Wall-sized E-Ink Electronic Newspaper

Toppan Printing Co. will exhibit a large-scale wall-sized newspaper utilizing E Ink Electronic Paper technology at EXPO 2005, which starts March 25 in Aichi, Japan. This wall-sized newspaper application is called “Yomiuri Global Newspaper – Electronic Paper”, the news will be updated twice a day. The installation consists of 272 individual tiles, a combination of an E Ink frontplane laminated onto a printed circuit board with pixel electrodes. The resulting size is is 2.2 meters by 2.6 meters. The layout is similar to an actual newspaper, the headlines and article text are displayed on monochrome Electronic Paper tiles and color photos are displayed on an LCD monitor.
-- press release, via Psysics Org

Earlier:
E Ink: Digital POP Display
E Ink: Digital Billboards
Ink: Digital Price Tags (also by Toppan)

Decomposing Celluloid

Boing Boing posts this picture of a sign at an unnamed photoprocessing counter:




Earlier:
Future: The End of CD
The End Of Analog Audio Reels
Who's Killing Whom

Hokey Spokes and Spinvertising

Hokey Spokes are transparent "blades" that attach to your bicycle spokes. As these blades spin during riding, a computer inside the blades modulates the internal LED lights so that design images and custom text appear. It work's just like the "wag the ad" device and the advertising fan. Now you can make good use of all this space on rickshaw and taxi wheels.
-- found through i4u

PaperClick, FCB Tie Barcodes and Cellphones

"Foote Cone & Belding has struck a deal to weave barcodes and other product codes into its clients' mobile campaigns in the U.S. and overseas. The agency plans to integrate mobile marketing programs with physical media and product packaging through a platform developed by PaperClick. The PaperClick platform lets mobile users click through to a site by using their handset to capture a barcode. The technology, which requires the installation of software on a handset, is compatible with UPC, ISBN and other product codes. Product codes can either be photographed with a camera phone or entered manually by the user." Here's how it works.
-- ClickZ.com

Earlier:
SoundAds: Print and Sound
Feedback to Print Ads Through Camera Phones

Reinventing TV

"There are an estimated 31 million hours of original television content produced each year. In addition, 115m digital video tapes are sold each year for personal camcorders. The average American household now gets 100 channels of TV. While that sounds like a lot--it's 876,000 hours of video broadcast to the average home each year--that's still less than 3% of the commercial video that's produced for broadcast." What a waste, says Chris Anderson.

Gallery Of Fading Ads

This surprising gallery of fading advertising murals by Frank Jump sheds a different, philosophical light on our business.
-- found via Towleroad, which has pictures of a very tall billboard hanging from Manhattan's Flatiron building.

Tombstones as Media

Boing Boing runs an entry on translucent glass tombstones by Lundgren Monuments. This somehow brought back fond memories of a game company planning to place ads on gravestones in Britain a couple of years ago. Also, one volunteer organization called Dragon Heads Productions raises money by offering patrons to adopt a tombstone on a California cemetery. They write: "For a donation of $20 you may write a epitaph and we will build your tombstone and display it in our cemetery. We will take a photo of your stone and send it to you as a Thank You! We will also be putting a special page up with all the tombstones."

TiVo Tests Banners, Plans Interactive Format

"TiVo confirmed that it released the first in a series of advertising features to a random and limited number of subscribers to the digital-video recorder service. The first test feature--a tag--pops up on the screen when a viewer is fast-forwarding through an advertisement."
-- ZDnet.com, screenshot from BetaNews

"TiVo also plans to unveil a new feature this fall that will bring Web-like, interactive advertisements to TV. Known as Video-to-Video, the idea is to let viewers click a button on their remote control to immediately watch a 3-minute video describing products and services that might appeal to them. The marketing clips are promoted through small icons that appear on the TV screen as viewers fast-forward past regular ads."
-- ZDnet.com

Future: Networked DVR

"A report issued last week by Magna Global predicts that if network DVRs become a reality, DVR usage could skyrocket. Unlike set-top DVRs, which are already offered by several cable operators, a network DVR records virtually all programming on a central server in the cable system’s “headend.”

Theoretically, anybody who subscribes to digital cable could record whatever they wanted, without having to schedule an appointment with the cable guy or install a TiVo box.

According to Magna, network DVRs, if deployed this year, “would immediately make time-shifting technology available to 40 [percent] to 50 percent of a cable operator’s subscribers...significantly impacting how video content is consumed.” Magna Global’s director of industry analysis, Brian Wieser, who authored the report, said, “The possibility could be here a lot sooner than people think.”
-- Media Week via Lost Remote

SoundAds: Print and Sound

This is much easier than it sounds. See a print ad you like, then dial the number you see on your mobile phone to listen to a corresponding sountrack. More of those ads here. Designed by Artmiks. More info at Blogfonk.
-- via AdRag

Earlier:
Sound Inserts in Print Ads
Feedback to Print Ads Through Camera Phones