Digital Signage

Digital Signage is among the quickest growing communication media, which enable brands to communicate directly to responsive captive audience at the point of sale. In-fact it is a revolutionary technique in advertising that will finally surpass conventional methods in the long run. Keeping the growing needs in mind, retail chains are translating the static advertising and brand messages into internal digital signage providing real time to prospective customers.

Interactive Digital Signage:

Suppose you are strolling with your friend in a mall. There is a digital signage displaying up some ad and someone is standing in-front of it. All of a sudden the digital signage alters its content that appeals to you, for instance an advertisement offering discount on an IPod. You at once, took out your cell phone, activate your blue tooth to make a connection to the display screen and copy it your phone.

Thereafter, you will be surprised to see how your cell navigates to the location where you can purchase it at discount rates. This is the recent trend in the digital signage where consumer profiling is carried out on the basis of customers’ interaction history and buying pattern.

Enhanced familiarity:

Since Digital Signage is designed by companies possessing several years of software experience and marginal retail store background, the software provided by them is cutting edge but lacks precise and targeted content. Therefore, business owners should verify the credentials of the digital signage firms who can provide remarkable copies along with state-of-the-art technology.

Point of sale:

Businesses are increasingly making efforts to build up digital signage software to sustain their presence in the transforming advertising world. The aim is to create state-of-the-art software that will attract massive number of prospective customers for no matter what products or information a firm you want to endorse.

Point of sale advertising is a great tool for retail market as 60% of purchase decisions are made by the consumers while they are in the shop. Therefore, it is imperative to adopt for a judiciously executed consumer centered digital signage. Brand recollection and enhanced sales easily comes with a digital signage solution.

Make sure you go for a digital signage solution firm who understand and meet your needs by delivering quality, value-added solutions.

Creating an LCD

A proper blend of following features makes LCD possible: Polarization of light, liquid crystals can broadcast and vary polarized light, the structure of liquid crystals can be altered with the help of electric current, transparent substances can conduct electricity.

To produce an LCD you need two pieces of polarized glass. A special polymer that forms microscopic grooves in the surface is rubbed on the side of the glass that does not posses the polarizing film on it. Add a coating of nematic liquid crystals to a filter. The grooves will bring the first layer of molecules bring into line, within the filter’s direction. Thereafter, adjoin the second piece of glass with polarizing film at an angle of 90 degree to the first piece. Every consecutive layer of TN molecules will slowly twist until the uppermost layer is at 90 degree angle to the bottom, corresponding to the polarized glass filters.

When the light strikes the first filter, it is polarized. The molecules present in every layer then direct the light they obtain to the subsequent layer. When light pass over the liquid crystal layers, the molecules alter the lights plane of vibration to suit their own angle. As the light reaches the far side of the liquid crystal substance, it vibrates at the similar angle as the absolute layer of the molecules. If the concluding layer matches with the second polarized glass filter, the light will definitely pass through it.

The State-of-the-Art in Display Technology

A display technology that uses rod-shaped molecules (liquid crystals) which flow like liquid and bend light. Unenergized, the crystals direct light through two polarizing filters, allowing a natural background color to show. When energized, they redirect the light to be absorbed in one of the polarizers, causing the dark appearance of crossed polarizers to show. The more the molecules are twisted, the better the contrast and viewing angle. There are three types of LSDs:

1. Transmissive LCDs

In transmissive construction, all of the light seen by the user comes through the LCD from the backlight. Most LCDs used in portable computers today are transmissive. A transmissive LCD looks good indoors and is typically completely black (unreadable) in direct sunlight. The reason is that sunlight is up to 1,000 times brighter than LCD's backlight, so the reflection of sunlight from the surface of the LCD overwhelms any light coming through the LCD.

Portable computer manufacturers such as Amrel, Intermec, Itronix, Microslate, Panasonic, Xplore and others all claim to have "daylight-readable transmissive LCDs" in their laptop or tablet products. Given the above, how do they do it? One of two basic ways: (a) increase the brightness of the backlight, or (b) modify the LCD to reduce the amount of ambient light that's reflected. See the sidebar on "Making Transmissive TFTs Work Outdoors" for more details.

2. Transflective LCDs

Transflective construction starts with a transmissive LCD and adds a partially reflective mirror layer between the LCD and the backlight. Depending on the LCD manufacturer, the mirror layer can be either a half-silvered mirror or a full mirror with tiny holes punched in it. When a transflective LCD is used indoors, it is illuminated by the backlight just like a transmissive LCD, except that the mirror layer blocks some of the light. When a transflective LCD is used outdoors, ambient light reflects off the mirror layer and illuminates the LCD. Note that outdoors, light has to go through the LCD twice, once on the way in and once on the way out. This tends to makes the outdoor performance of a transflective LCD not as good as the indoor performance, where the light only has to go through the LCD once.

The balance between outdoor and indoor performance can be adjusted during manufacture of the LCD by varying the reflectivity of the mirror layer. For example, the mirror layer might be set to reflect 60% and transmit 40% of the light.

This means that if the normal indoor brightness of the LCD is 130 nits, only 52 nits (40% of 130) is transmitted from the backlight through the mirror layer and the LCD. Outdoors, 60% of the light hitting the mirror layer is reflected, but since the light has to go through the LCD twice, the user actually sees less. A transflective LCD is therefore by definition a compromise. It can never be as bright as a transmissive LCD indoors, and it can never be as bright as a reflective LCD outdoors.

3. Reflective LCDs

A reflective LCD always has a fully reflective mirror layer. All light used to view the LCD, whether it's ambient light or from a frontlight, goes through the LCD, bounces off the mirror layer and goes through the LCD again. (See the sidebar on "Light Guides" for an explanation of how frontlights work.) Since the light still has to go through the LCD (and the frontlight) twice, even though the mirror reflectivity is 100%, the outdoor performance of a reflective TFT with frontlight is generally slightly worse than a transflective TFT (assuming that the same technology is used in both). Indoors, since a frontlight is not as efficient as a backlight, and the light still has to go through the LCD twice, the performance of a reflective TFT with frontlight is again slightly worse than a transflective TFT (once more assuming that the same technology is used in both). -

Based in Silicon Valley, Geoff Walker is a consultant with Walker Mobile. Geoff has worked on the engineering and marketing of pen computers since 1990 at GRiD Systems, Fujitsu Personal Systems (now Fujitsu PC) and Handspring.