The Digital Signage resource portal digitalsignagetoday.com has a whopping directory of more than 700 products from the industries top companies. They have included more than 70 companies with an easy searching mechanism to search by categories, suppliers or products.

It is a must-visit for anyone and everyone concered with the Digital Signage industry.

Click here to go to the directory.

PALME website says:

PALME Middle East is the region’s longest standing trade event for the professional sound, light, audio visual, music, entertainment and systems integration industries.

PALME Middle East is your forum and has been built with you in mind – visiting the exhibition will give you a truly unique opportunity to:

• SOURCE new products and suppliers from over 200 exhibitors and 800 brands
• NETWORK with over 5000 of your industry colleagues and peers
• LEARN from industry experts at the free-to-attend PALME conference and exhibitor-led technical workshops
• EXPERIENCE the very latest solutions that the industry has to offer

There will be 4 important conferences for professionals:

The Lighting Solutions Conference

The Lighting Solutions Conference, taking place on Tuesday, 1st May, is a well established feature of PALME which caters to lighting solutions professionals, designed to enhance their knowledge of progressions in lighting design, examine the future of the lighting and integration solutions industries, and to showcase contemporary approaches to lighting design and solutions.

Explore the innovative new designs and projects from the region and beyond, as lighting experts and designers come together on one platform to discuss groundbreaking approaches to architectural lighting design.

At this conference you will be part of an exclusive team of lighting industry leaders allowing you to network with architects, lighting design experts, lighting solution providers and key industry figures at PALME’s 4th Lighting Solutions Conference.

The PALME Expert Seminar Sessions

The PALME Expert Seminar Sessions, taking place on 2nd May, will cater to a variety of professions visiting PALME Middle East 2012. Four workshops delivered by top experts in each of their professions, will cover drum micing and recording, Ferrari World’s systems integration, the staging and project management for BIG events, and building truss systems. The Expert Seminar Sessions promise to deliver on content.

PALME’s Pro-Audio and Visual Conference

The Conference (taking place on Thursday, 3rd May 2012) will offer professionals an unparalleled opportunity to learn from industry experts, gather new information and discover the latest technical advances in Pro-AV.

This conference agenda will be relevant to all professionals who buy or rent AV equipment; from venues to rental companies. The sessions will cover areas such as how to control low frequency for events, steerable base arrays for live events to ensure minimal disruption/impact to others (i.e. hotel guests) and turnkey visualization solution for venues.

Exhibitor-led sessions

A series of product specific technical sessions held by exhibiting companies who will be showcasing their latest innovations – these sessions are free to attend for all PALME visitors.

Register as a visitor today!

The E4 AV Tour is a full-day event that allows attendees to earn valuable InfoComm International CTS RUs while also providing coveted one-on-one time with the industry’s top manufacturers. To help move you forward, industry experts will give you tips and tactics that you can put to work for you right away and make a true difference in your daily business.

The E4 AV Tour brings together 4 awesome benefits into one show:

1. Educate your organization and earn InfoComm CTS Renewal Units
2. Explore new products and solutions for the AV industry
3. Exchange ideas with colleagues and instructors through networking
4. Expo! Get one-on-one time with 30 top manufacturers exhibiting their latest products

Taken from the E4 AV tour website. You can register by visiting this link > http://www.almoproav.com/Events/e4/

Android application development

Why any Android mobile application development company in UAE needs attention? Google’s Andriod is becoming the most sought after platform for mobile apps. There are reasons for this accomplishment – open source architecture, easy implementation, a comprehensive SDK for software developers makes application development a cakewalk for those interested. And since the predominant monopoly of Blackberry in the UAE is slowly slipping away, the Android market grows steadily.

Why should you go through an Android mobile application development company in UAE?

• The biggest challenge in UAE is a strong proof of concept. Often clients have expectations misunderstood by the Android mobile application development company in UAE. Being an open source platform, it helps developers to invest more in their time and understand client requirements better
• Since the OS is based on Linux (and not Windows), it is very smooth to operate and has less chances of crashing down
• Applications can be ported on to devices very easily
• Very low on investment, so you have every dirham well spent. The ROI is faster if you have a consumer-focused app

One more big advantage these days is the availability of various phones and tablets using the Android OS. In UAE retail stores you get an Android tablet for as low as AED 600. This means you can get custom apps developed for your business and use it with a low investment on hardware. Software development is a one-time cost and the hardware gives you a 1 year warranty – so imagine your ROI takes care of both easily in one year.

