BMI Healthcare Signs Up To Amscreen Solution
BMI Healthcare is sponsoring live weather feed across the Amscreen Healthcare network, using Amscreen technology to advise patients on their healthcare choices. The exclusive deal with UK private hospital group BMI Healthcare, will provide millions of patients with up to date weather information across the network.

The sponsorship enables BMI to reach almost three million patients a month via the UK weather forecasting service Netweather whose live weather feeds are regionally updated in real time on weather conditions. It also provides a prominent platform to inform patients of the benefits of using BMI Healthcare for a wide variety of healthcare needs.

"This advertising and sponsorship package provides us with a great opportunity to feature BMI Healthcare,” says Nigel Moon, Head of Marketing at BMI Healthcare, “our local hospitals and services to a highly targeted audience at a key time in the patient journey."

BMI Healthcare joins other leading brands such as Unilever, GSK and Pfizer and the Government's COI that advertise products and services surgeries across the healthcare network.

"We are delighted to announce this sponsorship deal with BMI Healthcare, comments Amscreen’s CEO Simon Sugar. “Our state of the art, fully monitored system will ensure that BMI receives maximum exposure across the network and with full campaign compliance and proof of play reports provided, BMI can be confident that their messages are being broadcasted to their target audience. We look forward to working with them further as we expand our network over the coming months."
www.amscreen.co.uk

BrightSign Peddling Hard For ODLO
BrightSign digital players are the star performers at the heart of new interactive information towers developed for sportswear manufacturer ODLO to showcase a new range of high technology cycling undergarments. Customers can explore product features and options via a combination of AV presentations, touch screen interactivity and barcode scan capabilities in kiosks designed and implemented by AV integrator Imaculix.

A prototype kiosk played its part in launching the ODLO cycling product line at the European OutDoor Fair in July in Friedrichshafen, Germany. It was also the focus of attention on BrightSign's stand at IBC 2010 earlier this month.

 ODLO's key goal in commissioning the kiosk design was to support the launch with a new approach to educate customers about the range. The company wanted to bring value to the product line, highlight it in a special way and especially showcase the technology behind new padding technology built into their cycle clothing.

 The challenge for Imaculix was to provide ODLO with a high end appearance on a modest budget. To ensure high reliability and simplicity in use, the solution would not be PC-based. Imaculix chose the BrightSign HD1010 media player as the alternative to complex PCs.

 As Andy W Bohli, Imaculix’s CEO explained, "BrightSign's exceptional HD image and video quality was a key factor for us, as our retail clients expect us to produce solutions that communicate their messages and branding to meet their very high standards. However, our customers, like us, are also budget-conscious and BrightSign is the only provider we've found that matches both criteria. In fact, it goes well beyond this, by also providing great reliability and versatile interactive features."

Kiosk hardware and visual design were provided by ODLOs marketing communications consultants, RUN, whilst AV integration, touch screen  interactivity and barcode scan abilities designed and implemented by Imaculix.

 As well as providing a visual display, the kiosk also features built-in shelves, allowing padding options to be showcased. The presentation supports 24 cycling underwear products; each with between five and nine hot spots of detailed information and all available in three languages: German, French and English.

Barcode scanner interactivity
Specially designed 'price' tags affixed to every product, invite customers to scan the barcode to learn more about the piece of clothing. When scanned at a kiosk, the display shows the key facts and benefits of that particular item and invites customers to interact further by touching hot spots on the image, which then displays further information about each piece of technology and the features ODLO has built into it.

 A 23in touch display is integrated into the kiosk design. Through this, customers can browse the entire line of cycling wear using quick filters based on gender and categories. In addition, a Padding Finder application walks users through a series of questions in order to recommend the best padding and products for the individual usage.

The kiosk display can be powered on and off via an RS232 connection; and also through a remote control operated by store managers. Power control is implemented through built-in BrightAuthor software, which ensures that the display is the only item turned on/off. Meanwhile, the BrightSign unit remains powered-up, allowing it to receive remote content updates and enabling support where necessary via BrightSign Networking.  www.brightsign.biz

Kit Development Encourages Fast Display Prototyping
Digital View now has custom kits and is encouraging LCD display designers to achieve faster prototyping by shipping display design kits, tailored to specific project requirements. With a full range of LCD controller boards and OEM media players as well as many value add accessories for every display system, designers can now quickly assemble kits to build advanced video display products.

