Graubünden Tourism is bringing together the most hectic and most peaceful places in Switzerland – via an electronic live billboard at Zurich Central Station that will transport stressed-out city dwellers to the Graubünden village of Vrin.
woensdag 8 juli 2015
Samsung Display Hurries to Mass Produce Mirror OLEDs
As Samsung Display has decided to bring forward the mass production of its industry’s first Mirror and Transparent OLED display panels. It will start production in its A2 line from this year.
According to industry sources and the press in Hong Kong, the Chow Sang Sang Group, which has numerous large jewelry stores in Hong Kong and Macao, will introduce commercial displays using Samsung Display’s Mirror OLED panel technology in its stores. The Chow Sang Sang Group runs nearly 190 jewelry stores in China and Hong Kong.
Samsung Display’s Mirror OLED display panel has 75 percent reflectance, which is similar to actual mirrors. It will provide a digital viewing platform to help consumers vividly see themselves wearing the necklaces and earrings that they might wish to buy without actually wearing them. This augmented reality program will be created when Samsung’s Media Player is integrated with Intel’s Real Sense Solution.
Existing mirror LCD displays had about a 50 percent reflectance level, so it delivers only limited visibility. However, the Samsung Mirror Display delivers an exceptionally high 100,000:1 contrast ratio and a much faster response time at less than 1 ms than LCD transparent panels (4,000:1, 8 ms), as well as high reflectance levels.
Securing its client companies in advance, Samsung Display is moving up the mass production of its Mirror OLED display panels. The first customer is the global digital marketing agency Mirum. Mirum will sell commercial displays using Samsung’s new technology under the name “Magic Mirror 2.0” to fashion and jewelry companies, including the Chow Sang Sang Group.
dinsdag 7 juli 2015
Glasses used to make life easier for the elderly.
Source; www.inavateonthenet.net/
A 1.2 million euro research project at the Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interactive Technology (CITEC) in Bielefeld University, Germany, has created a pair of smart glasses designed to help elderly people live more self-sufficient lives. The project, called ADAMAAS (Adaptive and Mobile Action Assistance in Daily Living Activities), uses intelligent glasses that provide intuitive support in everyday situations. The technology platform is being provided by eye-tracking specialist SensoMotoric Instruments.
The system will be able to identify problems in actual action processes, to react when mistakes are made, as well as to display situation and context dependent assistance in textual, visual or avatar based formats superimposed on a transparent virtual plane in the users’ field of view.
"ADAMAAS is the first adaptive and mobile assistance system that supports users in everyday action processes," says Professor Dr. Thomas Schack, who leads the research group Neurocognition and Action – Biomechanics (NCA) at CITEC.
The system will be able to identify problems in actual action processes and provide situation, context and specific help comment and hints on the virtual display in the users’ field of view in order to support the successful completion of an action. The glasses are meant to provide assistance for activities such as baking a cake, making coffee, repairing a bicycle, or even practicing yoga. ADAMAAS is particularly focused on elderly or disabled people. With the help of the assistive glasses, the hope is that these people will be able to live a self-sufficient life in an age appropriate way according to their mental and physical capabilities.
"In this project, different technologies are being combined, including memory research, eye tracking and vital parameter measurements (such as pulse or heart rate), object and action recognition (Computer Vision), as well as Augmented Reality with modern diagnostics and corrective intervention techniques," explains CITEC researcher Thomas Schack.
The goal of ADAMAAS is to get from a stationary diagnostic system to a mobile, dynamical- adaptive action support and monitoring system which is able to react to failures, to provide individualised prompting feedback for action support and to learn from experts on one hand and about the individual behavior of the user on the other hand. This distinguishes it from conventional head-mounted displays.
A 1.2 million euro research project at the Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interactive Technology (CITEC) in Bielefeld University, Germany, has created a pair of smart glasses designed to help elderly people live more self-sufficient lives. The project, called ADAMAAS (Adaptive and Mobile Action Assistance in Daily Living Activities), uses intelligent glasses that provide intuitive support in everyday situations. The technology platform is being provided by eye-tracking specialist SensoMotoric Instruments.
