Summer in the City

These are heady times in the world of electronic displays. Technological breakthroughs have put moving messages in unforeseen places. At April’s ISA Sign Expo ’99, we saw full-color LED boards with startling outdoor resolution. Inside, we were mesmerized by new, cylindrical displays composed of rotating LEDs. Hiking the streets of Las Vegas until our feet ached, we saw every conceivable type of electronic-sign product. But when we returned to Cincinnati, we discovered that the biggest news was unfolding in a Massachusetts department store. Immediate impact The capabilities of an electronic sign in the form of a paper-thin poster? That’s what E Ink Corp. (Cambridge, MA) delivered in early May when the company unveiled its first Immedia™ electronic-ink sign at the J.C. Penney store in Marlborough, MA. Suspended from the ceiling of Penney’s Simply for Sports" department, the 4-by-6-foot p-o-p display seems innocuous at first glance. Then, you notice that the message on its top half updates automatically. You also notice that the text is bright, clear and legible from every conceivable viewing angle. Taking a closer look, you find an unpretentious, 3-millimeter-thick, 8.7-pound poster with no wires, bulbs, LEDs or other conventional components. You’re face-to-face with the herald of a new era in signage and printing. Placed under a microscope, a surface printed with electronic ink reveals thousands of microcapsules, each one approximately 100 microns wide (the period at the end of this sentence could contain more than 30). Each microcapsule can be independently switched between two states (for example, blue or white) to form the sign’s message. These tiny capsules are independently controlled via a microelectronic addressing matrix that is simultaneously printed onto the substrate when the e-ink is applied. Although e-ink products are still in their developmental infancy, the displays’ characteristics make them suitable for most conventional electronic-sign applications. For example, an e-ink display’s resolution is excellent, even in direct sunlight. As a flexible medium, e-ink can be applied to any surface, including garments and banner materials. This capability raises the outlandish prospects of roll-up, moving-message banners and electronic T-shirts. Power consumption is minimal compared to other technologies. Like electromechanical "flipper" displays, Immedia signs require no additional power input to maintain their messages. Only a small amount of power is required to update messages. Additionally, the manufacturing process for these displays is considerably simpler and less costly than those required for other types of electronic signs. Despite the product’s significant implications for the electronic-sign market, E Ink Corp. is still gearing up for production. By the end of this year, the company expects to produce the displays in bulk quantities. In time, E Ink’s researchers hope to move beyond two-color, textual displays, eventually producing full-color displays with video capability. Currently, e-ink displays can change color as rapidly as ten times per second. That’s quick enough for animations, but well below the threshold rate for video feeds. Pricing, of course, will have a major impact on how quickly e-ink products proliferate in commercial applications. Cutting-edge products are frequently accompanied by "sticker shock" prices. According to E Ink Corp., however, preliminary unit pricing for Immedia displays ranges from $500 to $5,000, depending on the size and quantity of signs ordered. This expansive "ballpark range" reflects the fact that the displays are not currently being sold in mass quantities. Furthermore, it’s premature to predict the costs of larger-format signs that might eventually serve purposes similar to conventional electronic signs. But the J.C. Penney product launch demonstrates how rapidly events are moving, and ST will continue to monitor the progress of this fascinating and promising technology. Spinning LEDs At April’s ISA Sign Expo ’99, DynaScan Technology Corp. (Taiwan) introduced a new, round LED display that shows three identical, full-color images in a 360-degree panorama. After learning that the displays consist of spinning LEDs, I asked the exhibitor to stop the merry-go-round long enough for a closer look. The display’s "drum" incorporates a series of vertical bars, each one containing several LEDs of a specific color. The controlling software operates the LEDs as they spin to create full-color images. The displays are designed for lobby areas, shopping malls and other locations with heavy pedestrian traffic. Technology update In April, Clarity Visual Systems, Inc. (Wilsonville, OR) introduced its new line of VideoBanner® displays designed for retail, restaurant and public-information signage. The 24-by-30-inch, rear-projection, liquid-crystal diode (LCD) display modules are compact enough to be used as substitutes for p-o-p posters, but can also be combined to form larger-format displays such as restaurant menu-boards. The company successfully tested the product in several pilot locations for 18 months prior to its introduction. White LEDs are the latest craze in optoelectronics. Hewlett-Packard Co. (Palo Alto, CA) recently introduced white-light LEDs designed for electronic signs and signals, small-area illumination, legend backlighting and indicators. This development means that LEDs will no longer be excluded from white-light applications. According to Dave Evans, H-P’s technical marketing engineer, "The goal of the semiconductor industry is to go from indicator technology to illumination technology." Nichia Chemical Industries, Ltd. (Tokushima, Japan) originally developed white LEDs in 1996 by coating a blue LED chip with a photoactive phosphor. Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas (Camas, WA) introduced its first single-chip white LED at the ISA Sign Expo ’99 in Las Vegas. On May 18, 1999, Cree Research Inc. (Durham, NC) introduced a new line of high-performance blue and green LEDs for electronic signs and other applications. The semiconductor chips in the new diodes are composed of indium gallium nitride (InGaN) materials grown on Cree’s proprietary silicon carbide (SiC) substrate. These new LEDs are available in two blue varieties (450nm and 470nm) and two green varieties (505nm and 525nm). According to Cree, the new diodes are 300 percent brighter than their previous blue and green LEDs. The company has also developed a white LED product. SI Diamond Technology, Inc. (Austin, TX) announced in May that its subsidiary, Electronic Billboard Technology Inc., EBT (Austin, TX), has completed the first outdoor-visible VERSAtile™ electronic billboard product designed for the outdoor advertising industry. According to EBT, this product incorporates more than 20,000 pixels generating 16.7 million colors with a brightness of 6,000 nits (candelas per square meter). The City of San Jose, CA, recently replaced its old, incandescent-type traffic signals with new signals that incorporate LED clusters. The LED signals are brighter and last longer with substantially less maintenance than conventional signals. Integrated Systems Engineering, ISE (Logan, UT) broke ground on April 19 for a new 55,000-square-foot manufacturing plant and business office in Logan’s City Business Park. ISE is a division of Trans-Lux, a company that manufactures, distributes and services electronic signs and displays. The interactive millennium In 1912, sociologist Edward Ross responded to the advent of large-scale, outdoor billboards by inquiring, "Why should a man be allowed to violently seize and wrench my attention every time I step out of doors, to flash his wares into my brain with a sign?" Influential ad-man and promoter Elbert Hubbard had expressed an opposing view in 1911. According to Hubbard, "The man who does not advertise is a dead one, whether he knows it or not." Although Hubbard’s own fate was sealed in 1915 when he booked passage on the ill-fated Lusitania, his disciples are clearly ascendant as we prepare to enter the 21st century. Research and development in various fields of display technology allows electronic signs to communicate as never before. A strong moving-message market has developed, because advertisers realize they possess the tools to present Marshall McLuhan’s "three minutes of vaudeville" virtually anywhere in less than 30 seconds. But this experience isn’t exactly the violent "seize and wrench" decried by Ross in the pre-TV days. For better or worse, it’s a sensation that contemporary man finds familiar and amusing. The interactive effect, however, is far more commanding than Ross imagined in the days when he pilloried painted billboards hawking Mrs. Scruber’s Tooth Powder. According to McLuhan, "The mosaic form of the TV image demands participation and involvement in depth of the whole being." But your dad would simply say, "You guys are hooked on the idiot box." In a nutshell, that’s why electronic signs represent incomparable marketing tools.