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News Archive |
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Friday, 30 November 2007
Hemscott: Multifunctional retail kiosks maker Felix Group PLC said it has begun a detailed review of the viability of the group's business model. The company said the results of its initiatives, including placing trial kiosks with High Street retailers to evaluate the commercial returns and adding applications to the portfolio of Max Boxes with the aim of achieving a near term break-even position at kiosk contribution level, have been disappointing, particularly when the cost and time of providing central support and marketing are taken into account.
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Friday, 30 November 2007
The Charlotte Examiner: Brothers Mark and Michael Ionescu have developed GPS-based software for touchscreen kiosks that help people access information on restaurants, events and shopping in Baltimore City and Baltimore County. The kiosks, which prints directions for free, are located at three downtown hotels · the Tremont Plaza, the Sheraton Inner Harbor and the Holiday Inn Express · as well as the Maryland Science Center and the Baltimore National Aquarium.
Thursday, 29 November 2007
AME Info: MxN Middle East has announced that it has just completed the supply of self-service kiosks to General Motors Middle East. The devices were launched at the ninth Middle East International Motorshow held in Dubai recently. The kiosks featured a survey that once completed would provide the customer with an opportunity to win a free car of their choice.
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Wednesday, 16 August 2006
BURNABY, British Columbia · TIO Networks Corp., a leading automated bill payment and financial services network, announced that it has achieved full compliance to PCI DSS, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, developed to protect sensitive cardholder information and prevent credit card fraud.
PCI DSS was developed globally to ensure merchants and service providers adopt best practices to enhance their payment account security. It was developed in 2004 by the card association, which includes American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa International.
Being PCI compliant assures that TIO's bill payment and financial services products and solutions are protected by the industry's highest security standards.
"We understand the significance of the relationship between commerce and security and as such have invested heavily to ensure we execute and manage our enterprise in accordance with this leading standard," said Hamed Shahbazi, CEO of TIO Networks Corp.
Wednesday, 28 November 2007
LOUISVILLE, Ky. · The (Gulfport, Miss.) Sun Herald reported earlier today that Triton Systems had laid off an undisclosed number of workers on Tuesday. Most, the Sun Herald reported, had been employed at the company's headquarters and manufacturing plant in Long Beach, Miss.
Human-resources director Brian Goff told the newspaper that the layoffs were part of a restructuring · the company's first in about eight years. Without giving exact numbers, he said the cuts affected less than one-third of the staff, and that the cutbacks were needed to help Triton focus on its core business in North America.
"Rather than chase business in other markets, we're going to focus on North America, the market that built this company," Goff was quoted as saying.
Triton repsonded with a statement, saying it "has implemented a plan to reposition itself for success by focusing on enhancing product offerings in our core financial and retail markets, domestically and in key international regions."
As part of that restructuring plan, Triton says it has consolidated its customer-service activities, including whole-unit and spare-part ordering to its corporate headquarters in Long Beach. Parts distribution, repairs, and training will continue to operate out of Memphis, Tenn.
"We believe the restructuring will allow us to have greater flexibility to work with our customers as we position ourselves for continued profitable growth in this highly competitive marketplace," said Triton president Brian Kett. "The steps we are taking to reposition Triton will insure that this remains our No. 1 priority."
Before Tuesday's layoffs, Triton had about 500 employees, some of them in Canada, Europe and Memphis, the Sun Herald reported.
Wednesday, 28 November 2007
Let's Go Digital: MOD Systems has announced the MOD Systems Consumer Kiosk, or MOD POD, has been selected as an honoree at the CES Innovations 2008 Design and Engineering Awards in the Computer Hardware category. The MOD POD is the first honoree product to be used in retail by consumers who want to search, sample and download digital media content.
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Wednesday, 28 November 2007
American Enterprise Institute: One of the issues left hanging as Congress is off on recess is the Holt bill to require voter-verifiable paper trails on all voting machines. The bill remains mired in controversy, in part because of the opposition of sizable numbers of election officials who, after having sunk a bundle of money into touchscreen machines after the passage of the Help America Vote Act, are not inclined to change (and are also worried about deadlines and technical glitches). What to do? Frankly, we can't count on Congress to solve the problems, at least in the foreseeable future. We need a patriotic intervention by Steve Jobs and his talented team at Apple, the geniuses who created intuitive, user-friendly, reliable and elegant successes like the iMac, the iPod and the iPhone, or by Eric Schmidt and his brilliant team at Google.
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Wednesday, 28 November 2007
Aviation Week: Hot trends in airport design include an increase in self-service kiosks, more concessions to deal with longer dwell times and better uses of security space, said Thomas Rossbach, associate vice president and aviation market sector director for HNTB Architecture.
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Tuesday, 27 November 2007
icSouthLondon.co.uk: The Camberwell Sexual Health Center at King's College Hospital is a pilot project, aimed at making the treatment of sexually transmitted infections easier for patients. The center hopes to banish long queues because people will decide for themselves whether they need a formal consultation, guided by touchscreen information points. There also will be a self-service kiosk where people can get free condoms, pregnancy testing and sexual health screening kits without the need to see a healthcare professional.
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Tuesday, 27 November 2007
BURNABY, British Columbia · TIO Networks Corp. has announced that it has signed an agreement with IPP of America, a provider of electronic bill payment services operating a large network of independent walk-in payment centers, to process TIO bill payments at more than 4,500 IPP of America's locations in 41 states across the United States.
This agreement is the first for TIO's new "OEM Express" distribution model that allows large networks to plug into TIO's new transactional Application Programming Interface and add a number of TIO's authorized bill payment products to their agent networks on an approved basis. Customers who pay bills processed at IPP locations pay a convenience fee that is shared between TIO, IPP and its agents. This new processing capability will increase TIO's front-end distribution network with little additional capital expenditures.
"We are actively seeking out new opportunities to integrate our services on additional networks to rapidly increase our footprint across America," said Hamed Shahbazi, CEO of TIO Networks.
Monday, 26 November 2007
OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. · Redbox, the fully automated DVD rental system featuring new release rentals for $1 per night, now features more U.S. retail locations than Blockbuster Inc. Launching 12 prototype locations in 2002, redbox recently installed its 6,000th fully automated kiosk · surpassing Blockbuster in the number of rental locations nationwide.
"Customers continue to embrace the redbox service, and our proven technology and production timeline have allowed us to expand rapidly in the competitive home entertainment industry,"� said Gregg Kaplan, chief executive officer of redbox. "We expect this growth to continue at a rapid pace through 2007 and beyond as redbox expands its leadership position and becomes a household name in communities nationwide."
Redbox now is available in 46 states and expects to be operational in every state in the continental U.S. by the end of 2007.
Redbox kiosks are available at select McDonald's restaurants, grocery stores and other retailers nationwide. In November 2007, redbox will install more than 400 new locations in markets including Baltimore; Dallas; Dayton, Ohio; Las Vegas; Little Rock, Ark. and Roanoke, Va.
Monday, 26 November 2007
The (Boulder, Colo.) Daily Camera: The installation of a new kiosk parking system in Boulder has meant drastically fewer parking tickets for downtown visitors, but city officials say it's too early to know whether that trend will continue.
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Monday, 26 November 2007
Los Angeles Times: Blockbuster Inc. has begun testing movie rental kiosks at Papa John's pizza outlets and Family Dollar stores. Movies at the kiosks will be available for $1, substantially less than the cost for rentals at regular Blockbuster stores. The Blockbuster Express kiosks, which are about the size of a vending machine and hold 250 movies, are in three Papa John's International Inc. locations and seven Family Dollar Stores Inc. outlets in the Lexington, Ky., area, said Karen Raskopf, a spokeswoman for Blockbuster. The kiosks may help Blockbuster fend off DVDPlay Inc. and Redbox Automated Retail, jointly owned by McDonald's Corp. and Coinstar Inc. The two companies have lured customers from Blockbuster movie-rental stores by offering $1 DVD rentals at supermarkets, drugstores and McDonald's restaurants.
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Wednesday, 21 November 2007
ST. PAUL, Minn. · 3M Touch Systems Inc. has announced that its MicroTouch DST touchscreens will be available Jan. 1, 2008. MicroTouch DST touchscreens will be offered for select authorized NEC Integrators in North America in 32-, 40- and 46-inch screen sizes.
Based on 3M's patented Dispersive Signal Technology, MicroTouch DST touchscreens offer display integrators that are an ideal solution for large-format interactive applications that require fast, accurate, reliable touch response. Other features include operation unaffected by surface contaminants and "dynamic touch," which ignores static objects on the screen and allows for multi-user touch capabilities.
"DST touchscreens offer important ease-of-integration features not available from comparable touch technologies, such as no front surface components to impede bezel integration, easily sealable, and chemically-strengthened glass," said Chris Tsourides, 3M Touch Systems' business manager.
Dispersive Signal Technology recognizes touch by interpreting bending waves within the glass substrate created by the contact of a finger or stylus on the glass. Since bending waves are unaffected by on-screen contaminants and moderate surface damage, DST touchscreens work reliably for most public environments and applications, such as interactive digital signage, public way finders, point-of-information stations, corporate directories, retail product selectors, as well as conference room and education presentation systems.
