My guest blogger this week is Mandy Curran, VP of Marketing.

I recently returned from New York and our annual excursion to the National Retail Federation’s winter blowout, Retail’s BIG Show. The huge crowd of retailers was a welcome sight. All the exhibitors agreed that attendance was way up from recent years.

Micro’s hardware offering this year was visible front and center in the Intel booth. Our new baby is a Touch&Go Digital Lollipop 3Dg. It has three levels of advanced interaction, combining multitouch capabilities with 3D gesturing and a high-definition camera for picture taking or anonymous video analytics (AVA). All of this comes on a 65-inch portrait touchscreen, supported by a beautifully designed and sturdy yet mobile stand.

We were really excited about this new platform, especially when we considered all the exciting software now available. The two fashion apps that are especially intriguing, include FaceCake Marketing Technologies’ Swivel, and a very smart, practical fashion app designed by Janet Brockett’s team at Elements Design Group in San Francisco. We think this is the right time to combine such powerful software applications with Micro’s ultra-bright, full-HD hardware. Together, they give customers fashion experiences worth waiting for.

Mixing and matching clothes, accessories, shoes, hats, scarves, etc.—superimposed on their own real-time images, on very large touchscreens—lets shoppers quickly and efficiently try on multiple outfits. The real items might be spread across multiple floors and departments in stores. This virtual technique lets shoppers experiment with items and accessories they might not have time to consider otherwise.

It’s also helpful for shoppers to see clothing on a 65-inch screen—life-size, if you think about it. Details are very clear, much better than thumbnails on websites. We loaded Janet Brockett’s fashion application in our lab, and the reaction was amazing. Everyone loved it, including the guys. Something about giving shoppers the ability to mix and match is almost addicting.

You also might have noticed the recent and very popular jewelry trend of using beautifully designed beads to create necklaces and bracelets. I wonder if this trend will carry over to clothing and that women will expect to configure their outfits as well. I also wonder if the depressed economy makes this sort of application even more appealing. Many women don’t have the money to experiment with fashion that might not work for them. They use their budgets instead on dependable outfits. Will department stores and large retailers recognize this great opportunity to use interactive digital signage to attract shoppers? It’s the icing on the cake — and I bet it will draw women into the stores for a taste.