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"Open all hours" with interactive window shopping

Visual Planet wins SMART award for innovation

Window-shopping will never be the same again. Cambridge-based Visual Planet has developed a technique that - by making touch screen technology available on a big scale - will enable high street stores to create dynamic, interactive displays.

Vernon Spencer, technical director at Visual Planet, is driving the development. He has a vision of a high street where life-style video clips are used as exciting shop window displays to sell clothes and furniture - at all hours of the day and night. Where the latest X-Box game can be trialed on the street, and just by touching the offer details, the full delights of that exotic holiday location can be viewed at the travel agents.

'After 5.30pm, the high street dies. So shops and other public areas are missing huge promotional opportunities,' he comments. 'Our technology, Broad Screen Interaction, enables video, broadcast and web information to be projected on to a large screen, and touch screens, such as those used in cash points or in Internet booths, to be incorporated into the shop window.'

'A big advantage of digital displays is that they grab your attention and the information can be updated instantly, and messages or special promotions adapted for local audiences.'

Visual Planet's innovation has been recognised by the DTI with a SMART Award, which will fund further development of the Digital Visual Messaging. This enables content for the display to be managed and distributed to one or more devices across the Internet.

Vernon Spencer has always been at the forefront of technology. He was part of the original team behind PIPEX, the UK's first commercial Internet Service Provider, and led the organisation's global product strategy as Director of the Product Group when the company became UUNET and later WorldCom.

His unrivalled experience of web technology is bringing interactive media onto a big stage. 'Sight is our most powerful sense - visual images can convey vastly more information than the spoken or written word. The Internet has changed the way in which we communicate and do business. I can see enormous potential in making this available on a large scale.'

Vernon also sees applications for Broad Screen Interactive Displays in office reception areas, entertainment venues, public spaces such as airports and hotel lobbies, at conference centres and on university campuses.

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