The system will be able to identify problems in actual action processes, to react when mistakes are made, as well as to display situation and context dependent assistance in textual, visual or avatar based formats superimposed on a transparent virtual plane in the users’ field of view.
"ADAMAAS is the first adaptive and mobile assistance system that supports users in everyday action processes," says Professor Dr. Thomas Schack, who leads the research group Neurocognition and Action – Biomechanics (NCA) at CITEC.
The system will be able to identify problems in actual action processes and provide situation, context and specific help comment and hints on the virtual display in the users’ field of view in order to support the successful completion of an action. The glasses are meant to provide assistance for activities such as baking a cake, making coffee, repairing a bicycle, or even practicing yoga. ADAMAAS is particularly focused on elderly or disabled people. With the help of the assistive glasses, the hope is that these people will be able to live a self-sufficient life in an age appropriate way according to their mental and physical capabilities.
"In this project, different technologies are being combined, including memory research, eye tracking and vital parameter measurements (such as pulse or heart rate), object and action recognition (Computer Vision), as well as Augmented Reality with modern diagnostics and corrective intervention techniques," explains CITEC researcher Thomas Schack.
The goal of ADAMAAS is to get from a stationary diagnostic system to a mobile, dynamical- adaptive action support and monitoring system which is able to react to failures, to provide individualised prompting feedback for action support and to learn from experts on one hand and about the individual behavior of the user on the other hand. This distinguishes it from conventional head-mounted displays.
JCDecaux wins Copenhagen’s street furniture contract.
JCDecaux SA (Euronext Paris: DEC), the number one outdoor advertising company worldwide, announced today that following a competitive tender, its subsidiary AFA JCDecaux has been awarded the exclusive Copenhagen’s street furniture contract, for a period of 15 years.
The contract covers the design, installation and maintenance of 645 bus shelters – all containing either count-down traffic information or LCD 42’’ digital traffic information –, as well as other street furniture equipment. It will also include the first network of premium digital screens in the city centre.
In line with Copenhagen’s strong vision of becoming the world’s first CO2 neutral capital by 2025, JCDecaux, ISO-14001 certified in Denmark, has established environmental goals to have the least impact on the surrounding environment: reduction of the total energy consumption for street furniture in the City of Copenhagen by 49 %, use of electrical vehicles for operation and maintenance, use of rain water for washing and cleaning, etc...
maandag 6 juli 2015
Projection-mapping shows in Amsterdam
projection-mapping shows (Black Espresso @ Qpark/ waterkant) that Univate did for the Magnum Pink & Black night Amsterdam:
Projection mapping for Magnum from a boat in the canals of Amsterdam. As part of the Pink & Black night Amsterdam show on 28-05-2015.
Projection mapping for Magnum from a boat in the canals of Amsterdam. As part of the Pink & Black night Amsterdam show on 28-05-2015.
the Augmented Reality Sandbox.
The East Carolina Geology department takes The East Carolinian inside its building and reveals an interesting new tool that will be used to teach students more about the topography landscapes of land and water.
Check out the story online at theeastcarolinian.com
Check out the story online at theeastcarolinian.com
vrijdag 3 juli 2015
Holograms you can touch using high-powered lasers
Three-dimensional, interactive holograms are now a reality, thanks to researchers in Japan who have used powerful, ultra-quick lasers to produce holograms that can be physically felt and respond to human touch.
According to volunteers who have tested these interactive holograms, the mid-air mirages feel somewhere between sandpaper and a static shock. They're made using tiny points of plasma light called voxels, that are created when the focused energy of a laser ionises the surrounding air.
The lasers used by the team from the University of Tsukuba's Digital Nature Group (DNG) are special femtosecond lasers transmitting in bursts of 30 to 270 femtoseconds (1 femtosecond is a quadrillionth of a second). Combined with a spatial light modulator, a mirror, and a Galvano scanner (used to precisely target lasers), the DNG team was able to create shapes up to 1 cm cubed with a resolution of up to 200,000 dots-per-second at the highest setting.