Wednesday, 21 November 2007
LondonTopic.ca: A London man is facing charges of arson after setting a fire in a downtown bank machine kiosk early on Nov. 20. Police said at around 1:45 a.m., a male entered the kiosk area and proceeded to set ATM deposit envelopes on fire. The fire caused approximately $10,000 in damage, police said, adding a suspect description was obtained through video surveillance cameras at the bank.
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Wednesday, 21 November 2007
KATU-TV (Portland, Ore.): Kiosks are meant to speed up the check-in process at the airport, but security experts say they could be open doors for terrorists to hide their identities on U.S. jets.
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Tuesday, 20 November 2007
LEWIS CENTER, Ohio ·Microcom Corp. and IBM has announced plans for allowing drivers to renew their license plate registration at self-service kiosks throughout the province of Ontario, Canada.
James Larson, president and CEO of Microcom Corporation, said the project will put drivers trying to renew their plates in the fast lane.
"The kiosks streamline the renewal process and help drivers avoid the agony of standing in long slow moving lines at registrars' offices," he said.
IBM sought Microcom's help to engineer a solution enabling them to automatically validate and issue serial-numbered registration stickers at ServiceOntario kiosks. These machines, deployed in about 70 locations throughout the province, are a part of the largest self-service kiosk network of its kind in North America.
Microcom designed and manufactured a rugged and dependable media printer/dispenser equipped with a laser barcode scanner. Once a customer enters the required information at the kiosk and submits a payment, the barcode reader authenticates a registration sticker and dispenses it to the user.
The Ministry of Transportation is looking to leverage self-service technology in response to growth.
"They simply are looking to find smart and efficient ways to help tackle the increase in customer volume, while at the same time decrease costs," Larson said. "The ServiceOntario kiosk will also provide the technology platform for Canadian officials to deliver future innovations aimed at improving customer service."
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
CHICAGO · In an effort to help travelers during the holiday season, United Airlines has added 140 self-service kiosks in the gate areas of some of the busiest airports, so when United automatically rebooks customers who are experiencing delays or cancellations, travelers can print their new boarding passes without having to go through security again.
These kiosks also have United's Easy Rebook software that enables customers to make changes to their itineraries, such as placing themselves on the stand-by list for an earlier flight.
United is also adding more than 78 Easy Bag Claim kiosks in the baggage claim areas of our busiest airports. These kiosks enable customers to scan the barcodes on their baggage claim tags to see exactly where their bag is and to which claim belt it will be delivered.
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
The Financial Express: The International Air Transport Association has released a report which shows that not only are passengers accepting high-tech travel options, but they are demanding even more opportunities to take control of their travel experience. The Association, in its annual Corporate Air Travel Survey of more than 10,000 active travelers, showed that 89 percent of responding travelers preferred e-tickets to paper tickets, 56 percent had experienced Internet check-in and 69 percent has used self-service kiosks.
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Tuesday, 20 November 2007
CAMPBELL, Calif. · DVDPlay, a DVD rental kiosk developer and operator, is now in more than 960 Safeway stores. Starting in 2002 with only eleven locations in the San Francisco Bay area, the company's recent accelerated growth has come through their partnerships with major grocery chains and convenience stores, as well as campus bookstores, and select fast food partners.
With competitive pricing that is up to 70 percent less than traditional video stores, DVDPlay continues to experience rapid growth within the industry boasting close to 1,300 locations, with plans to install 1,800 more locations by 2008. As of September, 2007, DVDPlay has kiosks in 37 states across the U.S. and Canada.
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
Digital Transactions: An outside manager with restructuring experience, Thomas Lumsden of FTI Consulting Inc., is now running financially troubled biometric-payment provider Pay By Touch under terms of a Delaware court order signed Friday, San Francisco-based Pay By Touch announced on Monday.
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Read also, Bankruptcy filings hit Pay By Touch
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
LONDON · DSGi PLC has announced a deal with Felix Group PLC to trial its MAX BOX kiosks in Dixons Tax-Free stores in London's Gatwick and Heathrow airports. Dixons Tax-Free operates at 25 stores across UK airports selling the latest technology products.
Felix Group hopes a successful trial will see a wider rollout of its kiosks across Dixons Tax-Free and Currys UK stores. The machines feature an array of digital services including a mobile phone top-up and charge service, 24-hour flower ordering facility, Christmas hampers, fun games and digital downloads.
"It's a fantastic opportunity for us to take MAX BOX to tech-savvy consumers in a busy environment," said Andy Egan, CEO of Felix Group.
"Mobile phone top-up and charging, and other digital services give us the opportunity to take care of all passengers' technology needs when they fly," said Sophie Woollard, Trading Manager of Dixons Tax Free at DSGi. "We are pleased to trial these services via MAX BOX to our customers."
Monday, 19 November 2007
It's not a casino in Las Vegas. But if you walk into your local post office and take a gamble by using the U.S. Postal Service's automated kiosk, you could come away with some extra cash.
At post office locations nationwide, customers are eligible to win $250 daily in cash prizes and a grand prize of $10,000 when they use the Automatic Postal Center kiosks instead of standing in line.
The USPS contest, which ended Oct. 31, was designed to draw attention to a product that is very convenient and easy-to-use, says USPS spokeswoman Joanne Veto.
"This is just another way to remind people there is a convenient way to use the post office 24 hours a day," Veto said.
Four years into the deployment, however, one kiosk industry expert says she wonders if the contest means that the USPS kiosks are hurting for revenue.
"I think it is very sad that the U.S. Postal Service has to resort to this because there are many compelling reasons to use the kiosk without this contest," said Francie Mendelsohn, a veteran kiosk consultant and president of Summit Research Associates. "To pay people to use it, to me, it's just not right.
The APC has been an award-winning venture for USPS. At the Las Vegas Self Service Expo earlier this year, the kiosk was named the People's Choice Winner.
The kiosk dispenses stamps, which the agency says makes up the overwhelming majority of transactions conducted at post offices. In addition, APC customers can access most of the services available at the counter, including shipment of first class parcel, ZIP-code lookup, weighing and rating packages up to 70 pounds, and delivery confirmation.
Prices for shipping and stamps are the same as at the postal counter, and there is no additional charge for using the kiosk. The only catch: Users better pack their plastic, since the kiosks don't accept cash.
Despite remaining a convenient alternative to, the kiosks haven't pulled in high transaction volumes at some post offices, Mendelsohn said.
In fact, one post office in Salisbury, Md., got rid of its APC when it failed to meet its projected income. Customers weren't using the machine enough to meet the standard $400 a day in income, says Freda Sauter, U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman for the Baltimore district.
"Customers prefer to use cash at the vending machines to buy stamps," Sauter said in a Salisbury Daily Times news article.
Only 2,500 out of an originally planned 5,000 APCs have been deployed, Mendelsohn said.
But the inability to accept cash at the machines doesn't seem to be a negative for the majority of the kiosks. According to the American Postal Workers Union Web site, the 2,500 APCs that were deployed between February 2004 and March 2005 collected more than $170 million.
There have been pockets of success, Mendelsohn admits.
"I have been to several post offices where there are lines to use the machines," she said.
In order for USPS to avoid other APC closings, Mendelsohn says the priority should be focused on getting existing APCs in spots where they can meet revenue goals. Only if that strategy is successful will USPS add more kiosks.
"Attention needs to be paid to making this kiosk successful, because if they are not successful, they won't be around much longer," she said.
One strategy the post office might take is to put the APCs in other locations, such as a shopping mall, Mendelsohn says. Regardless, USPS's current situation, she adds, with at least one APC unit already removed from its location, is less than ideal.
"I think this is a setback," Mendelsohn said. "How big a setback? Time will tell."
Monday, 19 November 2007
YORK, Pa. · Analytical Design Solutions Inc. has released Version 6.2.0 of KioWare Lite and KioWare Kiosk Basic, and Version 4.0 of KioWare Server. KioWare products provide lockdown security for browser-based applications, restricting users from accessing the OS and desktop, and allowing customization to limit Internet access. KioWare products can also provide support for second monitors, external and input devices, user phone dialing, and server based remote monitoring.
Version 6.2.0 for KioWare Lite and KioWare Kiosk Basic new features include:
- Ability to add or extend custom features through support of 3rd party .NET dlls, meaning clients are now able to develop plug-ins to work with KioWare.
- Domain page blocking warning can display custom HTML page, instead of the existing KioWare dialog box.
- Support for Storm EZ Access keypad.
Additional Version 6.2.0 KioWare Kiosk Basic new features include:
- Support for SNAPI barcode scanners, HID MSR Readers, and OPOS MSR Readers.
- Ability to request content update and upload usage statistics as frequently as every 10 minutes, or at the completion of every user session for uploading usage statistics.
Finally, Version 4.0 of KioWare Server new features include:
- Completely flexible user accounts, roles and permissions that control user abilities at a functional level.
- Simplified client content updating procedures that include application files, KioWare updates and OS updates. To support cellular networks, content transfer now checks for file truncation and corruption errors.
- Ability to provide ad hoc grouping of kiosks. Groups can contain other groups, projects or individual kiosks.
- Addition of ad hoc data structures useful for storing custom data about each kiosk, which can be imported from a spreadsheet.
