For Immediate Release                   May 24, 2011

Electronic Art provides Interactive display for Cincinnati Public Library’s Riverfront Panorama of 1848

CINCINNATI — Electronic Art (www.ElectronicArt.com), a Cincinnati interactive agency specializing in touch-screen kiosks, digital signage, and integrated websites, announces their contribution to a new exhibit at the Cincinnati Library. Electronic Art has integrated two large-scale digital touch-screen displays into the Cincinnati Library’s much-anticipated exhibit showcasing the restored Cincinnati Riverfront Panorama of 1848 daguerreotype.

The daguerreotype consists of eight slides covering two miles of Cincinnati’s riverfront in 1848. Charles Fontayne and William Porter took the photographs on a rooftop in Newport, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. The daguerreotype, invented in 1839 as the first practical method of photography, captured images with a very high resolution.

Electronic Art installed two 52-inch flat-panel interactive touch-screens that will allow library visitors to view the images in high definition, and zoom in, much like on an iPad, to see the detail and clarity of the photographs. Visitors will also be able to touch certain areas on the screen to learn more about the photo, view life in mid-nineteenth century Cincinnati, and gain more insight into the city’s then developing neighborhoods.

“The Library has had this daguerreotype for a long period of time, and we knew we had to showcase it. The question was, how do we display it in a way that both protects it and also enables people to appreciate the historic value and relevance of this remarkable piece of Cincinnati history?” said Jason Buydos, Cincinnati Library Assistant Director of Support Services & Project Manager for the daguerreotype display. “That’s where Electronic Art came in. Together we came up with a flat touch-screen display that would allow visitors to tap on the screen to zoom in for a closer look and more information. I am very happy with the result.”

Electronic Art also contracted with Harlan Graphic Arts Services, who helped build the enclosure.

“We installed the enclosure around the daguerreotype and kiosk, and created the display graphics. It was definitely and honor and pleasure to work with such a priceless piece of Cincinnati history. Electronic Art and everybody at the library were great to work with. I am proud to be a part of it,” said Dave Johnson, Managing Director, Harlan Graphic Arts Services.

“We enjoyed the challenge of using a multi-touch interface on a grand scale to enable guests to interact with the art,” said Tim Burke, President of Electronic Art. “Our staff faced many challenges, such as working with large file sizes. We had to implement high-end machines with 12GB of memory, and determine a technique to allow the best interaction with the high-resolution images. A database enables staff to add points of interest in an overlay layer within the Adobe Flash-based application, which brings a rich educational component.”

More Information About the Daguerreotype

Conservators at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, New York , cleaned and stabilized the photos, digitized the images, and remounted them in their original antique frame. Along with being the first and most well-known daguerreotype to depict an American city, this photo is also one of the most famous in the history of the medium. It was displayed in the Crystal Palace at the first World’s Fair in London, and is widely considered to be the “Mona Lisa” of daguerreotypes. It contains the first photographic images of steamboats, a railroad station, and one of the country’s earliest astronomical observatories.

The Cincinnati Riverfront Panorama of 1848 is now on permanent display in the Joseph S. Stern, Jr. Cincinnati Room at the Library. For more information, visit www.cincinnatilibrary.org.

For more information about Electronic Art LLC, contact Tim Burke at (513) 321-1771 or visit www.ElectronicArt.com.

About Electronic Art

Electronic Art (www.ElectronicArt.com) is a Cincinnati-based interactive agency specializing in computer kiosks and digital signage, as well as many related online interactive services. Originally founded in 1998, Electronic Art began primarily as a Web studio, offering high-end custom programming, ecommerce, and design. Today, Electronic Art provides custom solutions for many industries via kiosks, digital signage, and website development.

###

Electronic Art has built and launched a new kiosk for the Cincinnati Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) that showcases their new Gold LEED certified office building in the Queensgate district of Cincinnati.  The kiosk provides interactive walk through of the various building components that make it unique and qualified for LEED status.  It also includes video of local officials, vendors, designers and MSD’s executive director discussing why this is important and the challenges of getting to this stage. The video also has a closed caption version.

MSD LEED kiosk

Electronic Art worked as a partner with Millimeter Creative agency here in Cincinnati who provided overall project management and design.  We’ve worked with the guys over there several times and they are great.  We’ve consulted with them on application architecture, design and have built their designs bringing the story to life. Then we help to integrate and deploy it to the touch-screen kiosk computers.