“By designing a generic platform then essentially loading it with features and functions, we enable display system designers to use our LCD controllers and OEM media players to build their display products fast,” comments James Henry, Digital View’s CEO. ‘This means they can reduce development cost and be considerably quicker to market.”

Well known for customer care, support and commitment to its product lines, Digital View is sending a clear message to display designers of every kind of application that it is committed to providing the tools and support necessary for developers to achieve their project goals faster than ever. The impressive array of add-ons demonstrates Digital View’s commitment to innovative products in the digital display market place.
www.digitalview.com

Extender Enables Picture Compensation Over 30m
Smart-e’s new extender for CAT 5, 5e, 6, 7 and 8 structured cabling enables compensation of picture quality for AV systems via remote control.

SLX-RX214 joins the SmartLynx range, said to be a superior CAT receiver featuring dynamic EQ and skew compensation, automatically adjusting and restoring picture quality for systems with differing cable lengths. Settings are pre-programmed at installation by selecting the cable length between each user, and picture quality is automatically adjusted for the specific cable lengths when the system is activated.

Designed for use in the demanding commercial applications, SLX-RX214 can be used in conjunction with Smart-e’s smartCore CAT to CAT matrices which enable AV resources to be shared building-wide via its smartiP software interface and SNX-2112 boardroom solution.

SLX-RX214 extends video, stereo audio and IR/RS232 signals over CAT 5, 5e, 6, 7 and 8 structured cabling up to 300m, and features wide bandwidth IR transmission, discrete connectors, and high ground loop immunity. Supported video signal types include dual RGBHV, CVBS, YUV, YPrPb, Y/C and RGBs with stereo line level audio. HD compatible up to 1080p and UXGA, the unit is easy to install and provides a cost-effective solution to overcome picture degradation.
julie.gander@virgin.net

BlueMango To Sell Litefast 360° Displays In India
Mumbai-based blueMango solutions has been signed up by Kinoton as its authorised Litefast sales and service representative for India. blueMango specialised in technology consulting, digital marketing solutions and software development.

blueMango believes Litefast 360° displays are ideal for digital signage in applications seeing a constant flow of visitors such as airports, theatres, malls and trade fairs. The attractive cylindrical LED displays provide extraordinary mix of inventive technology and design that challenges the dimensions of virtual technology. Litefast Magic and Litefast Mini models with their eye-catching, transparent displays are sure to increase expected target response, says Kinotron.

“It's a pleasure to partner with Kinoton Germany,” says Aditi Manduskar, blueMango’s Business Development Director, “and we are very excited to introduce the Litefast line of products in India. After interacting with a few of our patrons in the media industry we believe that everyone is now looking for something more vibrant and innovative as a medium for advertising over the LCD and LED flat display panels. We hope to bring in Litefast 360° Displays as the new, unique and vivacious trend for the advertising world in India.”

Harald Naether, Sales VP for Kinoton’s Litefast 360° Displays, says, “blueMango’s profound know-how regarding digital marketing technology, their market expertise and their commitment to superior customer service makes them the perfect contact for our Litefast customers in India. We are looking forward to a fruitful co-operation.”
www.kinoton.com

Growth Displayed Across Retail As Autumn Ranges Hit Shelves
The recession-busting spending spree by shoppers has made summer 2010 the most successful for the past five years, according to the latest High Street Sales Tracker from BDO. Despite economists' gloomy warnings of a double dip recession, Britons flocked to the high street, boosting monthly like for like sales at medium sized retailers by 3.6% in August. And this is the third month in a row growth has been seen, giving an average rise of 4.3% for the summer months of June, July and August.

This picture is a dramatic turnaround from last summer, when average growth for the same period plummeted to -1.6%. Apart from 2007, average growth for June, July and August has been negative since 2006.

This August's figures have been buoyed by growth across all sectors, says BDO. The combination of colder weather and the release of Autumn ranges pushed fashion sales up by 2.8%, and cookware and accessories helped the homeware sector grow by 4.5%. Non-fashion sales rose even further, with luxury and gifts products helping sales growth top 5.3%. On-line sales expanded by a hefty 32.8%.