That high speed means the holograms can respond in real-time to touches and add a level of interactivity with the help of a camera underneath, which monitors finger and hand movements. While previous experiments have achieved similar results, the DNG researchers say their study is the first to offer such a high resolution without being harmful to the human touch.
The key to preventing the lasers from burning skin was reducing the duration of the laser's bursts - the sweet spot was between 50 milliseconds and 1 second. Team leader Yoichi Ochiai says the hologram size is limited by the size of the spatial light modulator included in the setup, and he's hoping to develop this proof-of-concept further in the future.
As for how the technology could eventually be used, imagine ticking off a checklist that hangs in the air, or animals in a holographic zoo you can reach out and touch - this is all a long way down the line, but the potential is there once scientists work out how to make these holograms larger and more varied.
"The spatial light modulator [can] modify the phases of light rates and produce various spatial distributions of light based on interference," explains the team from DNG. "Our results led to calmer and safer plasma generation that can be incorporated into our daily lives."
The same technique was used to display projects in the air, across fluorescent plates, in water and in a fluorescent solution. The experiment has been submitted as part of the SIGGRAPH 2015 exhibition later this year, covering computer graphics and interactive techniques.
According to volunteers who have tested these interactive holograms, the mid-air mirages feel somewhere between sandpaper and a static shock. They're made using tiny points of plasma light called voxels, that are created when the focused energy of a laser ionises the surrounding air.
The lasers used by the team from the University of Tsukuba's Digital Nature Group (DNG) are special femtosecond lasers transmitting in bursts of 30 to 270 femtoseconds (1 femtosecond is a quadrillionth of a second). Combined with a spatial light modulator, a mirror, and a Galvano scanner (used to precisely target lasers), the DNG team was able to create shapes up to 1 cm cubed with a resolution of up to 200,000 dots-per-second at the highest setting.
That high speed means the holograms can respond in real-time to touches and add a level of interactivity with the help of a camera underneath, which monitors finger and hand movements. While previous experiments have achieved similar results, the DNG researchers say their study is the first to offer such a high resolution without being harmful to the human touch.
The key to preventing the lasers from burning skin was reducing the duration of the laser's bursts - the sweet spot was between 50 milliseconds and 1 second. Team leader Yoichi Ochiai says the hologram size is limited by the size of the spatial light modulator included in the setup, and he's hoping to develop this proof-of-concept further in the future.
As for how the technology could eventually be used, imagine ticking off a checklist that hangs in the air, or animals in a holographic zoo you can reach out and touch - this is all a long way down the line, but the potential is there once scientists work out how to make these holograms larger and more varied.
"The spatial light modulator [can] modify the phases of light rates and produce various spatial distributions of light based on interference," explains the team from DNG. "Our results led to calmer and safer plasma generation that can be incorporated into our daily lives."
The same technique was used to display projects in the air, across fluorescent plates, in water and in a fluorescent solution. The experiment has been submitted as part of the SIGGRAPH 2015 exhibition later this year, covering computer graphics and interactive techniques.
donderdag 2 juli 2015
Google backs scheme to put 10,000 screens on NY streets
Source; www.screenmediamag.com
Google is finally getting into digital out-of-home in a big way – but not through the much-anticipated launch of its own buying and selling platform.
Instead, the search giant is effectively taking over the LinkNYC project that aims to outfit New York’s streets with up to 10,000 communication hubs featuring digital displays for advertising and public service messaging, as well as touchscreen-based information.
Much more than on-street digital signage, the hubs will also provide free public Wi-Fi – perhaps likely to be their biggest attraction – as well as free phone calls and mobile phone charging.
Google’s involvement is at arm’s length. It is funding a startup called Sidewalk Labs, launched earlier this month by former Bloomberg CEO and New York deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff, which in turn is acquiring and merging outdoor advertising firm Titan and technology specialist Control Group to form a new company, called Intersection.