The kiosk tells the story of the building’s inception, why it is important and how it is just the beginning of government leading the way on new green architecture and urban planning.  A really good story.  The building is located at 1600 Gest St. in Queensgate and is their new Wastewater Engineering Center. If you get a chance you should stop by that area to check it out. It includes rooftop green gardens, solar panels, rainwater capture devices under the parking lot, locally accessed materials, natural daylighting and recycled materials.  As a gold certified LEED building it is truly efficient and well thought out.  We are happy to have a small role in helping to tell their story of green building methods and going for the gold!

For years we have offered hundreds of hardware options to our clients but have found it difficult to show everything we offer on our site. So we’ve been working in the background to build an online catalog that will enable us to fully showcase the different kiosk hardware and digital signage hardware components in our line card.
This includes everything from full kiosk enclosures, panel pc’s, LCD panels, mounts, stands and more. Everything from IBM & Samsung to Ergotron and Premier mounts.
So keep an eye out for our updates coming in the next few weeks. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, just ask… we probably sell it.

Well, its that time again when we pack up touch screen kiosks and LCD screens and rush to get our software apps ready to display at the upcoming www.KioskCom.com trade show in Las Vegas on April 14 & 15th 2010 at the Mandalay Bay resort and casino.  We’ve exhibited at this show for many years and  are happy to be a part of it all again.  This time we have a larger 10 x 20 booth and have one of our many hardware partners who have offered to share the booth with us.  The good folks at www.Zivelo.com are providing their kiosk hardware for the booth including the C10, C2, C6 and the NEW C5 model being built just for the show!  We resell all of their models and are always impressed with the quality of the craftsmanship.  We often partner with Zivelo and provide the software applications for many of their clients.  Come meet Ziver and Ross from Zivelo at our booth.

Also, you’ll see our www.Lobstr.net product that has been rebuilt with new CSS3 based programming and a new pricing model for local operation (no subscriptions!).  And a new kiosk application that offers SMS coupon and lead generation services to drive traffic to your store, along with many of our past projects for various fortune 1000 clients.

Some news, next year the show will have a new name and location.  Goodbye Las Vegas, hello San Francisco! And the new name focuses more on the customer and less on us vendors:  Customer Engagement Technology World which will be at www.CETWorld.com . I like the new direction and the guys at JD Events who put on the show are some really nice folks that do a great job!  We are looking forward to the new format next year. See the press release here.

Are you planning to come to the show or perhaps still on the fence?  Well, let me offer you a free pass into the Expo show floor so you can come visit us  and our peers in the industry.  We will be in booth #205 right across from our business partners at Samsung.  Use the discount code at checkout of:   2LV49F and you’ll get the $50 expo fee on us.   Stop by and see us!  Register at http://www.kioskcom.com/register.asp

I hope to have some good photos and interesting products to discuss after the show, and you can follow my tweets on Twitter during the show at:  http://www.twitter.com/KioskGuy

Do you have a comment?  Add your comment below and I’ll give you a special shout out at the show!

We recently completed a kiosk application for Kroger Personal Finance that will allow customers to learn, manage, and apply for several financial products including insurance, mortgage refinancing, and credit cards.

The kiosks are located in the New KPF Money Stores being added to many of the grocery chain stores, one kiosk will be public facing while another will be in office where a representative can help consumers with the offers.

The kiosks are currently in a pilot phase at the newly opened Kroger location in Norwood.  If you live in Cincinnati, stop by and check them out.

A few more images below

Read the rest of this entry »

While we’ve been selling, integrating and recommending Zebra printers in kiosks and self service solutions for years, we’ve finally joined their VAR partner program.  By partnering with Zebra we get access to many internal resources for marketing, support and new product development.

Kiosk Print Station shown as a grocery app.

We recently showcased the new Zebra Kiosk Print Station at our booth in KioskCom, Las Vegas 2009. It is an off the shelf printer enclosure for all in one kiosks or point of sale devices. The new product can be wall mounted or table top mounted to provide printing capabilities to your kiosk terminal in a very small footprint. Made by Zebra, who manufactures printers that are used in retail, POS, and many kiosks. We first saw the kiosk print station at the National Retail Federation show back in January (NRF in NYC) where Zebra was unveiling the new product.  I think this will be a big hit with applications such as gift registries, loyalty card programs, product locators and HR applications.  We have one at our office if you’d like to see one in person. And, those of you who subscribe to our E-Newsletter got a special promo price last month to kick it off!  Those of you who don’t subscribe should consider it to get monthly specials on hardware as well as brief information about recent projects and happenings at Electronic Art.