"Naturally, we remain cautious given the uncertain economic outlook,” says Don Williams, Head of Retail at BDO, “and the expected cuts in public spending. However, current trading on the high street is still relatively strong, with the pessimism from some quarters overdone. It will be interesting to see if [imminent] results from Laura Ashley, Carpetright and Argos reflect this optimism."
www.launchgroup.co.uk

RoomPlace Slashes Signage Production Time
The RoomPlace, a 24 store furniture retailer headquartered in Lombard, Illinois, has slashed the time it takes to produce in-store signage from up to a week to within 5~10 minutes, following its switch to using Episys’s Retail Enterprise Suite. The system is being used for everyday and ‘as advertised’ floor signs, as well as bedding and group package signs.

“The Retail Enterprise Suite has transformed how we carry out price changes within the business, acknowledges Michelle Pacynski, CIO at The RoomPlace. “Since the introduction of the technology, we are now able to print all signage within the store. Previously our processes were manual so we’re also saving a great deal of time. If there are any pricing changes we need to make at the last minute we know we can handle it.”

The business is also able to initiate promotions faster following the investment. Pacynski adds, “We can change things very quickly in our showrooms and run different promotions as and when needed. Our systems were very time consuming and we had to create signs centrally, so it was very difficult to get new promotional signs out to the field quickly.”

The implementation of the technology has also resulted in an improved customer experience. Pacynski says, “From the customer’s point of view the new signage is cleaner and consistent signage is used across the entire business. We have eliminated signage inaccuracies caused by our old manual processes and are able to present our core customer concept, great savings on beautifully designed rooms, in a way that helps drive our average ticket.”

Peter Lewis, Marketing Director at Episys comments, “The RoomPlace is an excellent example of a successful, growing business which recognises the importance of optimizing their signage operations to maximize the benefits of reduced costs, increased efficiency and enhanced customer service.”
www.episys.com

Simulator Takes Off With Christie Projection
The Boeing Company has plumped for Christie’s Matrix StIMT simulation projection system in its multi-million dollar programme to upgrade an initial 18 Apache Longbow Crew Trainer simulators. To date, ten simulators have been completely retrofitted, with additional LCTs contracted throughout the year. In addition to its groundbreaking Night Vision Goggle training capabilities, key reasons for selecting Christie Matrix StIM were superior image quality, long life and low maintenance costs.

"As the undisputed leader in the aviation market, Boeing sets the pace of innovation for the entire industry," notes Zoran Veselic, Christie's Visual Environments Division VP. "Boeing's validation of the Christie Matrix StIM to meet the high standards of performance demanded by its LCT simulator is a true testament to the unique features and superior quality of the Matrix StIM projection system."

Christie worked with Boeing during the design phase to ensure the projection system met programme requirements. Currently deployed worldwide and used for in-theatre training, the LCT is a full mission, high fidelity flight simulator providing training for individuals, crews and maintenance test pilots. Its new image generator technology delivers more realistic out ‘the window’ scenes in real time. It features two cockpits, one at either end of a transportable trailer, that lets the training pilot and co-pilot fly in tandem. The cockpits utilize five screens each, for a total of ten Christie Matrix StIM projectors per simulator.

 The LCT ensures the highest state of readiness and safety for its customers. The device provides a high level of realism that offers top quality training in a safe environment. The Christie Matrix StIM's solid state, LED-based illumination system also offers unprecedented stability and reliability, critical features that speak to Boeing's strategy for providing customers with cutting-edge, value-added solutions to meet their specific needs.

The LCT simulators are used around the world and can be operated independently as well as networked with other trainers for collective training capability. They can be deployed in a wide range of environments, giving pilots ample, on-site opportunity to meet their training needs and rehearse their missions safely.

The Christie Matrix StIM is the world's first true solid state LED-based simulation projection system. The Matrix StIM is packed with innovations, including: ArrayLOCT to manage brightness, colour and dark levels automatically; InfraSceneT, to process infrared content for simultaneous display of both visible light and the infrared spectrum; and Minimum Processing Latency (MPLT), an architecture used to minimize transport delay from data processing to image display.
www.christiedigital.com