ultra-bright LCD has a viewing angle of 176 degrees. (Try getting that with your flat screen at home.) It also has a 160-Gb hard drive and a DVD/CDRW drive. Plus, you can order optional IR multi-touch interactive touch screen, internal stereo speakers or a TV tuner. A protective glass panel makes the LCD practical and easy to clean in the kind of high-traffic spaces typical of retail environments.

The picture quality is outstanding in full HD, thanks to LVDS technology. That’s the low-voltage differential signaling that drives the flat-panel display right from the motherboard. It’s as clear as looking through a window-and significantly better than connecting a regular computer to a standard TV.

The Messenger 82 is retail-ready for interactive consumer kiosks, self-service applications, digital signage, store maps, advertising, messaging, product information, and demonstrations. Simple, elegant mounting options mean you can hang it from a ceiling or a wall.

And Micro Industries doesn’t just offer displays. Our mCosm subsidiary can supply software that lets you create, manage, deploy, and change your own digital media, on the fly, without expensive, third-party intervention. (See #5 of DSE’s 10 top digital signage trends). mCosm solutions couple broadcast television, closed-circuit video, digital signage plus interactivity, all on the same system.

Yes, altogether, we’re pretty proud of what we showed in Las Vegas.

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Feb 25

Answering the Ancient Question: Yes, Bigger Is Better

By Michael Curran DOOH Trends, Interactive Digital Signage, Retail Kiosks, Technology Comments Off

The age-old question about size has real significance in the Digital Signage Market. Historically, if you wanted large digital signage in a retail space, you stacked several smaller displays together. You needed lots of high-performance video cards linked to a powerful computer system that let you color-match all of the displays, and sophisticated software to distribute the image across all of them. Amazingly, some very good vendors can deliver this solution today.

The simpler approach is one large display. Several major manufacturers, such as Sharp and Samsung, offer large LCD panels (65-, 82- and even 108-inch models, measured diagonally) at very attractive prices. The single-display approach has numerous advantages, especially in image quality, computer requirements and power management.
Image quality is critical in a retail environment. For technical reasons, spreading content across multiple screens decreases resolution and makes the image look grainy. Not many retailers can afford to provide clear viewing from 20 to 30 feet away, the normal distance for your eyes to integrate a matrix image. And if one display fails, it’s almost impossible to find a replacement that matches the color and hue of the other displays in the matrix. A single display, however, provides outstanding detail, even if the customer is standing close to the screen.

Power and heat management are also important factors to consider in matrix systems. You need adequate ventilation, since heat rising from the lower displays can affect the service life of the upper displays. This takes up floor space that you no doubt could put to better use. In addition, a matrix of four 42-inch LCDs uses about twice the power of one 82-inch LCD panel, which provides about the same viewing area.
I’ve always believed in keeping things simple when it comes to computer systems. A single large display can be powered with a single motherboard and graphics engine. Content is displayed in native mode, so there’s no need to divide the image and distribute it over multiple displays. One display also reduces the potential for errors at both the hardware and software levels.

So, there’s really no question that bigger is better in retail Digital Signage. But, just to be sure, check out all of your options and determine the best long-term solution for your particular application.

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If you’re attending the Digital Signage Expo (DSE) in Las Vegas this week, please stop by to see us in the Intel Corporation exhibit, booth #1223. We’ll show you our Touch&Go Messenger 82™, an HD LCD display that I’m confident will amaze you. Judge for yourself whether bigger is better.

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Feb 23

Retail Price Checkers: Not Glamorous, Just Necessary

By Michael Curran Price Verifiers Comments Off

The in-store devices called price checkers or verifiers aren’t very glamorous or exciting, I admit, but most retailers need and want them. There are a few pros and cons to consider when acquiring them. First, price checkers come in three configurations-basic price verifier, price checker with programmable functions, and PC-compatible, open-architecture systems.

Basic price verifiers typically are compatible with specific point-of-sale (POS) systems and provide pricing information to your customers in a fixed format. Often they use low-end, embedded controllers with limited program memory and monochrome LCD’s. The primary advantage of these systems is low cost. The drawback is that they offer almost no flexibility when making major changes to your POS system.

Mid-range price checkers usually have a higher-level micro controller-an ARM system, for example-and run a basic operating system such as Windows CE. Their costs vary according to features and functions, with higher-end models offering programmable function keys or touchscreens with color LCD’s. Processing and memory capabilities are somewhat limited. Also, developing an application with CE and an ARM processor takes a programmer who is experienced in this environment. Several manufacturers offer basic software packages to display product information when the scanner isn’t in use. The CPU’s low-end processing power, however, typically limits images to simple jpeg slide shows that aren’t likely to attract customers.

PC-compatible price checkers running Windows operating systems offer significantly more flexibility, but come with higher prices. They are available in a variety of screen sizes with extended functionality. Their major advantage is they let you create applications using standard PC development tools. Since these systems have an open architecture, software is more transportable and can be upgraded or changed with much less effort.

When acquiring a new price checker, ask yourself a simple question: Are you just meeting regulatory requirements, or do you want to communicate more effectively and more often with your customers? If the answer revolves around customer interactions, a PC-compatible price checker is your best long-term investment.

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We’d love for you to see Micro’s stunning retail displays and software capabilities for yourself. Join us in Las Vegas, February 23 – 25, at the Digital Signage Expo. We’ll be there with our friends from Intel Corporation in their exhibit, #1223. Please ask for a demo if you’re attending DSE!

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