by TRC_Admin | Nov 6, 2019 | Mural, Placemaking, Technology
Photo: Charlie Belcher, Charlie’s World, Fox 13 News
“Company brings wall murals into focus through smart app”
“There is a new way to learn even more about the murals in downtown St. Petersburg, thanks to Pixelstix.
They’ve teamed up with the folks from SHINE Mural Festival to create a digital gallery.
Using a smartphone with the Pixelstix app, visitors to a mural can scan a Pixelstix plaque which will load docent-level information about the mural and the artist onto their device.
Additionally, interactive maps show the locations of the festival’s collection of murals, creating a personalized mural tour… ”
— Charlie Belcher, Fox 13 News
See video to learn about the new technology, meet the founder of Pixelstix and experience Charlie’s World
Read more about the Shine Festival and murals in Tampa Bay Times
by TRC_Admin | Aug 31, 2019 | Codes, Technology, Utility Towers
Photo: A small cell tower across the street from the Orange County Courthouse. The corresponding radio equipment is located in a portion of the adjacent garbage can. Ryan Gillespie, Orlando Sentinel
“…Orlando’s planning department has projected carriers will need about 20,000 nodes to bring about 60% coverage, with the most needed to bring strong coverage to dense downtown and touristy International Drive. At a City Council workshop this month, officials said they and the municipally-owned Orlando Utilities Commission were studying how to encourage carriers to attach their antennas and radio equipment to the same poles, preventing equipment clutter on Orange Avenue.
‘What we have beginning to happen is a lot of nodes occurring on Orange Avenue. If you were to line them all up, you’d be looking at a node every 90 feet,’ Chief Planner Doug Metzger said. ‘In my perfect world, I’d love to get two providers on every node.”
For that to happen, carriers would need to either agree to share new poles installed throughout the city or reach an agreement with OUC to install equipment on the utility’s tower. OUC has some small-cell agreements for antennas to be installed on its poles, though they currently don’t yet have 5G antennas, utility spokesman Tim Trudell said.
The study is underway, and Metzger said he hopes a plan is developed by early October.
Florida cities maintain limited leverage over carriers in Florida, as state legislators pre-empted municipalities from regulating wireless infrastructure in 2017 and further restricted it in 2019.
The 2017 legislation, sponsored in the House by state Rep. Mike La Rosa, R-St. Cloud, is being challenged in a lawsuit filed by the Florida League of Cities, along with Naples, Port Orange and Fort Walton Beach, which contend the law allows private businesses to take over city property, with a $150 per pole cap as a fee.
‘We felt the Legislature’s actions were pretty egregious in those two narrow areas,’ said Kraig Conn, general counsel for the League of Cities…
Elsewhere in Central Florida, Winter Park could also see early interest from 5G companies. The city has had talks with carriers, though its city commission hasn’t formally reviewed policy on 5G.
However, Winter Park shares aesthetic concerns, as it has spent millions in recent years burying its power lines, while state law now allows carriers to build poles in the public right of way…”
— Ryan Gillespie, Orlando Sentinel
Read entire article
by TRC_Admin | Jul 27, 2019 | Billboards, Interactive Advertising, Technology, Vending
Photo: PerceptIn, Mashable
The company says the DragonFly is a retail opportunity and will start selling it in the first part of 2019 for $40,000. It’s this lowish price compared to other digital billboards (this marketing site says a digital ad starts at around $10,000 for a month depending on the location) and to other self-driving vehicles that the CEO sees as a key selling point. That and its capabilities to collect location-based data showing when and where people are paying attention to the vehicle…”
— Shasha Lekach, Mashable
Read entire and see video in this article
Two additional examples of these types of devices
“PepsiCo testing self-driving vending machine in California”
Photo: University of the Pacific in Stockton, UPI.com
Read article
“PerceptIn unleashes a driverless mobile vending machine that displays video ads”
Photo: PerceptIn, Venture Beat
Read article
by TRC_Admin | Jul 27, 2019 | Billboards, Technology, Vending
Photo: Burger King in Washinton Post
“Amid that influx of innovation, …Burger King is the first fast-food brand to deliver food to people in the middle of a traffic jam. In Mexico City, the company said, delivery drivers are already receiving an average of 7,000 orders per day, mostly to homes and offices.
