Digital Signage Universe – The Blog

Digital Signage at San Francisco's California Academy of Sciences Museum

On a recent trip to San Francisco I had the opportunity to visit the newly completed California Academy of Sciences. The California Academy of Sciences makes extensive use of digital signage and projection-based systems, and I thought I would share some images. 

The Academy is located in Golden Gate Park directly across from the new de Young museum. A beautiful location in the heart of San Francisco, the new museum is also the world’s greenest museum.

The building was designed by Renzo Piano, and it's absolutely beautiful. The 400,000 square foot structure houses an aquarium, a planetarium, a natural history museum and a 4-story rainforest all under one roof. It is also home to the Academy's education department that provides a wide range of student and teacher services, and an extensive science library with more than 20 million artifacts.

Part of Renzo Piano's design includes a "living roof" that recycles over 3.6 million gallons of storm water runoff per year and is covered by native California plants and wildflowers. The roof is bordered by a glass canopy containing nearly 60,000 photo voltaic cells which provides up to 10 percent of the Academy’s annual energy needs!  

If you have the opportunity to be in San Francisco I highly recommend a visit here, however you should also make reservations in advance, it's a popular place for visitors.

“It’s the wave of the future, and I’m very upbeat on the system.”

Retail Bar Code Scanning Marks 35th Anniversary 

In 1974 NCR Corporation first demonstrated its scanning system to an overflow crowd attending the Super Market Institute convention. Less than two months later, on June 26, 1974, history was made when a 10-pack of Wrigley’s chewing gum became the first product ever scanned in a retail store setting — with an NCR scanner in a checkout lane at a Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. Today, there is virtually no consumer product that cannot be scanned at the checkout in a retail store.

NCR and Marsh quickly made headlines in newspapers and trade publications in the United States, Canada and other countries.

“It’s the wave of the future, and I’m very upbeat on the system.” These were the words almost 35 years ago of Virginia Knauer, special assistant for consumer affairs to the President of the United States, when asked about the Universal Product Code (UPC) and the growing interest in retail bar code scanning.

Indeed, the new system helped revolutionize the world of retailing. Bar code scanning at the point of service soon brought faster checkout for shoppers and gave retailers more information and control over inventory and other areas of store operations. But the revolution didn’t stop there.

“That first transaction on an NCR bar code scanner launched a transformation that is still being felt throughout the world of retailing,” said Mike Webster, NCR vice president and general manager, Retail and Hospitality. “It’s a world where NCR has helped make shopping easier and faster for consumers with a stream of innovative solutions that we intend to drive well into the future.”

Today barcodes and QR Codes can interface with digital signage technology bridging the gap between the digital and physical world and offering a more rewarding consumer shopping experience.

A Bright Idea

An interesting concept caught our eye. Popupspace.com is a new UK-based Web site that has launched to map vacant retail space across the United Kingdom. The site provides real estate agents and landlords the ability to list their properties in a database for those interested in utilizing the vacant space for "pop-up" store concepts.

This is a great idea that has applications in the United States. Considering the vast number of vacant storefronts in metropolitan areas like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, a similar concept would work well here. According to a New York Times Article on May 11, 2009 "As Storefronts Become Vacant, Ads Arrive." The retail vacancy rate in New York City rose to 11.2 percent in the first quarter of 2009, the highest it has been since the early 1990s, according to CBRE Econometric Advisors, a unit of the CB Richard Ellis Group.

Going beyond pop-up concept stores this would work well for digital signage advertising. An active database that mapped traffic patterns and demographics could be an excellent tool for media buyers looking to take their client's campaigns down to street level. Companies such as Inwindow Outdoor, WindowGain, Motomedia, and MonsterMedia have proven that projected storefront advertising is effective. Now all that's needed is someone to tie the vacant space together with advertisers in a single marketplace. Even when the economy eventually recovers, the need for landlords to utilize the storefronts on a temporary basis will still be there. This could be a winning concept for anyone willing to take this on, we would, but we're just too busy. :-)