- Added infrastructure to support 3rd party add-ins. KioWare's first add-in will be released in December: a kiosk mapping add-in that enables all your kiosks and their status to be overlaid onto a digital map.
- A new API that enables 3rd parties to develop a custom KioWare Server interface as well as plug-ins to the standard interface.
Monday, 19 November 2007
StorefrontBacktalk: As EPCGlobal is still finalizing its High-Frequency Gen2 RFID tag protocol standard, a source working with the group says they are seeing speeds of 600 reads/minute, compared with 100 reads/minute for today's HF tags and about 250 reads/minute for today's Ultra High Frequency tags. "That's huge," said Drew Nathanson, an RFID analyst for the Venture Development Corp.
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Monday, 19 November 2007
The Grand Rapids (Mich.) Press: Meijer Inc. has introduced Hewlett-Packard's advanced Digital Photo Center Solution kiosks in its photo departments. Meijer's 181 stores in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Kentucky were selected by Hewlett-Packard to test the digital photo systems in advance of a national roll-out.
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Monday, 19 November 2007
Video Business: DVD kiosks located in supermarkets, fast-food restaurants and other high-traffic locations will expand their share of the rental market to 25 percent within about three years, predicts the chairman and CEO of No. 3 kiosk operator DVDPlay. DVDPlay leader Chuck Berger said that kiosks · operated primarily by Redbox, TNR Entertainment and DVDPlay · currently hold about 2 percent of the roughly $8 billion rental market. He estimates the channel's share will grow to more than 5 percent in 2008 and more than 20 percent by 2010 or 2011, on dramatic growth in the number of kiosks in operation. He said DVDPlay in 2008 plans to add about 2,000 kiosks to its current base of 1,300 machines. Across the channel, about 8,000 new kiosks could be put into operation next year, he said.
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Monday, 19 November 2007
San Francisco Business Times: Pay By Touch CEO and founder John Rogers has filed for personal bankruptcy amid a gathering storm of legal challenges from nervous investors, employees, and former executives. The 750-person San Francisco-based fingerprint scanning company, seen as one of the city's most promising young tech firms, faces claims from four employees who say they are owed at least $60,000 in back wages.
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CORRECTION: The original headline for this item incorrectly indicated Pay By Touch itself has filed for bankruptcy. The company has not filed for bankruptcy.
Friday, 16 November 2007
Brendamour Moving & Storage, Inc. is an agent for Mayflower Transit, LLC., one of the most recognized carriers in the nation. We are centrally located in Cincinnati, Ohio convenient to I-75, I-275 and I-71.
We pride ourselves on providing superb customer service, and have raised our customer survey scores to the top of our field by dedicating our team to Mayflower`s Quality Labor Training Initiative.
We offer our customers a single source transportation solution for Household Moves, Office & Industrial, National Accounts, (STS) Special Commodities, and International.
Friday, 16 November 2007
Brendamour Moving & Storage, Inc. is an agent for Mayflower Transit, LLC., one of the most recognized carriers in the nation. We are centrally located in Cincinnati, Ohio convenient to I-75, I-275 and I-71.
We pride ourselves on providing superb customer service, and have raised our customer survey scores to the top of our field by dedicating our team to Mayflower`s Quality Labor Training Initiative.
We offer our customers a single source transportation solution for Household Moves, Office & Industrial, National Accounts, (STS) Special Commodities, and International.
Friday, 16 November 2007
Information Week: Air passengers at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport can try out the latest technology during a new Traveler TechFest. The technology on display includes six PowerPort laptop rental, charge, and recharge kiosks, 14 automated Zoomsystem kiosks, 50 Neptune Network Internet Kiosks and seven Samsung display kiosks. The event, which continues through December, features demonstrations, displays, prizes, and freebies from Samsung, Apple, Sony, and Motorola. The Dallas airport says it hosted the event to show that it's one of the most technology-friendly airports in the world.
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Friday, 16 November 2007
MAITLAND, Fla. · Kings County Hospital Center, a public hospital located in Brooklyn, N.Y., plans to deploy self-service kiosks in its emergency department to streamline the check-in and triage process. The MediKiosk software solution from Galvanon automates patient registration and helps emergency department staff prioritize treatment based on medical urgency.
"Like many emergency departments, we experience extremely high patient volumes every day," said Albert Porco, CIO of Kings County Hospital Center. "By using MediKiosk to expedite the check-in process, we will be able to better manage wait-times and decrease stress associated with a visit to the emergency department."
When patients arrive at the Kings County emergency department, they proceed to the registration kiosk as opposed to waiting in line to explain their symptoms. They then identify themselves by entering their names on the touchscreen, along with an additional identifier, such as a birth date. Patients indicate their symptoms by pointing to areas on a body diagram where they feel pain and answering brief questions about the nature of their visit. Once the process is complete, the data is sent to the emergency room's main computer system, where a nurse is able to review and monitor patient information. This allows staff to provide patients with timely treatment based on medical need, not wait time.
Friday, 16 November 2007
POSEN, Ill. · Corporate Safe Specialists has announced two additions to its Research and Development organization. The Company has hired Randy Biela, a software engineer, and David Murch, a mechanical engineer.
"We now have an R&D department of five full-time employees led by myself," Ed McGunn, president and chief executive. "I believe this to be the largest R&D team in the industry and rivals the R&D investment of most self-service companies. Next year will be an exciting one from a product development perspective."
Murch joins CSS with more than six years of experience in mechanical engineering. Most recently, Murch was employed by Baldor Electric Co., where he served as a field-sales engineer.
Biela joins CSS with more than three years of experience in software engineering. Most recently, Biela was employed by Argonne National Laboratories, where he served as a government researcher and programmer.
Friday, 16 November 2007
ATLANTA · As stores prepare for the holiday rush, shoppers are bracing for the headaches and hassles of long lines, crowded aisles and harried store associates. The solution, according to a recent survey, includes the convenience of self-service. The majority of U.S. consumers, 64 percent, believe the holiday shopping experience would be faster and less frustrating if more retail stores offered self-service to shorten wait times.
Conducted for NCR Corp. by Opinion Research Corp., the survey asked consumers to evaluate their frustrations with holiday shopping and rate how self-service could bring more cheer.
"We're witnessing a transition in how consumers want to be served, and it involves gaining more personal control of the shopping experience," said Mike Webster, vice president and general manager, NCR Self-Service Solutions. "During peak shopping periods like the holiday season, consumers are adamant that the best customer service includes self-service."
When asked to identify the self-service options that could help alleviate holiday shopping frustrations, product locator kiosks topped the list at 68 percent. Not far behind was self-service return of gifts or purchases (66 percent), followed by self-service gift card kiosks (63 percent), Internet purchasing (59 percent) and self-service checkout (57 percent).
When asked what frustrates them the most during the holiday season, the majority of consumers (52 percent) cited long checkout lines. Other top frustrations include the time it takes to locate items (14 percent), poor staff service (10 percent) and inadequately stocked shelves (9 percent).
Mass-merchandising stores are home to the most frustrating shopping experiences during the holidays (38 percent), followed by clothing stores (20 percent), toy stores (15 percent), grocery stores (14 percent) and specialty shops (6 percent).
Friday, 16 November 2007
BEAVERTON, Ore. -- Planar Systems Inc., provider of specialty display systems, recorded sales of $53.3 million and GAAP income, before cumulative effect of accounting change, per diluted share of $0.09, in the fourth quarter ended September 29, 2006. On a Non-GAAP basis, income per diluted share was $0.14 in the fourth quarter of 2006. For fiscal year 2006 GAAP income per diluted share was $0.42 compared with a loss per share of $2.37 in fiscal 2005. Non-GAAP income per diluted share was $0.63 in fiscal 2006 compared with $0.21 in fiscal 2005.
"I am very pleased with our financial performance in the fourth quarter, as well as our improvement in fiscal 2006 gross margins and earnings compared with fiscal 2005," said Gerry Perkel, Planar's president and chief executive officer. "In addition, we were able to close the acquisition of Clarity Visual Systems prior to the end of the fourth quarter. We continue to be optimistic about our opportunities going forward related to the two new specialty display markets gained by the acquisition, command and control room and digital signage."
Industrial segment sales in the fourth fiscal quarter were $16.9 million, up 23 percent sequentially and up 43 percent compared with the fourth quarter of fiscal 2005. Industrial segment sales in the fourth quarter of 2006 include $4.7 million in sales from the Clarity business subsequent to the closing of the Clarity transaction on September 12, 2006.
Excluding the impact of Clarity, Industrial segment sales were down 11 percent sequentially and increased 4 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2005. The company has added sales and marketing resources in its Industrial business segment during fiscal 2006 in an effort to drive sales growth moving forward. "Based on early reviews of the sales opportunity funnel being created by our expanded sales efforts, we are cautiously optimistic about the opportunity for future growth in this highly profitable specialty display business by the second half of 2007," continued Perkel.
The Medical segment of the company recorded fourth quarter sales of $16.5 million, down 5 percent sequentially and down 8 percent compared with the fourth quarter a year ago. The company has been re-focusing the sales efforts in its Medical segment on Digital Imaging display products over the past year, and expects to see return from this investment in the form of revenue growth in Digital Imaging products in fiscal 2007 compared with 2006.
