Think shopping malls. Picture, in a mall's center court, a ganged collection of large-screen, thin-walled, plasma-television sets -- high-tech multimedia -- displaying dynamic films incorporating both entertainment and advertising. See Christina Aguilera, tree-top high, dancing and flashing her bare navel across a dozen linked screens. See hyperactive, Rubik's-cube-type commercials -- Gap, Structure, Banana Republic, Old Navy -- hopping from screen to screen and back again. Hear the music. Hear it loud. Think of the Pied Piper: "From street to street he piped advancing, and step by step they followed dancing."
In case you haven't noticed, the technological world is turning faster than a hounded rabbit and, some days, the best you can do is take shelter in the briar patch while new technologies fly by. One example is the on-again/off-again debate contrasting polymer-based, ultraviolet (UV)-cured ink, inkjet printers against the "safe," solvent-based inkjet printers.
UV-curable inks, unlike water- or solvent-based inks, don't dry through evaporation or absorption. They convert to a solid state through polymerization, a chemical process that begins when the machine exposes the ink to mercury-vapor, ultraviolet (UV) lamps.
Once exposed, the ink's light-activated catalysts trigger, and essentially transform and bind, the ink's pigments and additives. This converts the ink into a solid coating that bonds with the media. Certain necessary health safeguards exist, but the UV-cured process turns out color-stable inks, opacity, scuff- and chemical-resistance and, some say, sharper prints than other inkjet printers.
British systems developer Inca Digital Printers Ltd. (Cambridge, U.K.), you might recall, offers its UV-curable, Eagle 44, wide-format, flatbed, digital inkjet printer. It's a sizeable machine. Zünd (Racine, WI), Durst (Hillsboro, OR) and L&P Digital Technologies (Jacksonville Beach, FL) also produce UV-cured digital printers. Inca is a spin off from Cambridge Consultants Limited (CCL), a European division of Arthur D. Little Consulting (Cambridge, MA).
Because UV curing is the science of liquid plastic metamorphosed into a solid, such as clay into tile, the inks and machines are pricier than the average solvent-based inkjet. But, as the UV-based manufacturers refine their processes, you may some day find them touching gloves with the solvent-based, digital-sign-printing machines, especially in a production environment.
For a closer look at solvent-based digital printing, read Chris and Kathi Morrison's review on page 82, in this issue.
Don't get up yet. If you're curious, expect to complicate matters even more by finding other new and unconventional technological advances for signmakers. For example, just as I believe that e-mail-equipped telephones are the essence of cool, some mastermind loads a global positioning system (GPS) into the mix.
GPS in a telephone?
Sure. With it, you can tell where your installers really are when they call the shop.
There's more, and it has the capacity to snowball into the sign industry. Begin by knowing that the developers of the Cellocate™ phone/GPS system say they designed their GPS phone to automatically locate cellular 911 callers, so emergency service people can locate accidents or emergencies when an address isn't available. It's a great idea and a lifesaver, but not the real reason. Think about it.
Money is the real reason. With GPS-equipped phones sporting color liquid crystal displays (LCDs), national marketers can program in-phone, full-color display ads by location. Meaning, your cellular LCD screen may soon flash Tony Lama boot ads when you're dialing from Tucson.
Here's more of the snowball. Some oil companies use similar technology as point-of-purchase (P-O-P) signage on gasoline pumps. Planar Systems (Beaverton, OR) makes LCDs for this purpose. Its pump-mounted, Web-based, full-color LCD screens show film bits of news and weather, but mostly, the film displays happy actors enjoying hot coffee and Dunkin donuts inside the store. It's visual enticement, the American Zen, and they're inviting you to walk right in.
Planar is an international company that develops and markets high-performance, information-display systems, especially flat panel displays (FPDs). In 1997, it bought Standish Industries (Lake Mills, WI), a company then known for its development of electroluminescent (EL) displays and gasoline-pump-mounted LCD displays. Planar's LCD systems attach to any pump. They also present ads from local advertisers, a Shell service station pump offering a McDonald's double-fries discount, for example.
Planar says there are more than a million gas pumps available for these systems in the United States.
FPD technology, as it's described in the industry, is primarily used by the cell-phone, palm-top and computer industries. Signage -- and don't overlook linked, digital wayfinding systems -- was explored only when new developments increased the size, sharpness and color spectrums, and thus the utility, of these systems. The truth is, various small display systems are growing up to be animated "signs," and, because of this, some signmakers may have to learn a new technology.
You can begin here and in this issue's "Digital Sign Technology" column on page 62. There, ST writer Sean O'Leary discusses several facets of this new technology. Labeling it "dynamic signage," Sean explains the technology as the controlled distribution of electronic images to various, public-space, television-type receivers.
In the January 24 issue of Business Wire, CAP Ventures (Norwell, MA) director Norman McLeod, asserted "...networked digital displays and in-store TV [narrowcasting] is the most important new medium for visual merchandising and point-of-purchase advertising."
CAP uses the term "narrowcasting" to describe over-the-air, in-store or in-mall television programming, but, because we're seeing a cafeteria collection of "micro-electronic" technologies evolve -- many of which may grow into Web- or computer-based sign media -- it may be too early to apply labels other than those created by the developers.
For the record, "narrowcasting" is a standard telecommunications industry word. It's the opposite of broadcasting. The term describes regulated radio or television transmissions dispatched to established receivers. A school will narrowcast films within its set of buildings; universities will narrowcast lessons across a campus.
But narrowcasting isn't limited to intimate geography. It's limited to tuned receivers. For example, the University of Southern Denmark's i3labTV station narrowcasts information to IT researchers across Europe, and future uses of this technology may expand public-television programming with special-interest shows -- military, politics and sports, for example -- narrowcast off CNN-type news channels.
In addition to narrowcasting, and because it's so critical to the systems, it's important to understand FPD's method of operation. The two most common displays are liquid crystal and plasma. There's more, but that's not to be learned today. You may hear or know of others -- organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), microdisplays, projectors, flat cathode-ray tubes, electroluminescence and more. Dupont, Sanyo, Kodak and Pioneer are working on OLEDs, by the way, and the estimated market size for this technology is $1.6 billion by 2007.
Plasma displays, because they're bigger and brighter, dominate the public-display field, especially in narrowcast or Web-based television systems. In operation, plasma displays contain an energized gas trapped between glass matrices, and these emit light when the system's image amplifier sends signals into the matrix. Full-color plasma screens contain phosphors that function similarly to those found in cathode-ray tubes and neon, that is, they excite and glow when struck by charged electrons.
You'll find the lighter, and less power hungry, passive matrix LCDs (PMLCDs) in notebook computers, palm-tops, cell phones and, of course, digital clocks and watches. And usually, you'll find the newer, active matrix LCDs (AMLCDs) models installed in computer and television systems. Both types contain a liquid crystal that blocks, passes or dims light; both also require backlighting, which is a constraint.
If you have time, take apart an old LCD watch or clock and you'll find a gray liquid thinly sandwiched between two glass plates. You may see parallel sets of vertical and horizontal electrical lines etched onto the plates. Each line intersection is a pixel. On AMLCDs, the line voltage determines the pixel's color.
AMLCDs also differ in that each intersection uses an electronic switch, and this quickens the image conversion time. AMLCDs also contain filters to enhance colors, which is why these units are the first choice for lightweight computer and television screens.
Finally, there's cathode-ray tube (CRT) television. You'll want to
remember that CRT comes in standard and thin categories. The standard
technology is your familiar home television set, where you watch
Junk Yard Wars; the thin CRT is the same thing, basically, but
only after six weeks on Dr. Atkins' no-carb diet.
