This is good news. According to David Pogue, in his Pogue's Posts column in the New York Times, "You’d never suspect that the iPhone 3GS, which has no physical keys at all, is one of the easiest smartphones in the world for a blind person to use. But now it’s true, thanks to VoiceOver."
Danoo: "Location scouting and scalable web technologies combined to create a targeted DOOH experience".
If you are tech-savy and a member of the digital signage/interactive display/AV end of things, you probably know what this means. If not, you should. Things are pairing, merging, and converging in the world of "out and about" technology.
Technology, especially digital signage, is ubiquitous, and has targeted you and your neighborhood.
So what's the fuss? A company from Danoo, from China, is ramping things up in the Digital Signage/DOOH (Digital Out of Home) arena. Fast.
Danoo has rapidly up with exisiting companies, such as National CineMedia, Blue Bite, Electronic Arts, and the HISTORY channel to create and push off-the-desktop and off-the-TV content and interactive user experiences.Bill Gerba, of Wirespring, and Manolo Almagro, CTO of Show + Tell in NYC (think Times Square digital signage experiences), and others have recently written about this phenomenon, right after Danoo released the following press announcement:
Danoo Inc Announces a Breakthrough in Mobile Content Delivery(7/11/09, Business Wire) "Danoo partnered with mobile technology company Blue Bite to enable the campaigns, and is actively rolling out its mobile interactivity capability to all of its venues. The first 200 Danoo locations will be live in Los Angeles and New York by July 1st. At full deployment, Danoo will give advertisers the ability to get their content into the hands of more than 200,000 consumers in an average two-week campaign. In addition to content downloads, Danoo offers multiple ways to pair its screens with mobile interactivity to maximize campaign effectiveness, such as SMS call-to-actions, social gaming and mobile application promotion."
"Visitors to Danoo locations viewed video content on Danoo’s digital screens accompanied by an on-screen prompt to download exclusive content such as sneak peeks and ringtones from their Bluetooth or Wi-Fi-enabled devices via the Danoo network."
Here are a few related articles: How Significant is the Danoo-IdeaCast-National CineMedia Deal? (7/14/09, Bill Gerba, Wirespring) A Watershed Moment for DOOH Media (7/12/09, Bill Collins, Daily DOOH)
Pictures from Danoo's Website:
Danoo's IdeaCast- "Captive TV".
I've probably encountered Danoo's technologies numerous times, judging from my archive of pictures of displays and related technologies that have crossed my path. The TV screen on the treadmill looks just like the one I saw on a treadmill in the fitness center of a Princess cruise ship last year. The picture in the middle looks like it was taken in an airport. The picture on the right is of a system in a coffeehouse. According to information on the Danoo website, the system is interactive and includes "content downloads, social gaming, mobile couponing and more via SMS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi".
Blue Bite's website is worth looking at. It demonstrates their concept very well through animation:
Things are ramping up in my region, too. T1 Tapas, a restaurant north of Charlotte, N.C., in the Birkdale Village in Huntersville, has majority owners with a technology background. Mike Feldman and Jim Morris started up Digital Optics Corporation, which focused on optics for computers and imaging, and after they sold their company, they teamed up with Denise Feldman to establish their company.
T 1 Connection Booth with Multi-User Touch Screen, HD TV, Sound System, Computer, & more: "T1 Connection Booth seating gives you access to music, photos, and videos through built-in touchscreen tabletops, brilliant monitors, speakers, and computers."-Picture and taken from the T 1 Tapas website
The restaraunt serves as a test bed for T 1 Visions to try out their software and hardware designed to enhance the digitally connected dining experience.The restaurant was featured in May of this year on CNN:
Over the next month or so I will be re-organizing this blog. I'll be analyzing the various themes that have emerged since I started this on 4/11/06, over three years ago, as part of an assignment for a class about distance education and on-line communication tools.
My first topic was "Games, Simulations, and Virtual Worlds". Although I continue to focus on those themes, I mostly center around off-the-desktop interactive, collaborative, and emerging technologies that support interaction and activities in public spaces.
One theme that interests me is technology that supports travel experiences. Since I've had the opportunity to travel a great deal (before the economy started to go downhill), I've had a chance to explore this arena as a participant-observer*, and have documented my findings through photographs and video.
It is a joke in my family that if I disappear from the tribe, I can usually be found nearby, poking at an interactive touch screen, photographing something related to technology, or sneaking in a few shots of other people interacting with technology, and sometimes even talking to strangers as they use technology. (I usually ask permission to take pictures of people who are in my view finder, but sometimes they just happen to be in my line of sight.)
It is amazing what an earful you can get about technology as a fellow traveller!
I came across the work of Nanonation when I was on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, and was a little disappointed with the touch-screen content and interaction around the ship. From what I can tell from the NanoNation website, the applications have been improved somewhat, especially the way-finding application on the Freedom of the Seas:
Nanonation was also involved in the development of a "Discovery Wall" at the Umpqua bank. This system incorporates tangible icons that sit on a shelf located near the Discovery Wall that trigger an interactive flash presentation on a screen. The icons represent various bank products, and are RFID enabled.
Back to the topic of cruise ship/travel technology:
When I was on the Ruby Princess cruise in December of 2008, I was impressed with the "Movies Under the Stars" set-up. At night, the sunning decks are transformed into out-door movie viewing spots, where you can lounge around, basking under the stars at you watch the gigantic silver screen and excellent sound system.
During the day, the system is used to display games that people play on the Wii, which provides the non-playing sunbathers additional entertainment.
Take a look to my "Wii-OOH" Flickr set slideshow to see the Wii in action on the large screen of the Ruby Princess, and on smaller screens in the food-court of the Concord Mills (NC) mall:
(Note, the mall pictures were taken with my cell phone.)
I want to go back!
HCI Note
*I was trained in the use of participant observation long ago, when I was studying social science
and psychology at the University of Michigan. It is a method that was developed early on by anthropologists
and sociologists, and adopted later by researchers in other fields. Some human-computer interaction
researchers use this method, and related techniques, such as ethnography, in their work.
I am a fan of the work by Kicker Studios. I especially enjoy reading their blog that gives great details about how product design is done. I always come away from the blog with something new.
In the case of the touch-screen conference phone, the designers focused on their own needs, since they spend a chunk of time in conference calls. To get a closer look at the design process behind this phone, see the blog post, " Product Concept: Touch Screen Conference Phone".
"Here’s a dilemma: The guy (”Hacker Croll”) who claims to have accessed hundreds of confidential corporate and personal documents of Twitter and Twitter employees, is releasing those documents publicly and sent them to us earlier today. The zip file contained 310 documents, ranging from executive meeting notes, partner agreements and financial projections to the meal preferences, calendars and phone logs of various Twitter employee".
I think issues related to privacy, security, ethics, and emerging/social technologies need to be discussed more extensively among academicians, industry leaders, students, and the general public. We don't know what we don't know.