Sales in the company's Commercial segment were $20.0 million, up 9 percent sequentially and down 19 percent versus the fourth quarter a year ago. Pricing for desktop monitors continued to be challenging during the fourth quarter, however, the company was able to manage through this difficult environment with an ever increasing focus on higher margin products, more focus on favorable vendor terms, and continued emphasis on managing this business segment for profitability and reduced volatility on a quarterly basis.
The company ended the fourth quarter with cash and short term investments of $48.3 million, down $27.9 million compared with the end of the third quarter. As previously noted, the company closed the acquisition of Clarity in the fourth quarter resulting in a payment to Clarity shareholders of $21.9 million in cash and 1.8 million shares of Planar stock. In addition, the acquisition resulted in a further reduction in cash of $9.3 million relating to the payoff of the net debt position of Clarity at the closing date. At the end of the fourth quarter, the Company continues to have no debt.
Thursday, 15 November 2007
HEXUS: Jessops, a photographic retailer in the U.K., is the first such British retailer to link in-store photo-printing kiosks to its online photo printing center · Jessops Picture House. The move means that customers now can go into any Jessops store and print pictures they have previously uploaded to their accounts at Jessops Picture House, as well as being able to upload pictures to their online account from the kiosks.
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Thursday, 15 November 2007
AmOnline.com: Redbox, the DVD-rental kiosk featuring new release DVDs for $1 per night, is now available in select Walgreens locations throughout the Columbus, Ohio, and Phoenix metro areas. Consumers can rent redbox DVDs in 33 area Walgreens locations throughout Columbus, Ohio, and 160 Walgreens stores throughout the Phoenix area, and can return the DVDs to any redbox kiosk nationwide. Redbox's expansion into Columbus and Phoenix-area Walgreens stores follows a successful installation of the service in select Walgreens locations throughout Chicago and Houston.
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Thursday, 15 November 2007
Zoom Systems, which designs and manufactures "robotic stores" that dispense everything from iPods to compact discs, recently placed several of its kiosks in the University of Kentucky Student Center.
Branded with the name Robots in Field, the machines dispense college-friendly fare like iPods and Neutrogena cosmetics and facial cleanser.
The machines have been a hit in airports, and companies from Sony to Macy's have embraced the technology. But if an editorial in the student newspaper The Kentucky Kernel is any indication, students might not be so welcoming. Read the full editorial here.
The writer edits Self-Service World.
Wednesday, 14 November 2007
The kiosks look the same, sound the same and run the same. The difference · they're not just in grocery and retail stores anymore. They're in convenience stores.
Of the two dozen or so self-service kiosks on display at the 2007 National Association of Convenience Stores trade show, only a handful were new innovations or products. For many of the companies showcasing their technologies at NACS, they chose to stick with their current successful machines and focused on getting more of them in convenience stores.
More than 20,000 convenience store owners, distributors and retailers visited the food and technology exhibit floors Nov. 6-9 at the 2007 NACS show at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.
In the next few months leading into 2008, many companies are moving self-service into the convenience store space, most for the first time. Among those in c-stores are industry stalwarts Coinstar, redbox, NCR and Verifone.
"C-stores are one of the last frontiers for kiosks and the self-service space," said Guy Markus, an NCR solutions sales specialist.
For Brad McGuinness, Verifone's vice president of development, it was only a matter of time before kiosks were part of c-stores.
"Customers that enter convenience stores are looking for quick and fast service," McGuinness said. "There are periods of big consumer rush. It makes a perfect fit for a kiosk."
Verifone's iOrder Food Service Kiosk is a touchscreen countertop terminal designed specifically for c-store food services such as a deli counter. The kiosk solution is integrated with a store's POS system; it's not used as a standalone kiosk.
"The special sauce for our customers is our integration," McGuinness said. "We're not chasing after the standalone kiosk crowd."
Coinstar, which owns half of redbox while McDonald's owns the other half, showcased its DVD-rental kiosk. No longer content to place DVD-rental kiosks solely in McDonald's restaurants and grocery stores, Coinstar and redbox announced plans to deploy more than two dozen DVD-rental kiosks in convenience stores across the United States. Coinstar plans to have 300 of the kiosks in place by the end of 2007, says Ray Taddeo, Coinstar's regional vice president.
Taddeo cited high-volume traffic as the main reason Coinstar and other self-service companies are introducing themselves to the c-store industry.
"And we know that many of them are DVD renters," Taddeo said.
Redbox is the nation's leader in self-service DVD rentals, growing from 93,000 rentals in 2003 to more than 21 million in 2006. The company says it is on pace to reach 40 million rentals this year.
Coinstar also introduced a financial-services kiosk, which currently distributes prepaid cards at a handful of c-stores. Future versions of the kiosk will include a bill-payment application and money-transfer capabilities, Taddeo says.
Here's a look at some of the other self-service exhibits at the NACS show.
Corporate Safe Specialists touted its MenuSOS software module for its kiosk platform. MenuSOS is offered as an enhancement to the CSS Kiosk platform, which is the only kiosk system to accept credit/debit cards and cash, according to a news release. Notes are deposited directly into a safe and CSS Kiosk security can be made ready for armored car pick-up.
The MenuSOS module also can be used as a digital chalkboard to communicate daily specials and other information to customers.
Cummins-Allison Corp. touted its JetCoin self-service coin-counting kiosk. Thousands of the company's kiosks are found in banks, credit unions, casinos, groceries and c-stores, said Bob Tarragano, the company's product support manager.
The JetCoin offers a single- or dual-bin collection system and allows the deployer to use custom signage. A way to deposit coins directly into a personal bank account from the kiosk is in the works, Tarragano said.
Elan Financial Services and Infonox partnered at a NACS booth to exhibit their multifunctional ATM/kiosk called the Pass+ line. Once signed up, financial institutions, independent sales organizations and retailers can tap into Infonox's Active Payment Platform, while processing transactions through Elan. The ATM/kiosk line also comes preloaded with Infonox software.
The Pass+ kiosk features ATM functions, check cashing, bill payment, money transfers and stored value card capabilities. The kiosks are deployed at Speedway and U.S. Bank.
If your kiosk needs to be outside in a cold or warm climate, than the Fiscal Systems Inc. outdoor payment terminal is the kiosk for you, said Kevin Struthers, Fiscal's executive vice president. The kiosk, currently deployed at truck stops and travel plazas, contains a heater and a cooler, which makes extreme conditions no problem.
Struthers said protective hardware, along with a new wireless capability, has opened many possibilities for Fiscal's clients. Currently in the works for deployment include locations such as national parks and ticket kiosks outside of movie theaters.
InComm showcased its Payment Kiosk, a self-service solution for bill payment, prepaid wireless and music downloads. The kiosks require only 2 square feet of floor space and the kiosk can be customized to display unique signage.
"Many customers want self-service options for retail purchases, and our kiosks enable retailers to offer some of the industry's best products in an easy-to-use, self-service format," said Brooks Smith, InComm's president and CEO, in a news release.
One of the few new products on display came from NEC Corporation of America . The Panel-I 6 Pro is a Microsoft Windows-based mobile kiosk with touchscreen that keeps track of store inventory. The touchscreen also gives stores information including weather, contacts and messages. The weather info can be an important tool, said Barry Lanier, an NEC retail solutions account executive.
"If you know that it might rain one day, you could put umbrellas in the store to sell," Lanier said. "This can and will help c-store owners move more products and increase their revenue stream."
The Utopia solution, by Pan-Oston Company, was on display. The kiosk is a customizable self-checkout solution that allows lanes to operate in a manned or self-checkout mode. The machine allows customers to prepay for gas, receive a voucher and then scan that voucher at the pump, said Camille Hartmann, a Pan-Oston account executive. If you don't use the full amount of prepaid gas, you can return to the kiosk for a refund.
Radiant Systems Inc. continues to see tremendous growth in self-service adoption, particularly in the mid-tier retail and c-stores.
"It's becoming easier to develop an interface and implement it in all kinds of stores," said James Hervey, Radiant's products marketing manager.
Though Radiant's booth didn't have any new self-service products, Hervey did say the company has exciting plans for the NACStech trade show in May of 2008.
Wednesday, 14 November 2007
EXTON, Pa. · Scala Inc. announced that Carnival Cruise Lines now features Scala InfoChannel Digital Signage on all of its cruise ships.
Scala InfoChannel powers a variety of Carnival Cruise Lines' shipboard information displays. From large format 61-inch plasma screens to 32-inch LCD's, Scala InfoChannel has been adaptable to a variety of display platforms, including several large screen interactive kiosks, providing Carnival's guests access to large amounts of information, quickly and easily. The touch-enabled Digital Signage Kiosks are used by guests to access information about deck plans, onboard events, dining times, shore excursions and other port-of-call information.
Carnival Cruise Lines first implemented Scala InfoChannel on its vessels in 2001, with the introduction of the Carnival Spirit · the first vessel to carry digital signage. Since then, Carnival has deployed more than 150 units across the fleet, and extended installations to the cruise terminals in a variety of embarkation ports. To run this operation, Carnival employs a group of A/V professionals dedicated to the installation, maintenance, programming and design of the entire network of units.
