RealTime Shredding, developer of the first self-service shredding kiosk to help fight identity theft, has added business access codes to the kiosk's functions.
 
The new feature makes it easier than ever for retailers and corporations to incorporate the shredding kiosk into their standard operations and comply with HIPAA, FACTA, and Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, says Amanda Verrie, RealTime Shredding president. Companies and other organizations can assign and control up to 253 codes. By assigning codes to individual departments, divisions, offices, or other units, businesses can track usage or implement an internal chargeback system. Retailers, such as business and copy centers, can assign codes to individual business or consumer customers, making to routine shredding more convenient.
 
Additional features of the business access code function include:

• LED display indicating time used for each user;
• Ability to program shredding sessions of designated maximum length;
• Customizable usage reports citing date, user, location time of day, time used, and amount collected (for retail models). 

RealTime Shredding's kiosk gives users the ability to shred documents and other material they want to destroy quickly, simply, and securely. The company's industrial-quality Level 3 cross-cut shredder can destroy up to four pounds, or about 400 sheets of paper, in just two minutes, and also can shred cardboard, credit cards, paper clips, staples, CDs, DVDs, and floppy disks.
 
Business access codes spell good news for corporations and retailers alike, says Verrie, with the introduction of the codes and corresponding management reports setting "a new standard in shredding." Users can see their material being shredded in real time, create an audit trail, and produce management reports. "These qualities are critical to help businesses comply with HIPAA, FACTA, and Sarbanes-Oxley," she explains.
 
In addition, because the receptacle for the shredded material is located behind a locked window, users can see the material being shredded, but cannot dispose of it themselves. This feature, says Verrie, eliminates some of the problems that have arisen in recent corporate finance scandals. "It's no longer enough just to shred," she says. "Companies must take responsibility for ensuring the proper handling of the shredded material, and the RealTime Shredding kiosk can go a long way toward facilitating that level of responsibility." 

RealTime Shredding, Inc. (www.realtimeshredding.com), develops and markets the first self-service shredding kiosk designed specifically for consumers and businesses. RealTime Shredding kiosks provide a fast, convenient, inexpensive way to shred documents and other materials that must be destroyed. Based in Colorado Springs, the woman-owned and -operated company offers multiple kiosk models and options, with purchase, revenue-sharing, and lease plans available.
 
Contact: Amanda Verrie
RealTime Shredding, Inc.
719-488-3655

• Eden Prairie, Minn. - May 4
• Boston - May 9
• Patuxent River, Md. - May 11
• Dahlgren, Va. - May 23
• Arlington, Va. - May 24
• Los Angeles - June 14

• Air transportation/airports;
• General freight trucking/long-distance trucking;
• Line-haul railroads/Inter-modal freight;
• Mail/courier/parcel services;
• Third-party logistics (3PL);
• Transit and passenger transportation (i.e., buses, subways, ski lifts, toll roads); and
• Water transportation (i.e., ocean freight, port facilities, etc.).

According to VDC's recent end-user survey of transportation-related organizations, RFID is being investigated as a solution to improve efficiency, traceability and profitability. Surveyed transportation end users specifically cited the following benefits:

• Mandate compliance: Mandates for RFID are cascading throughout the value chain and compliance to those mandates is becoming a critical requirement for logistics service providers. Many are encountering more demand for RFID from their larger accounts due to customer mandates from Wal-Mart, the US DoD, and others;
• Real-time traceability: Couriers and 3rd-party logistics providers are experiencing increased pressure from their customers to provide real-time tracking and near 100% delivery accuracy; and
• Added functionality: New technologies such as thin-film, flexible batteries and printed electronics that enable increased power and range are expected to exert significant influence on both market and application development. In addition, through the convergence of RFID with sensors, solutions can enable the monitoring of 'sensitive' packages (i.e., temperature, shock, humidity) and the storage of additional value-add information on the packages or shipments.

A recent report from BCC research shows growth in self-service, which BCC analyst Francis Duffy predicts will more than double from $11.3 billion in 2005 to more than $24 billion by 2010. The report details growth in three self-service industries: kiosks, ATMs and vending machines. Though BCC will not release exact details from the report, which the company sells, SelfService.org editor Bryan Harris interviewed Duffy about his findings:

SSO: Of the total revenue growth of self-service until 2010, how much of it (by percentage) will be developed by ATMs and vending machines?

Duffy: Kiosk-specific technology will account for 6 percent of total global machine shipments and 3 percent of total global sales in 2010 in 2010. In dollar terms, that translates into kiosk segment sales of over $700 million in 2010 alone.

SSO: Can you tell me a little about your own background and interest in this field?

Duffy: I earned a B.A and M.A in English from Columbia and an M.B.A. in information systems from New York University . This is my 14^th major market research study to be published.

As an analyst, I have always been drawn to the subject of new retail technologies' profit potential. I researched and wrote six major studies on credit and debit cards, smart cards and ATMs in the late '80s and early '90s and then moved on to research and write another handful of major reports in the telecom field during its boom times.

There I made a lot of quick money and experienced what it felt like to know you were living on the outside of an ever expanding bubble and that its wall, against which you flatten yourself as you held on for deal life, was getting microscopically thinner by the hour. The whole episode also convinced me T.S Eliot was right: things end with a whimper not a bang.

SSO: Why did you study self-service?

Duffy: I perused the ATM field again in 2004, with an eye toward doing another study only to discover that in the years since I last looked into the subject that this entire new, related, but distinct technology market·the self-service kiosk·had established itself.

