HANOVER, Germany — The early-March CeBIT 2010 was a global meeting place for the world ITC community, attracting development, production and research firms and organizations from all the industrial regions of the world.
CeBIT was held in a 27-hall, 1-square-kilometer exhibition facility where essentially all sectors of information technology had at least some representation both in terms of exhibition surface and presence of top management at the booths. It was organized by broad IT-related themes (business IT, consumer electronics, Internet, etc.) so that digital signage and kiosk exhibitors were distributed in multiple halls. For exhibitors this also meant a different approach from specialized tradeshows. The absence of many major digital signage and kiosk industry players turned out to be an opportunity for smaller, mainly European firms that could showcase their products to a much wider, more diversely involved public without pressure from competitors.
Most importantly, at CeBIT2010 the entire chain of the digital signage-related industry was present, from U.S. chip makers to Asian hardware OEMs, from small- and medium-scale system integrators to major digital display producers and international research facilities addressing digital signage with innovative applications. For digital signage professionals there was the opportunity to tap into this wider perspective on the market and directly find the needed technology, infrastructure, distribution contact or research idea in person and in the correct IT perspective.
Hardware OEMs
New chips from U.S. manufacturers like Intel and AMD are turned by OEMs into new hardware implementations, later seeking adoption by system integrators. Hardware producers from countries like Taiwan and Korea see digital signage as a fast growing market opportunity, although their perspective is project-driven and not application specific. Their flexible manufacturing work comprised digital signage-compliant system boards for media players (Taiwan-based Unicorn), embedded computers for kiosks (South Korea-based TSL and taiwanese WinComm) and touchscreen add-on optical frames for the assembly of interactive displays (Beijing-based IRTouch).
Taiwan-based FEC produced a POS (point-of-sale) and a digital signage screen in a combined design. On the desktop front, Matrox, a Canadian graphic card manufacturer, presented the new M9188 Octal graphic board, able to display a single image subdivided in up to 8 screens with managed bezel, where pictures are virtually continued behind bezels. Matrox director of sales and marketing Jochen Kohl said that these products have direct application in digital signage although there is not a direct visibility of the sector from the perspective of hardware manufacturers.
System integrators
System integrators assemble OEM products and LCD panels, like those produced by LG or Samsung, in custom-design interactive displays and kiosks. Distributed throughout the fair there was a diverse ecosystem of firms based in different countries of Europe operating on mostly small-scale production and developing custom designs.
Italy-based Totem presented several designs including a glass-cover Venus model focusing on aesthetics. Portugal-based Q-Better showed an example of queue management software integrating a booking kiosk with a digital signage display. The Italy-based Elettronica e Automazione presented SMS-Show, an SMS-driven LED display, for showing digital signage in areas covered by only GSM mobile, such as developing countries. German eKiosk presented the Phex line of digital signage with dual (2 x 46") screen, while Megatex (another German manufacturer) showed the 50003-8F wall-sized LED digital signage screen. WebDT provided a U.S.-based presence, showing the SA3000 digital signage player integrated in a 47-inch screen with a New York tourist information application. WebDT also presented the Event Trigger Signage System. As adopted by in the United States by Verizon stores, it links a customer's interaction with a cell phone display model to the playback of a contextual video.
Recent technology and research
US-based Tyco Electronics presented the 42-inch 4200L LCD screen for interactive digital signage based on APR (Acoustic Pulse Recognition) technology that detected the touch of any object capable of emitting a sound on impact with the LCD surface. France-based Taztag presented a Hyundai-produced kiosk and kiosk-enabling technology (a custom add-on board and a portable device) for supporting NFC (Near Field Communication) interaction in a variety of application scenarios. On the stereo 3D front, German Visumotion presented 3D autostereoscopic screens for digital signage combined with a software solution for handling programmed 3D data playback. Research by German research Fraunhofer Institute resulted in the concept model Free2C_smart, an autostereoscopic 3D kiosk controlled by gesture and with improved picture quality thanks to eye-motion camera detectors. The Browser kiosk, developed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany, combined RFID object recognition in a medication-handling application for elderly people in futuristic home scenarios.
Digital signage and ITC
While specialized fairs may offer a more complete product showcase, the general ITC context shows digital signage and kiosks as an area of technological convergence, which could be found at multiple levels in the industry from different players. The picture emerging from CeBIT shows specialization of some OEM hardware producers, a variety of approaches adopted by system integrators, and a growing interest in innovation.