With vessels situated in the Caribbean, Alaska, Europe, and cruise terminals in Florida, California, and Puerto Rico, the company performs all content updates from its Miami headquarters via satellite.
Wednesday, 14 November 2007
The (Australia) Age: One of Australia's largest book retailers has leapt into the 21st century with a move to sell digital books in text and audio formats. Digital touchscreen kiosks have been installed in the Dymocks flagship store in Sydney to market the e-book range and teach customers how to download them. Within months people, will be able to walk into the store with a memory card and buy e-books directly from the kiosk.
Read more
Wednesday, 14 November 2007
CHICAGO · Pay-Ease's line of automated commerce machines have been deployed and installed throughout the city of Chicago, enabling citizens to pay parking and red-light citations, as well as utility bills, via self-service.
According to Pay-Ease, the move marks a shift in municipal bill payments in Chicago.
"We are very pleased with the city's decision to utilize the Pay-Ease ACM for its bill-payment services, which will save the city money while reducing lines in payment centers," said Marc Meisel, Pay-Ease's chief executive. "The city plans to extend additional services and payments to the current platform in the near future."
ACM's customized software allows consumers to pay bills, purchase gift cards, transfer funds, purchase wireless and long distance minutes, renew driver's licenses and registrations, and conduct ATM transactions.
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
Bill Yackey is managing editor of Digital Signage Today and a regular contributor to Self Service World.
Click here to view a slideshow from KioskCom Europe.
From the time the doors opened at KioskCom Europe's Self-Service Expo in London's Olympia Convention Center, the show floor was steadily paced by kiosk vendors, deployers and exhibitors from the 82 companies that brought their latest products to the show.
KioskCom Europe, now in its second year, was deemed a great success, said Phil Hunter, event director.
"Attendance is up 30% this year, which is a great indication for the future," Hunter said. "That's exactly what we wanted to do."
The success of the show was echoed from many of the show's exhibitors, including Bob Ventresca, marketing director of kiosk and digital signage software provider Netkey.
"This show has really been good so far for us," he said. "We're seeing a lot of unique digital signage applications."
The main focus of the show seemed to be the SuperStar Deployments feature area, which focused on the top kiosk deployments of the past year. The seven selections were made by the show organizers based on a survey of the top self-service deployments published in the August issue of Self-Service World magazine.
The SuperStar Deployments, a chosen by KioskCom Europe:
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Representatives from Fujifilm, Coinstar and Wincor Nixdorf discuss self-service in the SuperStar Deployments booth.
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The left corner of the feature area housed NCR's EasyPoint 42 kiosk, which has seen more than 50,000 deployments at large retail stores such as Wal-Mart, Sears and Macy's.
Though it has gone through several evolutions, the kiosk has been in production since 1999 and is mainly used for in-store point-of-decision applications. The kiosk at the show had software designed to help a buyer pair wines with food.
"The EasyPoint touchscreen is resistive touch technology, whereas we see our competitors using optical technology," said Bill Thompson, channel and partner manager for NCR in London.
Perhaps one of the first point-of-sale kiosks, the Wincor Nixdorf Beetle was on display with several Wincor reps on hand to discuss the unit, now in its fifth generation. There are over one million Beetle kiosks deployed, with most locations in Europe and Asia.
Although the Beetle POS System was the official SuperStar deployment for the company, product sales executive Chris Chappill and others mainly showed Wincor's pay terminal, which accepts payments using a receipt after customers have gone through the self-checkout process. Chappill said the unit is designed to cut down on wait times at self-checkouts.
One of the most widely deployed kiosks of all time, the Kodak Picture Maker found its spot in the SuperStar Deployments feature area. The Picture Maker has been in production since 1993, and now has seen more than 85,000 deployments. Picture Makers are generally customized to fit the location they are deployed in, be it large retailers, craft stores or specialty photo stores.
At the show, attendees were invited to manipulate and edit pictures, and even print enlargements to demonstrate the wide range of capabilities of the Picture Maker.
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As part of the SuperStar deployments booth, Coinstar demonstrated its Coins to Cash kiosk, which allows users to change in coinage for cash.
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Another large grocery staple has been the Coinstar Coins to Cash kiosk, which earned an invitation to the SuperStar Deployments area with 13,000 locations and a solid track record dating back to 1992. Coins to cash kiosks have also expanded out from grocery stores and are now deployed in supermarkets, drug stores, large retailers, banks, convenience stores and restaurants, counting more than $13 billion in change.
Coinstar has deployed more than 800 kiosks in the U.K. alone. The machines are typically green in the US, while the unit at the show, and others in the U.K., are blue.
FujiFilm showed a version of its GetPix photo kiosk in the feature area, equipped with a 15-inch touchscreen and scanner.
"These kiosks are modular, so the peripherals can be different for each customer," said Paul Austin, marketing coordinator for FujiFilm UK. "The GetPix is flexible to fit in with people's businesses rather than asking businesses to cater to the machine."
Austin said that online photo editing software and scrapbooking have been the latest trends in the photo kiosk industry. Fuji's GetPix software (known as SmartPix in the U.S.) supports both of those applications, Austin said.
In addition to a booth featuring its line of interactive kiosks, Protouch provided a Thru-Glass Interactive Shop Window for the SuperStar Deployments feature area. The window comprises a touch-sensitive film that is placed on the inside of the window. A projector then puts interactive content on the window, providing what Protouch sales executive Alex Dukes calls projective capacitive technology.
"By touching the window, you're pushing a microwave through the glass, essentially breaking a bubble with your finger. The window registers that," Dukes said. In addition to retail store applications, the window has also been used by real estate agents, travel agents and restaurants.
Representing the growing DVD kiosk market, the Coinstar DVD kiosk found its place near the entrance of the SuperStar Deployments feature area. Coinstar's kiosk was branded for DVDExpress, and the functionality was much like the redbox or DVD Play kiosks seen in the United States. Customers use a 17-inch touchscreen to browse through new release titles, which generally number more than 100. Users have the option of monthly All-You-Can-Watch program and can purchase the movie if so desired. The kiosk uses RFID sensors on the discs to manage inventory inside the machine.
Here are some of the other companies who made the news at the show:
Arcatech Manufacturing Europe showcased its line of cash dispensers from Fujitsu, which Rudi Ryshway, managing director, said are becoming more popular as more transactional kiosks now offer change.
"Customers use credit cards, but many still want to pay in cash," Ryshway said. "So we need to be able to give change."
KioskCom Europe was the debut for ELO Touchsystems' Mega Kiosk range of touchscreens. On display at the show was a 26-inch model with a watertight bezel. The unit featured ELO's Acoustic Pulse Recognition, which registers noise pulses from a finger's impact on the screen.
"It's listening rather than feeling," said Paul Grigg, key account manager for ELO. "Also, since the screen is just glass, it can't be worn down."
GWD Media, casually known as Geeks Who Deliver, had its booth decked out like a geek's bedroom. In the abode: an early 80's computer, 37-inch flatscreen and GWD's telemetry devices for remote management.
GWD's devices are embedded in kiosks and vending machines to provide auditable information about the units, such as amounts of cash or stock. GWD CEO James Oladujoye said the remote monitoring service in the U.K. runs about ₤100 per year.
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The Hilton Kiosk from Key Technologies is strictly informational and deployed in hotel lobbies.
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At the corner of Key Technology's booth was a 4-panel informational kiosk with a touchscreen panel on each façade and lightboxes for additional advertising above each screen. Dermot Butler, commercial director for Key, said Infobox Interactive has placed the kiosk in shopping centers around the U.K.
In the other corner of the booth, a blue hue shone through the clear plastic enclosure of Key's Hilton Kiosk, an informational unit deployed in hotel lobbies. "We're going for the wow factor here," Butler said.
KIOSK Information Systems showed the ZOOX Stations Mulitplayer Online Gaming kiosk, which won an Excellence Award at the Self Service Expo in the spring. The MPOG kiosk has seen deployments in airports and military bases in the past year.
KIOSK and Provisio, software designers of SiteKiosk 6, were sharing a booth Working Solutions and Amatica, as well as Felix Group of England. Felix had its MAX BOX kiosk on display, which is a multi-function unit that can be customized to include media downloads, mobile phone top-ups, picture printing and more. The MAX BOX is only deployed in the U.K. for now, but Worthington said the kiosk will see deployments in the US in the coming months.
"We mostly see the kiosk in cinemas and convenient stores for mobile top-ups and pre-paid cards," said Sallie Worthington, product manager for Felix. "The picture printing is especially popular in airports, for people wanting to immediately get pictures from their holidays."
Kioware representatives Stephanie Kropkowski and Christina Hamberger were on hand to discuss Kioware's new Enterprise Server, a suite of enterprise-level modules such as content management, payment processing, shopping carts and order processing that are used to secure kiosk software. Kropkowski said the suite has been used for ticketing, concierge, self-checkout and POS applications.
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British company Felix Group was in a partner booth with KIOSK and Provisio SiteKiosk, where the company displayed the numerous features of the MAX BOX kiosk.