Dubai-based Multitech AV LLC is a premier Android mobile application development company in UAE. Easy creation of custom applications is the main goal of the  Android mobile application development department. You can visit them on http://www.multitechav.com. They already have very interesting apps ready to be deployed for Real Estate and Hospitality.

Aurus IT Solutions from India have developed something quite exciting for the denizens of pubs – Alcohol Stock Exchange. A fun app making waves in Mumbai, where lounge bar owners can transform their traditional transaction system into something never thought before.

As we all know some brands of alcohol have more demand than others. Alcohol Stock Exchange thus allows the concept of ‘dynamic pricing’. Prices increase as more customers order the same drink and decrease as the orders reduce. This creates a stock exchange environment with prices are calculated as per demand and supply!

Just like the real stock market, the Alcohol Stock exchange is designed to pull tetotallers, loyalists and people who just want to have fun into bars and lounges. Unlike every other bar and lounge which provides music and drink, this app goes a step further – each customer is guaranteed a unique experience. This brings in more revenue by bringing in customers at odd hours, allows increase in sales of alcohol of the bar owner’s choice, increases the pub’s brand value and brings in many more benefits.

Complete installation and deployment is available for the Gulf by Multitech AV LLC, Dubai. Custom iPad application development is also undertaken.

Worlds-largest-LED-screen-to-be-installed-in-Dubai

Spanning 33 floors out of a total 35 in this beautifully designed tower in Majan, Dubailand, boasts of being an architectural wonder. We are used to the ‘largest’ concept in edifices of UAE, although it was surprising that Dubai didn’t have screens larger than Times Square, Piccadilly Circus and Tokyo.

Tameer’s literature says,

An unprecedented application of innovative architecture.
Visible at a distance of 1.5 kilometers, the magnificent screen on the façade of Podium is designed by the L.E.D. technology experts who worked on the Argosy Casino in Illinois and the Grand Lisboa & surrounding skyline in China. This curved façade will be a powerful medium for advertising, messaging and art. Highly-reflective tinted glass will be utilized to achieve astounding visual quality, as the massive screen gives off an elegant bluish sapphire glow. Aluminum panels, mullions and canopies will frame the glass components in buffed natural aluminum.

Media agencies, brands and digital signage fraternity will naturally wonder – where is the project headed? Will the screen survive the scorching heat of the Dubailand desert? What are the chances it will reach the target ROI?

Nevertheless the project is an ambitious and once commissioned, it will add another jewel to the Dubai skyline. Best of luck Tameer.

The question is: how to increase the consumer engagement using digital signage? One of the best answers to this is: Interaction. We have to, for a moment  remove our marketing and technology hats and put on  ’consumer psychology headgear’. Wisconsin School of Business has published a whole chapter on Sensory Factors and Consumer Behavior.  Let me highlight some parts of the book which correlate with interactive display technologies.

Authors  Joann Peck of University of Wisconsin and Terry L. Childers University of Kentucky write that,

Our judgments about a store, its products, and even its personnel, are driven in part by the smells we encounter (our olfactory system), the things we hear (our auditory system), the objects we come into physical contact with (our tactile system), our taste experiences (the gustatory system), and what we see (the visual system).

So if screens are interactive, we not only capture the visual system but also the tactile system.

The sense of touch, or haptics (touch with the hands) has historically been the least studied sense in marketing. Perhaps the rise of online and catalog shopping, and an inability to physically examine products prior to purchase has spurred this area of research. The primary categories of touch and haptic research include the differences in product attributes that encourage touch, individual differences in the motivation to touch, and situational influences that encourage touch. Finally, one research study examined the interaction between vision and touch and the elongation bias.