It is Intersection that will devise and roll out the LinkNYC network.
The happy couple
Titan, as an established outdoor firm, already provides sales, creative and technical services for a wide range of out-of-home media in public transportation and airport locations as well as on-street. It serves 31 North American markets which along with New York also include Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Seattle.
Control Group, meanwhile, has focused its work on interactive technologies that involve consumers, such as Wi-Fi and RFID deployments, as well as in-store media.
Spanning five New York boroughs, the LinkNYC network is expected to generate around $40m a year for the city and be funded by its own advertising revenues. The on-street units, known as Links, are being designed by Antenna.
Back seat, or driver’s?
It has long been speculated that Google might enter the digital out-of-home market by adapting to DOOH the technology which it successfully uses to sell and place online advertising. Such a venture might, for example, allow advertisers to buy screen spots on public displays in much the same way as they currently use tools like Google AdWords to book online inventory.
Despite the talk, however, no such system has been forthcoming. But it now remains to be seen whether Google will indeed apply its advertising platform technology to LinkNYC, opening up the opportunity to service thousands of small advertisers with a high degree of automation, or whether it will remain merely an investor.
Google is finally getting into digital out-of-home in a big way – but not through the much-anticipated launch of its own buying and selling platform.
Instead, the search giant is effectively taking over the LinkNYC project that aims to outfit New York’s streets with up to 10,000 communication hubs featuring digital displays for advertising and public service messaging, as well as touchscreen-based information.
Much more than on-street digital signage, the hubs will also provide free public Wi-Fi – perhaps likely to be their biggest attraction – as well as free phone calls and mobile phone charging.
Google’s involvement is at arm’s length. It is funding a startup called Sidewalk Labs, launched earlier this month by former Bloomberg CEO and New York deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff, which in turn is acquiring and merging outdoor advertising firm Titan and technology specialist Control Group to form a new company, called Intersection.
It is Intersection that will devise and roll out the LinkNYC network.
The happy couple
Titan, as an established outdoor firm, already provides sales, creative and technical services for a wide range of out-of-home media in public transportation and airport locations as well as on-street. It serves 31 North American markets which along with New York also include Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Seattle.
Control Group, meanwhile, has focused its work on interactive technologies that involve consumers, such as Wi-Fi and RFID deployments, as well as in-store media.
Spanning five New York boroughs, the LinkNYC network is expected to generate around $40m a year for the city and be funded by its own advertising revenues. The on-street units, known as Links, are being designed by Antenna.
Back seat, or driver’s?
It has long been speculated that Google might enter the digital out-of-home market by adapting to DOOH the technology which it successfully uses to sell and place online advertising. Such a venture might, for example, allow advertisers to buy screen spots on public displays in much the same way as they currently use tools like Google AdWords to book online inventory.
Despite the talk, however, no such system has been forthcoming. But it now remains to be seen whether Google will indeed apply its advertising platform technology to LinkNYC, opening up the opportunity to service thousands of small advertisers with a high degree of automation, or whether it will remain merely an investor.
woensdag 1 juli 2015
Virtual Reality featured in Mini's.
The advent of Google Glass and Apple Watch has shown that our technological companions are about to change. We will soon all be consulting our smart watches. The mobile phones will then increasingly stay in our pockets.
Concepts such as networking and connectivity play a crucial role in the new technologies. The new technical aids are our interface to the Web, to other devices and to our data. In the future the new devices will be keeping us informed, showing us the way and making sure that we don’t miss any appointments. The virtual and real worlds will increasingly be merging as a result.
At the Shanghai car show, the makers of the Mini recently presented their latest development – a pair of data glasses for drivers. Similar to the Google spectacles, the glasses connect the wearer to their environment. Yet besides providing directions, speed and traffic information, the glasses also offer insights of an unusual kind. At particular points the driver can look right through the car itself to check the height of the kerb or to look out for possible obstacles. It is all made possible by the use of the very latest camera technology. And a smartphone link ensures that the flow of data continues even when the driver has left the car.
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