More details on the Zebra Kiosk Print Station are available in the kiosk section of our web site. And if you are looking for a kiosk enclosure that includes a printer, you know you’re in good hands with Zebra components!

The Kioskcom.com show last week was really good.  We were nervous going into it because of the economy.  We wondered if customers would come out to the show.  We were happy to see a great turn out by VP’s and decision makers with real projects in hand.  In years past you would see multiple team members from a brand attend, perhaps marketing folks, IT staff and VP’s.  Kind of a “design by committee” mentality. But this year, they seemed to not need to bring the whole committee out, just the decision makers, which all of the vendors appreciated.  We met with folks from Motorolla, Ikea, Target, Ceasars Palace, Delta, American Airlines and many more.

Our booth showcased the new Lobstr application on a 37″ touch screen, the new Zebra Kiosk Print Station with our “Hike & Bike” kiosk concept,  as well as our demo kiosk of various past customer implementations.  Our partners at 5Point also showcased Lobstr on their newest enclosure for Interactive Digital Signage (IDS) Platform, the Concierge.  Our app looked so cool on their 40″ screens that we are partnering with them to have this as our default hardware option for Lobstr. More to come on that soon.

Our booth chotsky was a full pack of Orbitz gum.  I figured it was better than most of the squeeze balls and pens given out by many vendors.  And also the obvious reason which is that I was tired of talking to people with bad breath.   Hmmm, I think Orbitz just found their next commercial idea!  Now if only I could brand the packaging with my company information it would have been perfect.

The educational break out sessions and tech talks were a big hit with attendees.  DT Research gave a session on “Interactive Digital Merchandising: Expanding brand and product impact and creating customer engagement.” which is a topic we can get behind.  Andrew Fischer did a great job in this session.   Another session was titled “Return on Message – Optimizing your digital signage network for success. ” which was giving by Keith Kelson who is the Chairman of the Content Best Practices committee of the Digital Signage Association along with Roger Sanford of the MediaTile company.  Return on Message (ROM) is the new buzzword in our industry and a methodology that  provides standards based processes to guide companies through complex variables that must be considered for a successful digital signage deployment.   This also showcased many of the best practices laid out by the association in the past years.

Speaking of the DSA (Digital Signage Association) of which I sit on the advisory board: we had our board meeting the night before the show at the M resort just south of the strip.  This new Casino / Hotel was only 62 days old and our board members were treated to a behind the scenes tour of the facility and the technology used by their VP of IT services.  I doubt I will ever get to see the NOC and security areas of another Casino in my lifetime, it was very interesting to see and learn about how they operate and how they use Digital Signage for both customer facing areas of the facility and also employee facing messages.  I appreciate the hospitality of the M Resort in Las Vegas.   During this meeting we did a review of several committees, discussed goals, events and recapped the past year’s success.  I am now the chairman of the PR & Marketing committee for the Digital Signage Association.   We have some good people on the committee already, so I’m excited about working with them to help promote the association, drive awareness and education, and help increase membership of the DSA.

As for new technology, there was a lot of the same hardware at the show that has been seen before.  I got a sneak peak at a new product from MicroVision which is a Pico Projector (ultra small projector) about the size of an Iphone.  Useful in our industry for some small digital signage applications for rear projection, etc.  However the brightness and resolution are the only current drawbacks I could see.  This may be addressed in the second and third generations of this unique laser projector called ShowWX.  See their site for a preview and watch for it to be launched later this year.  The projector is unique becuase of an ultra tiny red, blue & green laser that allows the image to be in focus at any distance.  It was really nice, but the first generation will likely be a consumer model.  They are interested in finding new products they could embed the engine into, such as a cell phone, or other device.

We enjoyed the opportunities to talk with many customers about their projects, hardware or software needs and to explain to them once again, that no… we are not THAT Electronic Arts company in California.   The “S” at the end of their name is short for dollar signs and no, our firm does not make games for the Playstation or Nintendo.   You have to love our name, but the similarities do make it confusing.  I’m pretty sure the lady at the Paris Casino was treating me really good because she thought that was our company when she saw my shirt.  For a free drink… I didn’t correct her.