What we can possibly deduce from this is that when a display is just put up in a retail environment, it acts as an aid to the overall marketing goals.  But to actually utilize a display , it may be made interactive. With a touch glass interface or gesture recognition and tailored content like interactive catalogs, consumers are likely to interact more and actually buy products since it is at the last instance of their purchase decision.

Another major area in need of future research is the need to move from a more “sense by sense”
perspective to investigations of the multi-sensory integration of sensory inputs. As Calvert, Spence,
and Stein (2004, p. xi) note, “here can be no doubt that our senses are designed to function in concert and that our brains are organized to use the information they derive from their various sensory channels cooperatively in order to enhance the probability that objects and event will be detected rapidly, identiifed correctly, and responded to appropriately” (emphasis added). Ernst, Bulthof , and Newell (2003; cited in Newell 2004) found that bimodal recognition was enhanced by 10% versus learning that occurred either visually or haptically.

Digital signage companies and integrators should convince their clients to incorporate touch overlays and gesture control. Multitech AV from Dubai is providing prospects and enthusiastic clients with innovative solutions in touch, gesture and all forms of interactive media. Many more companies are trying to promote such projects in the GCC.

Touchmagix technology available by Multitech AV from Dubai

Coming back to senses, I loved the conclusion of the chapter from the book:

IN CONCLUSION, TO MAKE A FULL TURN; IF IT TASTES,  SMELLS, SOUNDS, AND FEELS LIKE

A Duck,  then it Must Be A …. (Duck)”. “Perhaps,” would seem to be the best answer. Sensory stimuli can aid in our processing of information and sometimes can bias and mislead us in forming our impressions. This fascinating contradiction, however, makes the study of sensory factors in consumer behavior challenging and all the more rewarding as we further our investigations of how consumers make sense of their world.

____________________

Credits:

Wisconsin School of Business: http://research3.bus.wisc.edu/

http://www.cartoonstock.com/

There are 2 ways in which mediocre LED technologies can throw cold water on your project, especially in the Middle East:

1. Screens going dimmer each day

Screen on Abu Dhabi's Marks & Spencer at Airport Road has gone quite dim for the daylight usage

As years go by, the age of diodes reflects in their brightness. Luminosity decreases with age as far as LEDs are concerned.  If Japanese diodes are used, the screens can relatively sustain their brightness for longer. As UAE’s heat and intense humidity overpower all industrial capabilities of these electronic wonders, what is important to choose is which make is your screen’s diodes – Japanese or Chinese?

Another example of screens getting dimmer in Abu Dhabi:

There is no way out – dimming with age, that’s why no LED screen can guarantee more than 5-6 years. The good ones like D3 LED can surely run for many more years.

2. Parts of the screens going phut

You will invariably see LED billboards with portions of it showing distortion, pixelation, macroblocking and other phenomena. These generally result as a nightmare for the owner of these screens and a major disappointment for the advertisers.

Error in parts of the screen seen at the same screen in Abu Dhabi

The 5550 is an Ultra Thin Bezel Multi LCD; a breathtaking technology with Full HD and Ultra Narrow Bezel (5.5mm), the OLM-5550 will pioneer the multi-display market with seamless tiled display experience and vivid images. Being equipped with eco-friendly DIRECT LED BLU, the 55” FHD multi display consumes less power than conventional CCFL BLU model.

Some additional specifications are as follows:

• Luminance of White: 700 cd/m²
• Contrast Ratio: 3,500:1
• Number of pixels: 1920(H) x 1080(V)
• Input: DVI-D x 1, PC x 1, Video x 1, RS-232C x 1, LAN x 1, Service x 1
• Terminal Output: DVI-D x 1, PC x 1, Video x 1, RS-232C x 1
• Multivision: Yes (Daisy chain)
• Bezel (Seam Gap): 5.5 mm
• Max Multivision Layer (W x H): 10 x 10 (15×15 Option)
• Built in temperature sensor: Yes
• Built in light sensor: Optional
• OSD Languages:  English / Korean / Japanese / Spanish / Italian / German / French / Russian / Chinese
• Additional hardware (like TV tuner, ports): On request

The official distributor of the 5550 for GCC countries  is Multitech AV LLC from Dubai

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