To make the traffic jam delivery process possible, Burger King’s Mexico app activates the service after identifying congested areas in Mexico City during periods of high traffic. Customers can place an order only if the app determines that the driver will be locked in traffic for at least 30 minutes and they are within 1.8 miles of a Burger King restaurant, the company said.
Push notifications alert drivers when they’ve entered a delivery zone, and company billboards display information about the status of customer orders. Drivers are prompted to place their order using hands-free voice command.
Though the company did not offer a timeline, Burger King says it expects to roll out the Traffic Jam Whopper in other cities with high-density traffic, such as Los Angeles, Sao Paulo and Shanghai.”
— Peter Holley , Washington Post
Read entire article
by TRC_Admin | Jul 27, 2019 | Etc., Technology
Photo: IRL Glasses, Wired
“EARLY LAST YEAR, Scott Blew was standing in line at a food truck in Los Angeles when he caught the glare of Fox News on a television out of the corner of his eye. This is ridiculous, he thought. He couldn’t even escape the deluge of the news, or the ubiquity of screens, on a jaunt outdoors to get lunch. You could consciously choose to put your phone away, to step away from your laptop, but then some other screen would pop up elsewhere, whether you liked it or not.
Blew, an entrepreneur and engineer, recalled an article he’d recently read in WIRED about a new kind of film that blocked the light emitted from screens. Plaster it on the glass walls of fishbowl conference rooms and other people could see in—but they couldn’t see what was on someone’s laptop. Blew wondered if the same technology might work on a pair of glasses, to block the screens that seemed to be everywhere.
He contacted Steelcase, the company that made the Casper screen-blocking film, and ordered a sample. Then he popped out the lenses in a pair of cheap sunglasses and replaced them with the film. Amazingly, it worked: Blew could look through the lenses and see everything—except for screens, which turned black.
Blew brought the prototype to his friend Ivan Cash, an artist, who thought the glasses were brilliant. Now, Cash and a small team are turning that concept into a real product. Their IRL Glasses, which launched on Kickstarter this week, block the wavelengths of light that comes from LED and LCD screens. Put them on and the TV in the sports bar seems to switch off; billboards blinking ahead seem to go blank. Within three days of launch, the project had surpassed its funding goal of $25,000. (Like all Kickstarters, this one comes with the usual caveats….)””
— Arielle Pardes, Wired
Read entire article
by TRC_Admin | Jul 27, 2019 | Billboards, Building Wrap, Technology
Photo: Atlanta in Town
“Midtown stakeholders mobilize against massive digital billboards”
“An effort to digitize two of Atlanta’s most prominent billboards has been met with a legal challenge.
In February, the City of Atlanta’s Office of Buildings issued permits that would allow Tazmedia Group, which owns the massive advertising signs on the side and top of a 1960s office building at 1655 Peachtree Street, to upgrade the billboards to digital changing-message signs.
The Trivision billboards, which adorn the same building as a recognizable metal peach, are marketed by the owner as the ‘world’s largest,’ passed by hundreds of thousands of commuters daily on Interstate 85.
But a few parties who could be impacted by the potential glow of the gigantic signage are calling foul…
‘They did not comply with the ordinance, they were illegally permitted, they exceed the allowed sign sizes by several multiples, and they are general-advertising signs masquerading as business-identification signs,’ say a summary of the BZA appeal…
The appellants now say that allowing the signs to be converted to LED light boards would be ‘further rewarding the sign owner’s illegal conduct.'”
— Collin Kelley, Atlanta in Town
Read entire article