That discovery got me to thinking: almost 70 percent of the U.S economy is now service—related; what kinds of customer-facing technologies could capitalize the most on this shift in the long-term?

In reviewing the literature, I realized that the self-service field was the most technology-intensive in this respect. I was also struck by how the field was still conceived of largely as a set of different vertical markets and covered by the trade press and the analyst community as a bunch of silo industries. Given how each performed roughly the same function and how each was increasingly electronics- and computer-driven, I thought the time had come to base a study on these separate markets' commonalities, to take a more horizontal analytical perspective.

SSO: Why is the vending machine industry growing? Does it relate to automations like cashless vending?

Duffy: Cashless vending has helped to reinvigorate the vending industry's waning sales in the U.S. much as the introduction of the bill-accepting mechanisms in machines did in the 1980s. The cardinal rule of vending is: Make the entire purchase experience as easy and convenient for the customer as possible. Credit, debit and stored-value card payment options do exactly that; Bluetooth extends this principle even further.

Electronic transactions also appreciably lower operators' costs, so they are happy to oblige. The necessary computer networking of machines to support cashless vending yields additional operational dividends such as just-in-time restocking by route drivers and accurate and timely per-machine and per-site sales data.

In the developing world at least, and in the U.S. , the vending operator industry, outsourcing has shrunk its largest money-making market-segment, the manufacturing sector. Telecommuting, corporate downsizing and the increasing number of smaller, satellite office complexes aren't helping either.

The painful shakeout has led to a far greater degree of market concentration. Large service firms alone can leverage economies of scale on the one hand and negotiate bulk purchases on favorable terms from OEMs the other to eke out slim profit margins. Their best chance of improving these margins is to micromanage their operation on the individual machine level; thus the importance of computerizing their entire operations.

Sales projections in the press release, importantly, are for the world market. Real growth in vending will occur in the places the outsourced manufacturing and service jobs of the developed countries migrate to. Any profitable, multi-machine vending site has to have a sufficient semi-captive customer-base. My study looks in-detail at world markets as well as the U.S. 's and pinpoints the most likely candidates amongst developing countries.

SSO: What is the most important idea this research reveals?

Duffy: If I had to choose the single most important idea I came away from after a year and a half's worth of research and analysis, it would be the following two-part observations:

1) All self-service technologies are alike in that each is a purposely built device a person on his or her own can, for a fee, use at anytime and anyplace to obtain goods, services or information.

2) The underlying value proposition of any self-service technology is the proximity, autonomy, timeliness, and above all, the unparalleled convenience the device uniformly offers to the consumer.

  Evalue reveals MTP-1502, one of Trident Zevo series, a 15" touch screen panel PC which comes with wealth of features emphasizing ease of interaction and communication. Users can enjoy VOIP connection, Internet browsing and other exciting entertainments with great flexibility thanks to well-thought ergonomic design.

• Modular design 
• Easy expansion
• OEM/ODM
• 15.1" Touch Screen
• VOIP Telephony
• Internet Accessible
• SmartCard Security
• Entertainment Selector
• Optional Bluetooth or Wi-Fi
• IP65 compatible

About Evalue
Evalue positions itself as an innovative solution provider since its establishment in 2000. The company has successfully expanded its expertise from x86 platform into RISC-based hardware and software solutions. With over decade experience, Evalue provides a wide selection of products ranging from board level to system level products covering RISC computer, x86 based single board computer, ETX, motherboard, InnoFlex Panel PC, Box computer and more.

Evalue is a member of the Intel Communications Alliance (ICA), a community of developers and solution providers utilizing Intel technology in their product development and deployment. Members are committed to providing a strategic supply of standards-based solutions to the communications and embedded market segments. For more information, please visit: www.intel.com/go/ica.

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• Optimal stock levels based on real-time customer activity/demand;
• Reduction of out-of-stocks;
• Lower warehousing costs via automated processes and improved tracking efficiencies;

• The Adaptus Imaging Technology allows attendants to take a digital picture of an illegally parked vehicle, visually documenting the driver's infraction. As a result, the rate of payment on parking fines has increased and even encouraged faster payment.
• The ability to support multiple wireless communications options (Bluetooth  and 802.11b) allows attendants to connect to wireless peripherals and conduct real-time data transmission to host servers.

Methuen, Mass. — 3M Touch Systems, Inc. announces availability of the new MicroTouch CT150 15" LCD touch screen monitor specifically designed for self-service and industrial applications.

The CT150 touch monitor offers a unique feature set that addresses key design, integration and performance needs in these applications.

• Three unique bezel options.
• An array of designer-flexible mounting methods.
• Remote control on-screen-display adjustment module.
• Complete, rigid steel enclosure, allowing VESA mounting as a stand-alone display for industrial applications. FCC B, and CE certifications, and UL/cUL compliance, which can be helpful in accelerating the UL certification process for kiosk solutions.
• Full compliance to the European Union Directive on Restrictions on Hazardous Substances (RoHS).
• 3M's proven MicroTouch ClearTek II touch screen technology and MicroTouch EXII electronics platform. A 500:1 contrast ratio LCD display module that can be print-color matched, making it an ideal choice for photo kiosk applications.
• Accepts either AC or DC power, eliminating the need for power adapters inside enclosed solutions.
• 3-year display warranty and a full 5-year warranty on the touch screen.