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St. Clair Interactive featured a gift card kiosk that printed custom themes, amounts, and to/from information on both the back and front of the gift cards. The total process took about 50 seconds.
"This eliminates the huge racks of gift cards you see available in stores and sales associate involvement in the sale of gift cards," said Chris Peter, project manager for St. Clair Interactive.
Annette Tarlon, marketing director for STAR Micronics, said that 50 percent of customers now want package printers for their kiosks, mainly because of easy maintenance and installation, and also plug and play convenience. The company used that platform to launch the TSP100 Future PRNT at the show. The direct thermal printer is designed to print logos on the receipts, and Tarlton said all graphics for those files are held as .xml files on PCs for easy use.
Elsewhere in London, the popular department store Harrod's had recently put 950 TSP100 FuturePRNTs to use.
Garnering attention from both digital signage and sports car gearheads, U Touch featured a back to back 50-inch interactive digital signage display, which ran content designed for a Porsche dealership. The lower half of the screen was touch-enabled and controlled Porsche video clips, which ran on the top half of the screen.
U Touch also featured one of its ruggedized touch-enabling overlays on a 46-inch Sanyo screen. The overlay is waterproof and designed to turn any flatscreen into a touchscreen using infared technology.
"We think infrared is the best touch technology," said Liam Slattery of U Touch.
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
SLENCIL Company - U.S. manufacturer of security tether coil products, including tethered touchscreen stylus designs, stylus tethers, POS components, tethers for information cards and product demonstrators, tethered pen designs -- originator of the SLENCIL COILPEN.
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
San Diego Union-Tribune: Balboa Park has three new tour guides: 12-foot-tall kiosks that provide convenient, easy-to-use information for visitors to the sprawling park. In addition to maps of the park, the computerized kiosks offer the lowdown on museums, gardens and restaurants. Visitors also can get cash from ATMs or e-mail a Balboa Park postcard to friends. The kiosks also provide Wi-Fi coverage in surrounding areas.
Read more
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
SCHAUMBURG, Ill. · Motorola Inc. has announced that it has made an equity investment in ViVOtech Inc., a leader in contactless and mobile phone payment technologies. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Unlike other contactless technology offerings available on the mobile application market today, ViVOtech's platform is designed for easy collaboration among issuers, mobile operators and technology providers to deliver the most intuitive and integrated consumer experience across a range of new customer services.
"Motorola continues to invest in new technologies that enable consumers to expand the value and functionality of the mobile phone," said Reese Schroeder, managing director, Motorola Ventures. "This investment reflects Motorola's commitment to building and participating in a world class mobile commerce ecosystem."
Today's consumers are looking for simplified and more secure ways to pay for goods and services. Near Field Communication (NFC) technology is broadening the usefulness of mobile devices through short-range wireless connectivity which enables the phone to interact with payment systems for a wide variety of transactions, including those at the point-of-sale, ATMs and kiosks. Additionally, this connectivity allows for location-based personalized loyalty, coupon and promotion programs, and user authentication for check-in at airline and hotel self-service stations. ViVOtech's NFC technology offerings enable these new mobile features to provide payment transactions at merchant locations all over the world.
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
FREMONT, Calif. - Belview Technologies has released a new series slim PC system - SP4800 in all vertical markets. This new series computer replaces the company's current SP4400 & SP4200 series slim/booksize PC systems.
The key features of this new computer system include:
- Compact chassis design (14.3" x 12.2" x 3.8")
- Micro ATX form factor
- Support CPU from Intel Celeron 2.0GHz to Core 2 Duo 3GHz
- CPU cooling system
- 2+1 low profile PCI slots for add-on cards
This slim PC system was designed for POS, hospitality, self-service kiosk and other industrial use. The standard configuration of this system starts from Intel Celeron 3.0GHz CPU, 512MB DDR2 RAM, and 80GB SATA Hard Drive. Customers can choose the optional CD-ROM drive, floppy or add-on PCI cards (in low-profile size) for their applications. Belview will preload the operating system (Windows XP, WePOS, Windows 2000, etc.) per customer's request. The company offers optional up to 3-year warranty coverage and Advanced Replacement program to the customers.
For POS/hospitality customers, Belview is also offering an economical POS bundle package, including:
- SP4800 slim PC system w/ Microsoft WePOS system
- LM1560 15-inch touchscreen LCD monitor
- CD4141 cash drawer
- Epson/Star receipt printer
Monday, 12 November 2007
CHESHIRE, United Kingdom · Felix Group plc, the maker of MAX BOX, has teamed up with a number of small, independent food and beverage producers in the U.K. to create Christmas hampers.
Hampers created at Redhouse Farm Shop, at the Dunham Massey National Trust estate in Cheshire, are available across the U.K. via the network of MAX BOX kiosks. The company says it is keen to support local, independent bakers, farmers and cheese-makers.
"Working with MAX BOX means we can farm out great-quality, local products to a wider audience," said Jonny Hewitt, manager of Redhouse Farm Shop, which supplies and sources produce for the hampers. "It is important that local producers make the most of new technology to create extra revenue streams."
Monday, 12 November 2007
Star and Stripes: Some registered Florida voters will be able to forgo the difficulty of voting overseas with the introduction of voting kiosks at three Air Force bases in Europe and Asia. Voters registered in Okaloosa County, Fla., will be able to use the kiosks to vote via a secure Internet connection. The kiosks will be largely aesthetic, mimicking that back-home experience.
Read more
Saturday, 10 November 2007
SAN FRANCISCO -- Zoom Systems raised $35 million in a fourth venture round of funding from Goldman, Sachs & Co., Sierra Ventures and Motorola Ventures, the only new investor in the round.
Zoom supplies automated robotic "stores" - think vending machines, but bigger - that are networked and centrally monitored. They allow shoppers to select name brand products via touchscreen, pay with a credit or debit card and receive their selection immediately via robotic arm.
The company installed its first robotic shop in March 2005. According to Zoom's Web site, the automated kiosk, "allows for an experience much like shopping online, but with the instant gratification of immediate product delivery." It plans to have about 300 in place by the end of the year.
Zoom Systems, founded in San Francisco in 2001, has raised $63.3 million so far, and it has 85 employees nationwide.
Friday, 09 November 2007
VANCOUVER, British Columbia · DVD rental kiosk provider DVDNow plans to expand the number of kiosks installed in North Carolina by a minimum 60 kiosks, according to a company press release.
Unlike DVD kiosk providers redbox and DVDPlay, DVDNow partners with local entrepreneurs who own and operate the equipment. DVDNow plans to hold workshops to attract potential kiosk carriers in the North Carolina area.
Friday, 09 November 2007
Reuters.com: Blockbuster wants to help customers connect their iPods and BlackBerries to their favorite movies and games in a service it hopes will build traffic back to its stores. Chief Executive Jim Keyes said the company is talking to both hardware and software makers about turning the video rental chain into a destination for loading digital media players with movies and games via a kiosk. The method should eventually be as easy as taking cash out of an ATM machine, he said.
Read more
Friday, 09 November 2007
TORRANCE, Calif. · Seiko Instruments USA Inc., Micro Printer Division, has announced it has changed its name to Seiko Instruments USA Inc., Thermal Printer Division. Seiko Instruments is an equipment manufacturer for thermal printer mechanisms and has sought business in the self-service kiosk market. The name change acknowledges the company's increasingly broad customer base.
"We see strong opportunities in the mobile and self-service markets," said Bob Falco, manager of Seiko Instruments, Thermal Printer Division.
Friday, 09 November 2007
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A new association for the $1.1 billion digital signage industry has officially launched. The Digital Signage Association has been created to serve those involved in the rapidly growing digital signage industry.
Digital signage is the growing practice of using dynamic displays to communicate messages with a targeted audience - in settings as varied as retail stores, banks, restaurants, airports and anywhere organizations need to connect with their viewers. LCD, plasma and projection systems, coupled with intelligent software that allows messages to be altered in real time and delivered with precision, have opened up a whole new era of digital communication and one-to-one marketing.
The Digital Signage Association aims to be an advocate for industry issues, increase awareness about the effectiveness of the medium and provide education and networking opportunities for its members.
Deployer members will have access to complimentary expert advice, critical know-how, networking with other professionals and savings on research and trade shows.
Vendor members will enjoy visibility through a membership listing on the Web site, sales leads, the opportunity to establish strategic relationships as well as save on industry resources.
Members of the Digital Signage Association Advisory Board currently include executives from:
- ADFLOW Networks
- BroadSign
- DigitalSignageToday.com
- Dynasign
- IBM
- Keywest Technology
- LG
- Microspace
- Nanonation
- Netkey
- Scala
- Selling Machine Partners
- Symon
"The industry needs an association that is dedicated to the digital signage business and will serve all market segments," said David Drain, the association's executive director. "We're excited about bringing the industry together under one roof to educate the marketplace on how to effectively implement digital signs."
Friday, 09 November 2007
ATLANTA · No longer content to place DVD rental kiosks solely in McDonald's restaurants and grocery stores, Coinstar and redbox announced it has deployed more than two dozen DVD rental kiosks in convenience stores across the United States. It plans to have 300 in place by the end of 2007, said Ray Taddeo, regional vice president of Coinstar.