We are pleased to announce that our partnership with Zebra technologies has provided us with an opportunity to play a part in their trade show give away of an Ipod Nano and Itunes cards at KioskCom to showcase the new Kiosk Print Station. Visit their booth and our booth (829) to win.  Details are as follows:

Zebra Kiosk Print Station

With reliable Zebra® kiosk printing solutions—together with the software and integration expertise of Zebra’s technology partners such as Electronic Art —you get the key to an effortless, complete kiosk solution.

See for yourself at the KioskCom Self Service Expo May 6th & 7th, 2009:
1) Visit Zebra’s booth #615 to pick up a “Key to a Kiosk Full Solution” passport card.
2) Visit five of Zebra’s featured partners and get your “passport” card validated at their booths.
3) Return to Zebra’s booth #615 with your completed passport and your business card to ENTER OUR DRAWING.
You could win one of five $25 gift cards…or an Apple® iPod® nano!

See contest rules at Zebra’s Booth #615.

Example of an Ipod Nano

It’s that time again, we are exhibiting at the KioskCom Self Service Expo in Las Vegas on May 6th & 7th, 2009. I think this is our 7th time exhibiting at the show which is in Vegas in the springtime and NYC in the fall. The show is packed with all of the vendors in the Kiosk and Digital Signage industry showing off their latest hardware, software, accessories and giving seminars and speeches. It’s a good show to attend to become familiar with the industry and what is available for your projects. Many of our vendors are there such as Zebra Printers, Site Kiosk, Scala, LG, Samsung and more.

We use the show to exhibit recent software apps and designs to show prospects the quality of work we can do and showcase new services or products. In this year’s booth we have a new digital signage way finding service targeted towards property managers, architects and developers called  Lobstr. This turnkey interactive office directory solution is a great way to attract new tenants, retain existing tenants, set your buildings apart from the competition and provide great service to your guests and visitors. A low cost enables the software and touch screen LCD panels to be installed quickly and easily. The booth demo will have a 37″ touch LCD mounted on a floor mount that enables you to rotate from landscape to portrait mode easily.

We are also showing the new Zebra Kiosk Print Station. The new product can be wall mounted or table top mounted to provide printing capabilities to your kiosk terminal in a very small footprint. Made by Zebra, who manufactures printers that are used in retail, POS, and many kiosks. As Zebra VAR partners we first saw the kiosk print station at the National Retail Federation show back in January (NRF in NYC).  I think this will be a big hit with applications such as gift registries, loyalty card programs, product locators and HR applications. Come see our booth #829 to see a demo. And, those of you who subscribe to our E-Newsletter get a special promo price this month to kick it off!

Also in our booth at the KioskCom tradeshow is the IBM AnyPlace kiosk showcasing some of our past kiosk applications from clients such as Verizon, Citrucel, Charbroil Grills, Os-Cal, BlackBerry and more. The IBM AnyPlace kiosk is a retail hardened all-in-one touch screen kiosk that has most of the features required for kiosk applications such as IR glass touch screen, Mag card reader, barcode scanner,  Wifi, built in precense sensor, stereo speakers, Express card slot for cellular broadband connectivity, and Windows XP embedded. The entire PC and screen are built in to one hardware component the size of a large laptop. This enables it to be wall , pole , desktop mounted or integrated into an enclosure. It truely can be mounted just about Any Place!  In the past we’ve combined it with various printers, mounted it on retail end-caps and even combined it with medical devices such as blood pressure cuffs, pedometers and weight scales to facilitate client needs. What can we do for you? Come see it at the KioskCom Self Service Expo.

If you are considering going to the show, post a comment below or let one of our staff know and we’ll be happy to send you free tickets good for free admission to the expo. The show management, JD Events, does a great job every year and we’ve seen the list of registered attendees. It should be another great show!

We have just deployed a customer loyalty kiosk for Central Market, a natural foods retail store by HEB grocer.  The kiosks allow their customers known as “foodies” to get rewarded for purchases they make and redeem the rewards for actual in-store credits known as “foodie cash”.  They can also enroll in the loyalty program or manage their account at the kiosks by swiping their loyalty cards.  The touch screen enabled kiosks are a result of Electronic Arts partnership with  AdPlex, a leading integrated marketing solutions provider who led the project.  Electronic Art provided the hardware and software to enable the total solution for the health conscious consumers.

Central Market has seven locations in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Plano, San Antonio and Southlake, Texas.  The Houston location is the first to receive the initial pilot kiosk units at it’s upscale location.