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'Retro' digital signage goes analog [Video]

Digital signage goes backward to the future with a low-energy, medium-tech approach to connected signage.

May 29, 2014 by Christopher Hall — w, t

It's "the least-digital digital signage imaginable," and "a  super-smart concept for dumbed-down digital signage," according to Wired.

It's basically a digital signage version of analog signage, vaguely similar to the old alarm clocks that flipped over new numbers every minute and hour and an old-fashioned stock ticker, all mashed together.

London studio Berg has come up with a proof-of-concept signage solution it's calling Pixel Track, " a new kind of connected display," according to the company blog:

Pixel Track uses a system of mechanical pixels to make a display which reflects a particular kind of emerging networked use. While behaviour is driven by the network, the main display surface is a passive manufactured object, the pixels themselves containing no electrical components at all. The connectivity, electronics and the mechanics are all contained in a small train which moves up and down the main display surface changing pixels as it moves. This means the display has some unusual properties.

The display updates more slowly than most electronic displays, it doesn’t refresh the whole surface 25 times a second. It is dramatically cheaper since the main display surface can be manufactured with straightforward injection moulding techniques — all the complexity is in the train. There are also far fewer electrical drivers and circuits than a comparable LED dotmatrix.

The pixels are bi-stable, which means, like e-ink, it requires no power to maintain a message on its surface. Pixel Track only needs power when the message needs to change. This means, in situations where the message might only need to change say once an hour, that it is believable that the system runs on a battery for long periods.

Because the surface of the display is manufactured, it isn’t constrained materially by being a glass screen like and LCD display, or like LEDs. It’s aesthetically very flexible.

Berg co-founder Jack Shulze said peope have become accustomed to a wide variety of flexible signage solutions, including LCD-screen digital signage displays, which has "quite a lot of infrastructure needed to keep them up and working," and his company has "really been looking at alternatives to those systems," which has resulted in Pixel Track — produced in collaboration with the Future Cities Catapult ("a global centre of excellence on urban innovation") as part of research into data and public signage.

"One of the things I find most interesting and exciting about this display is just to think about all of the power that you get in representations of software systmes on smartphones and screens can now be brought really elegantly into physical spaces," Shulze said in a video about the design solution. "I'm curious to see what that brings."

Watch the Berg video about Pixel Track, below:

Photo taken from the Berg video on Vimeo.

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