Coinstar, which owns half of redbox along with McDonald's, showcased the DVD rental kiosk to convenience store owners, distributors and retailers at the 2007 National Association of Convenience Stores trade show at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.
Taddeo sited high-volume traffic as the main reason Coinstar and other self-service companies are introducing themselves to the convenience store industry.
"And we know that many of them are DVD renters," Taddeo said.
Redbox, located at thousands of McDonald's restaurants and in groceries around the United States, is the nation's leader in self-service DVD rentals, growing from 93,000 rentals in 2003 to more than 21 million in 2006. It is on pace to reach 40 million rentals this year.
Coinstar also introduced a financial services kiosk, which currently distributes prepaid cards at a handful of convenience stores. Future versions of the kiosk will include a bill payment application and money transfer capabilities, Taddeo said.
Thursday, 08 November 2007
LONDON · KioskCom Europe Expo opened yesterday at the Olympia Convention Center in London. Some 80 companies were on hand to exhibit at the show, displaying products that covered a range of self-service and interactive digital-signage offerings.
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Seven media, photo and POS kiosk deployments were deemed SuperStars by KioskCom Europe.
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Phil Hunter, event director of KioskCom Europe, said attendance was up about 35 percent this year. KioskCom Europe is now in its second year.
"Right away, the stands became busy and people were engaged," Hunter said, noting that most attendees were engaged in conversations at the booths.
Hunter said a lot of attention has been paid by attendees to payment companies and payments at kiosks.
The booth garnering the most attention on Day 1 was the Superstar Deployments feature area, which show organizers created to highlight significant and large kiosk deployments from 2007.
A number of the kiosks in the Superstar area were notable deployments recognized by editors of Self-Service World.
"The Superstar Deployments booth, without a shadow of a doubt, is a massive success," Hunter said.
The featured deployments at the booth included:
- NCR EasyPoint Advantage Kiosk
- Wincor Nixdorf Beetle
- Kodak Picture Maker
- Coinstar's Coins to Cash
- Fujifilm GetPix
- Thru Glass Interactive Shop Window provided by Protouch
- DVD Kiosk, provided by Coinstar
Check this site in the next few days for extended coverage of KioskCom Europe and the Superstar Deployments.
Bill Yackey is the managing editor of Digital Signage Today and a regular contributor to Self-Service.org.
Thursday, 08 November 2007
LOUISVILLE, Colo. · Together with TeraNova Consulting Group and Nationwide CDMA Wireless Providers, KIOSK Information Systems is providing a bundled approach to wireless kiosk deployments. KIOSK is partnering with TeraNova, kiosk connectivity specialists, to manage the full lifecycle requirements including testing, staging and full on-going support and management of the wireless solution.
Mobile Deployment support services via the KIOSK/TeraNova relationship include:
- Site survey for connectivity
- Network and equipment sourcing, activations management
- Router configuration
- Mobile broadband card activation and provisioning
- Carrier contract and order management
- Managed installation
- Help desk support
- Maintenance
- Reporting and training
According to a press release issued by KIOSK, one of the benefits of deploying kiosks with integrated wireless capability is position flexibility. Kiosk placement is an essential element in customer adoption and solution ROI, but ideal pilot positioning can be somewhat elusive. Without the commitment and expense of hard-wiring equipment, clients can experiment to find the ideal "sweet spots" that provide maximum traffic and return.
Wednesday, 07 November 2007
BURNABY, British Columbia · CPS Energy and TIO Networks Corp. have announced plans to launch a new bill-payment service that will enable CPS Energy customers to pay their bills at 32 "TIO- powered"� E-Wiz kiosks at select Tigermarket convenience stores in San Antonio.
E-Wiz is a brand of TIO's self-service automated bill-payment and financial-services kiosks that enable c-store patrons to securely and conveniently pay their wireless, cable, utility and other bills in cash. The kiosks also allow customers to purchase prepaid products and access other in-demand financial services.
Payments can be made in cash, which TIO then ensures reaches its payee in a timely posting fashion. C-store patrons can navigate through TIO applications in English or Spanish and complete financial transactions by either printing or e-mailing their receipts to an e-mail address of their choice.
Wednesday, 07 November 2007
CHANTILLY, Va. · Gamut Systems recently unveiled its Traveler kiosk, a virtual concierge kiosk-based solution for the hospitality, transportation and entertainment industries. Traveler is an interactive application integrating data from disparate sources into a single-view touchscreen user interface, whereby users quickly can gain access to information on various points of interest within a specified locale.
"We've integrated dynamic data such as maps, hotels, restaurants, entertainment, museums, bus routes and schedules, metro lines, taxi information, movies and the list continues," said Peter Nylund, CEO of GAMUT Systems.
Traveler can run online over the Internet or as a desktop application on a physical personal computer. Traveler also comes in different languages such as English, Spanish, French, German, etc. Traveler also deploys a built-in advertising screen saver, which constantly scrolls through local ads and events, as well as a virtual keyboard with custom search functionality.
Monday, 05 November 2007
Orlando Business Journal: Galvanon, has signed an agreement with two new customers for its online self-service system that offers services to patients from their home or office. Vanguard Urologic, one of its new clients, also will be using Galvanon's MediKiosk, a self-service check-in kiosk that allows patients to check in, confirm appointments, enter insurance information, sign forms and pay bills.
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Monday, 05 November 2007
Time: It is hard to believe now what a darling touchscreen voting was seven years ago. After the Florida presidential vote recount debacle, electronic voting was embraced as the way back from America's electoral humiliation. Some 50,000 touchscreen machines were bought in 37 states at a cost of almost a quarter of a billion dollars. The reversal since then couldn't be more stunning · as indicated by a bill in Congress introduced recently by Florida Senator Bill Nelson and Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, which would ban touchscreen voting in federal elections starting in 2012.
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Monday, 05 November 2007
The Indianapolis Star: Until a few weeks ago, MediaMouth was known as Digital Kiosk Technologies, a company that installs CD-burning kiosks in retail stores such as Karma. MediaMouth plans to expand its offerings with movies, video games and concert tickets in its kiosks. The company offers more than 900,000 songs via licensing deals with several independent record labels and major labels Universal, EMI and Warner. More deals will be signed in the coming months.
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Monday, 05 November 2007
 Founded in 1887, Cummins-Allison designs and manufactures self-service coin redemption kiosks for the retail, financial and casino marketplace. These products are sold and serviced through our direct network of 50 offices in North America and other countries. We also offer back office equipment for counting and sorting coin and currency removed and impressed from self service machines.
Monday, 05 November 2007
Detroit Free Press: Hotels nationwide have been slow to adopt technology, compared with the people who stay in them. But they're making up for lost time, experimenting with dozens of new high-tech ways to attract and keep customers, cut costs and stand out among the competition for where you'll spend the night. At some hotels, you can order room service from a phone touchscreen, or adjust your room temperature, or summon housekeeping. You can see area restaurants on the screen, check out their menus and push a button to contact the restaurant and make reservations.
Monday, 05 November 2007
Daytona (Fla.) Business-Journal: Drivers soon may be able to pay for gas with a simple fingerprint scan. Ten Shell stations in Chicago are testing biometric systems that let consumers scan their fingertips on a payment device. The systems are directly linked to customers' checking or credit-card accounts.
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Monday, 05 November 2007
YourHub.com: The Douglas County, Colo., Sheriff's Office took a report recently about a credit-card recording device that was fraudulently attached to a DVD-rental kiosk at a grocery store. Sheriff's deputies determined that an electronic device had been put above the actual credit card reader. It was a device that was used to scan someone's credit card when they swiped it through the slot. They were able to take the device off of the box and turn it over to the deputies on scene.
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Monday, 05 November 2007
HotelInteractive.com: TTI Technologies International has announced it has partnered with Telecharge.com, a New York-based consumer ticket-sales service, to provide Broadway and Off Broadway theater tickets via its new ConciergeOnDemand solution. ConciergeonDemand is a computer-based system that allows hotel guests to view and book tours, buy show tickets, book transportation, etc. directly from a convenient lobby kiosk or PC workstation.
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Friday, 02 November 2007
CNNMoney.com: Coinstar Inc. said its third-quarter profit surged 72 percent as the company's coin-counting machines and movie-rental kiosks collected more from customers, the company said Thursday. Coinstar earned $9.1 million, or 32 cents per share, in the third quarter, compared with profit of $5.3 million, or 19 cents per share, in the third quarter of 2006.
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Friday, 02 November 2007
AMOnline.com: Carts Blanche LLC launched a mobile vending kiosk into the vending, concession and convenience retailing industries. VendaCarts is a mobile trailer equipped with up to eight built-in automatic machines or a combination of vending and service units such as ATMs.
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Friday, 02 November 2007
StorefrontBackTalk.com: Pay By Touch, which has made a major push in POS biometric payments, is backing off that business, according to a report in the current issue of The Nilson Report, a major payments newsletter.
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Friday, 02 November 2007
The Indianapolis Star: A U.S. self-service postal facility has broken ground recently in Fishers, Indiana. The 600 square-foot, free-standing facility will be the first self-service postal facility of its kind in Indiana. The facility is scheduled to open in early 2008. It will offer 24-hour access to customers and will house two Automated Postal Centers.
