Storefront.com uses HP TouchSmart PCs to demonstrate its own photo kiosk software.
(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET)LAS VEGAS--Yes, this is a camera show, but as the PCs reporter, I couldn't help but notice that Hewlett-Packard had a distinct presence outside its own booth here.
Several companies were using HP's touch-screen desktop PC, the TouchSmart, loaded with their own software to let PMA attendees try out photo-printing solutions, and retail store kiosk software.
Digilabs, which makes free software for printing photo books and calendars, was using the touch-screen desktop to demonstrate its software. DNP Photo also had TouchSmarts in its booth to show how its Tomo software works. Tomo lets users upload photos online at home and then print them at a retail location.
Also spied was Storefront.com, which had a half-dozen TouchSmarts available for use. Storefront.com makes software for retail store printing kiosks as well, and is hardware-neutral, according to a representative for the company. It's the first time Storefront.com has used the TouchSmart to demo its product, but the employee said they're likely to use it again since it's "relatively cheap" compared with commercial kiosks.
A Digilabs employee shows his company's software on the TouchSmart PC.
(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET)It's certainly not "relatively cheap" for a desktop PC. HP has heavily promoted the TouchSmart as a family PC, for use in rooms like the kitchen by suburban moms. Desktops in general are a dying form factor for PC makers, so maybe this consumer-oriented computer has a chance at a second career as a commercial PC.
(Credit:
Best Buy)
Electronics retailer Best Buy is picking up on the trend of installing vending machine-like kiosks in airports, in order to appeal to stressed travelers who left their cell phone charger at home or need a last-minute gift to appease cranky relatives.
Called Best Buy Express, the kiosks will show up at a total of 12 airports as part of a "pilot program." (Ha, ha.) They are already installed around Atlanta (ATL), Boston (BOS), Dallas (DFW), Houston (IAH), Las Vegas (LAS), Los Angeles (LAX), Minneapolis (MSP), and San Francisco (SFO). The rest of them are expected to be in place by September 1. Best Buy hasn't said which terminals they're located in or whether you need to get past security to access them, but has said that prices are "similar" to its own in-store ones.
For obvious reasons, you won't be able to get an HDTV at Best Buy Express kiosks. Products include media players, unlocked cell phones, digital cameras, portable gaming devices, plenty of chargers, flash drives and other storage, cell phone and computer accessories, headphones (important!), and Best Buy gift cards.
If a U.K.-based kiosk company has its way, weddings of the future will ditch the guestbooks and videographers and turn to event-goers to produce multimedia content. The Memorytube wedding kiosk lets friends and family line up to upload their pictures and record videos and type well wishes to a single device.
The Memorytube is an all-purpose, multimedia machine for weddings.
(Credit: Memorytube Kiosks Limited )Memorytube Kiosks' 5-foot-tall personalized device records guests' video messages with an in-unit camera, and allows attendees to type in a digital guestbook and have their pictures taken.
In addition, event-goers with a Bluetooth phone or a memory card-equipped camera can upload their pictures and videos to the machine. When all is said and done, the kiosk stores the information and the company will send the newlyweds a DVD with a compilation of the pictures, videos, and messages.
While the device seems to be aimed at a tech-savvy generation, perhaps other guests will revel in its old-fashioned-photobooth likeness. On the downside, if guests are too busy lining up for face time with a gadget, they may risk missing the most hilarious or romantic moments of the celebration.
The kiosks are currently only available in the U.K., for the equivalent of $586 per rental.
(Via Newlaunches.com)
An Evincii in-store search kiosk.
(Credit: Evincii)OK, so Google dominates the market for online search and accompanying advertisements. But what about people trying to find what they need in a store, not online?
A start-up called Evincii, which announced its technology this week, hopes to capitalize on the idea. It offers in-store computer kiosks that can help customers figure out what products to buy and where in a crowded aisle to find them.
The kiosks present choices to the customer, gradually refining search results and displaying ads of relevant products. The kiosks are installed in 135 Longs Drugs stores with the plan to expand to 200 by the end of the year. Major national retailers "will sign up soon," the company said.
Chief Executive Charlie Koo gives the example of a customer who wants to grapple with the unpleasantness of finding cold medicine. "There are 800 different products out there," he said. Exactly 13 of them deal just with cough and a fever. "I guarantee you that when you get through this process, every one of those 13 are the right ones," he said.
The kiosk directs people toward a product's shelf location.
(Credit: Evincii)Installing the kiosks is free to the stores. Evincii charges advertisers to show off their products--the kiosk screens can show videos as well as a full view of the box, including the fine print--and splits revenue with the retailers.
The company, newly emerged from stealth mode this week, was founded in 2005 and now has 21 employees. We'll see how well the business scales as the company spreads beyond the pharmacy area.
But it's an interesting idea. It's relatively easy to track how well ads tied to Web searches convert into sales leads or purchases for some big-ticket items sold over Web sites, but inexpensive consumer packaged goods are another matter. Who clicks on an online ad to buy beef jerky?
With consumer products, advertising techniques tend toward "impressions" from display ads that are designed to generate interest in a particular brand. It's hard to track the financial payback of impression-based advertisements, but retailers can more directly measure the value of their advertising with the Evincii approach.
Typhoon Touch is working its way down the tablet PC food chain.
After suing Dell and Motion Computing for allegedly infringing on two of its patents for portable computers with touch-screen technology, Typhoon, and licensing partner and co-plaintiff Nova Mobility Systems, said Tuesday they are targeting three more potential infringers: Xplore Technologies, Electrovaya, and Sand Dune Ventures, which makes tablet PCs under the brand TabletKiosk.
Typhoon Touch says the Sahara TufTab i310XT tablet PC is one of several PCs that violates two of its portable touch-screen patents.
(Credit: TabletKiosk)Typhoon specifically cites Xplore's iX104C series of tablet PCs, Electrovaya's Scribbler SC4000 tablet, and four of TabletKiosk's ruggedized tablets. Typhoon, a Seattle-based firm that creates and acquires patents, has only licensed its patents on portable touch-screen computers to Nova Mobility. The two companies have asked the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas for unspecified damages and an injunction on the sales of the computers Typhoon says are in violation of its patents.
A TabletKiosk representative said the company couldn't talk about the lawsuit, and neither Electrovaya nor Xplore could be reached for immediate comment.
The suit against Dell and its Latitude XT tablet PC is still ongoing, but Typhoon settled out of court with Motion Computing last month.
All the new offerings let you select images from almost any memory card, or a CD or DVD, and let you edit the photo to remove red-eye or fix things like brightness or saturation, preview your images in the cards, collages, or calendars, and you can even zoom in or out or change the picture's border that separates the photo from the rest of the theme. The kiosks print onto the same type of paper used in Kodak's printer docks, which means that the kiosks print using dye-sublimation printing, and yield tough water-resistant prints. In the case of the calendars, you'll likely want to use a sharpie, or other permanent marker to write on them, though when I tried a ball point pen on a sample I saw at the Digital Life trade show in New York today, it wrote fine and only smudged slightly when I slid my thumb over it.
According to Kodak the greeting cards will start out with themes based around the year-end holidays, though other holidays and themes will roll out over the next year. Of course, each retailer can choose what they want to offer to their customers, so the selection of themes and print sizes available in each store may vary. Retailers can choose from cards in sizes of 5x7 or 6x8 inches, collages in 5x7, 6x8, or 8x10 inches, and monthly calendars in 6x8 or 8x10 inches.
Wal-Mart stores are the first to get the new software, and many of their locations have already been upgraded. Kodak expects to complete the new software rollout over the next two months.
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