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Thursday, 01 November 2007
As the 2007 election looms, touchscreen voting kiosks appear to be on the way out. At one time, they were expected to remedy the inaccuracies that came with the old punch-card voting systems, which some blamed for gumming up the 2000 presidential election in West Palm Beach, Fla. Now, after several years of audits and inaccuracies in elections, states are now looking for a remedy for the touchscreens.
In the wake of the 2000 election, Congress passed the $2 billion Help America Vote Act to help guarantee that all votes would be counted. Grassroots voter's rights groups like BlackBoxVoting.org and VotersUnite! came onto the scene, and companies like Election Systems & Software and Diebold began pushing touchscreen voting kiosks as a way to improve election accuracy.
Touchscreens did not seem to solve the problem, however. Florida continued to experience voting woes as recently as the 2006 Congressional Election, this time across the state in Sarasota.
A massive under-vote was recorded in the 13th District Congressional race between Christine Jennings and Vern Buchanan, where it was reported that about 18,000 votes were never counted. Critics were quick to target the new touchscreen voting kiosks, manufactured by Election Services & Software.
Several lawsuits ensued, including one against ES&S and the state of Florida from Jennings, the loser in the race.
After investigation, an audit report was released in February 2007 by the Florida Secretary of State and Florida State University for the source code, also called firmware, that was installed in the iVotronic machines. The audit found that the iVotronic brand machines were not faulty and correctly captured the voters' selections the previous November. The report also audited the performance of the poll of the Sarasota County Elections Office workers but found no error in the procedures during the election.
But before the audit was even released, Florida governor Charlie Crist had already announced that the state was replacing all touchscreen voting kiosks that they had adopted just a few years earlier with optical scan machines. The estimated cost of replacing the machines is more than $32 million and according to state officials, the replacement process may take up to three years to complete.
The bill passed in May, and 15 counties are set to have new optical scan systems in place by the 2008 Presidential election. The 15 counties, which include Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough and Palm Beach, account for about 51 percent of the state's 10.4 million registered voters.
The only touchscreens that will remain in use in Florida, except Sarasota County, will be those used by disabled people, which satisfies ADA compliance regulations. Because of a charter amendment which was petitioned during the Jennings/Buchanan race, Sarasota County had to switch to an all-paper voting system, even for disabled people.
"The charter amendment also means we have to switch to paper before all of the other counties," said Kathy Dent, supervisor of elections for Sarasota County and president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections. "We're the guinea pig again."
Sarasota County, which manages public elections every quarter, will be using a Premier Election Solutions voting system with the Automark system in their November 2007 municipal elections. With the Automark system voters select their candidate on a touchscreen, which records the vote on a paper ballot. The voter then inserts the paper ballot into the optical scanning machine and the vote is recorded.
California decertifies four touchscreen voting systems
In California the face of change in the e-voting realm is that of Secretary of State Debra Bowen.
In May 2007, Bowen commissioned a top-to-bottom review of California's voting systems and the equipment used in them, in preparation for three statewide elections that will be held in 2008. The review was performed in conjunction with the University of California and was designed to determine which voting systems could retain their certifications and which ones should become decertified.
The results came in late July and were not favorable for touchscreens. UC used three "red teams" to hack into the voting machines to determine if someone could do the same and change the way votes were recorded. The red teams found security flaws in all of the systems tested.
In August, Secretary Bowen made the following announcements regarding the de-certification of voting systems tested at UC:
- Diebold's AccuVote TS system was decertified for use in California as red team members were able to access Diebold voting system software using the Windows based operating system and without requiring access to the source code.
- The Hart InterCivic 6.2.1 system was decertified after the manufacturer voluntarily withdrew its version 6.1.
- The Sequoia WinEDS system was decertified after it was found that the machine's protective vote counter could be reset.
- ES&S's InkaVote Plus system was decertified because the company only submitted their machine for review just five days prior to the release of test results.
The manufacturers responded by noting the unfettered access that the UC red teams had to the machines and their source codes, which isn't a real-life scenario.
"The California Top-to-Bottom Review was not a security risk evaluation but an unrealistic worst case scenario evaluation limited to malicious tests, studies and analysis performed in a laboratory environment by computer security experts with unfettered access to the voting machines and software over several weeks," Sequoia said in a release.
Diebold, Dan and the Docudrama
Diebold Election Systems has seemed to attract the most criticism from activists against e-voting. DESI was a subsidiary of Diebold Inc., based in North Canton, Ohio. The subsidiary has since changed its name to Premier Election Solutions.
In October of 2006, just days before the 2006 state elections, HBO ran a "Docudrama" called "Hacking Democracy," which profiled the efforts of members of a grassroots activist group called BlackBoxVoting.org to find faults in the Diebold touchscreen voting machines around the time of the 2004 Presidential Election.
And those faults were found. Two of the most famous voting machine hacks, the "Thompson Hack" and the "Hursti Hack" were recorded on film, along with footage of a Diebold spokesperson claiming it couldn't be done.
In the movie, Black Box Voting founder Bev Harris accessed a computer program called GEMS, developed by Diebold, which is the software the counts votes on the Diebold machines. Harris found the software on an FTP Web site that was buried but still open to the public.
By having an understanding of the GEMS software, Harri Hursti, a computer systems analyst, was able to alter an executable code loaded onto the memory cards used in the machines to record the votes. He released a report on BlackBoxVoting.org that warned that the program could be modified to change the way the vote totals on the cards. Diebold responded with a stonewall report that denied that there was an executable code on the memory cards.
At the time, Diebold Election Services released a rebuttal to the documentary in the form of a press release. That press release was no longer available after Diebold Election Systems changed its name to Premier Election Solutions in August 2007.
But Diebold wasn't the only company targeted by media-wielding activists.
Former CBS reporter Dan Rather tackled the subject of fraudulent touchscreens in an online investigative report called "The Trouble with Touch Screens," shown on HDNet. The hour-long show began with a look into the manufacturing lineage of Election Systems and Software's iVotronic voting kiosks.
Rather found that one of the common problems found with iVotronic was that the calibration of the touchscreen was off on certain machines, so the machine would sometimes register the selection next to the one the voter actually touched.
He traced the manufacturing of the iVotronic back to the Teletech factory in Manila, Philippines, where shoddy conditions, minimum wages and lax quality control checks may have contributed to problems back in America. Filipino workers told Rather that screens coming in from the OEM were of poor quality.
Even more disturbing, Rather reported, is that the OEM of the screens themselves was the Berquist Company, an American company located in Chanhassen, Minn. Landon Tuggle, the factory manager at Teletech, said he was rejecting 30 to 40 percent of the touchscreens he was getting from the Berquist Company because of quality issues.
Thursday, 01 November 2007
DAYTON, Ohio · NCR Corp. reported a 17 percent sales increase in its financial self-service unit, growth the company attributes to greater demand in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific. And though the company's overall net income dropped 63 percent, when compared with the same period in 2006, NCR did raise its full-year earnings per share forecast for the year to between $1.20 and $1.25.
The comapny also realized revenue growth, hitting $1.28 billion, up from revenue of $1.14 billion during the third quarter of '06.
Costs related with the Oct. 1 Teradata spinoff hit during 3Q, adversely affecting net income, NCR said. Income from continuing operations totaled $33 million, 18 cents per share, while earnings from continuing operations hit $39 million, 21 cents per share, from items related to NCR's manufacturing realignment, its Teradata spinoff and a realignment of the Customer Services division in Japan.
"(The) new NCR delivered better-than-expected operational results in the third quarter, featuring both strong revenue growth and operating margin expansion," said Bill Nuti, chairman and chief executive of NCR. "We accomplished these results while also successfully launching Teradata Corporation as an independent, publicly traded company.
Nuti said the completion of the Teradata spinoff will allow the company to focus on implementing this long-term vision and business strategy for growth in the self-service sector.
"While we are excited about new NCR's strategy and pleased with our business results, we have significant work ahead to realize our vision of leading how the world connects, interacts and transacts with business," he said.
Some highlights
Revenue in the financial self-service segment hit $407 million. Operating income totaled $56 million, an increase from $43 million last year, primarily because of higher volume.
The retail segment reported revenue of $278 million, up 27 percent. NCR attributes that growth to numerous "large" self-service rollouts during the quarter. Operating income of $20 million improved from $11 million in '06, as revenue growth and an improved mix of self-service solutions outpaced pricing pressure.
Thursday, 01 November 2007
PORTSMOUTH, R.I. · Self-Service Networks, provider of turnkey self-service solutions, has announced the release of its TIPP, the Thule Interactive Point of Purchase automated fit guide, and the Electronic Gift Card Dispensing kiosk. The two retail solutions were featured at the KioskCom Self Service Expo in New York.
TIPP, a self-service touchscreen kiosk, empowers Thule customers to match appropriate Thule rack systems for their vehicles and gear-carrying needs.
Through a partnership, Self-Service Networks has developed the Electronic Gift Card Dispensing kiosk. The kiosk is designed to reduce gift-card selling costs and shopper wait times. The EGCD vends embossed and non-embossed cards, and enables shoppers to purchase multiple gift cards in a single transaction.
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