History
In 2001 the company was founded after noticing the potential to allow customer access to information after high street closing hours. Main activities included sourcing and developing components and technologies for through window interactive solutions. Dominant activities presently include the manufacture of Projected Capacitance Touch Screen Foils and distribution to a now established group of global resellers. In 2006 the company moved headquarters to Cambridge, UK. Between 2006 and 2007 Visual Planet’s turnover had doubled and the company now has over 100 dealers in major markets around the world who are prominent in the Digital Signage and Touch Screen markets. The company main focus has progressed from a service-orientated company to that of a Touch Screen Foil manufacturer and global distributor.
2008 saw a 60% growth in sales driven by an increase in the deployment of the ViP Interactive Foil within all market sectors, business, retail, exhibitions, high public footfall areas and Digital out of Home advertising. In 2009 Visual Planet expects another year of growth as the market for touch and interactive solutions expands.
Products
ViP Interactive Foil
Visual Planet’s ViP Touch Screen Foil
Visual Planet’s Projected Capacitance Interactive Touch Screen Foil known globally as the iP Interactive Foil can be applied to and work through any non-metallic surface and create a fully functional touch screen. The foils can be built into glass partitions, doors, furniture, external windows, and street signage.
Projected Capacitance
Projected Capacitance is used to allow interactivity through any non-metallic surface and involves the relationship between a conductive pad and a third object. In Touch Screen applications, the third object can be a human finger. Capacitance forms between the user’s fingers and the wires in the conductive pad. The ViP Interactive Foil is made up of a clear laminated plastic foil with an XY array of sensing wires. These wires are connected to a controller. Once a touch is made, the change in capacitance is detected and the X and Y coordinates are calculated. Sizes of the foil vary from 30 – 167″, maximum sizing dependant on 4:3, 16:9 or 21:9 display formats. The company’s customers can choose the position of the electronic components. When applied to glass, the ViP Touch Screen Foil can be programmed for different thickness of glass and also used with gloved hands.
Dual Touch
Visual Planet’s wma8 software provides Dual Touch Mouse Pointer options for use with the ViP Interactive Foil which is suitable for standard mouse emulation within Windows 7 Operating Systems. Zoom and Pinch operates when the user touches the interactive screen with two fingers thus utilizing the function of the centre mouse roller for Windows XP, Vista and 7. Zoom and Rotate operates when the user places two fingers on the screen, keeping one finger in a fixed position while the zooming and rotating is performed with the other finger.
Electronic Control Boards
From 2009 onwards the ViP Interactive Foil is available with a choice of three electronic control boards. These are Serial, USB, or USB Removable. The Serial and USB boards are fixed to the ViP Interactive Foil’s active touch area. The USB Removable can be detached from the ViP Interactive Foil and secured into position once the touch screen is fully installed. All boards are compatible with the full range of ViP Interactive Foils up to 116″ with a board developed in 2010 dedicated for sizes up to 167″. The Serial version of the electronic control board is also available with Mac Computers.
Thru-Window Touch
The Touch Screen Foil can be applied directly to a window or a glass sheet. A rear projection screen or LCD can then be mounted behind the Touch Screen Foil to create a through-window/glass touch experience. The Touch Screen Foil can be permanently mounted or mounted with the intention of later removal. With the Touch Screen Foil being applied one side of the glass, and the user being the other side, the controller and electronics are completely safe from vandalism and weather conditions. The electronics can be programmed for different thicknesses of glass up to 25mm thick.
Interactive Projection and LCD Screens
The Touch Screen Foil can be applied to holographic and high contrast diffusion screens to provide large dynamic information displays. To turn any standard LCD from a passive display into an interactive touch screen simply apply the Touch Screen Foil on to a glass or acrylic sheet, it can then be used as a Touch screen overlay or integrated directly into a LCD.
The Gadget Show
Future Technology
On 17th December, 2007, the ViP Interactive Foil appeared on British Television via 5′s, The Gadget Show. The show’s presenter, Jon Bentley visited Visual Planet and with his crew, filmed various stages of the production process. During the eighth and final episode of series 7, the ViP InteractiveFoil featured alongside companies such as Microsoft and BT in the “Future Tech” section showing how R&D departments are contributing to the future technology of gadgets. This particular Winter Special episode also reviewed products such as Watches, Personal Media Players, and Batteries. This was Visual Planet’s first appearance on television.
Lord Peter Mandelson
Advanced Manufacturing
Lord Peter Mandelson visited Visual Planet Cambridge base on 25th July, 2009 launching the Advanced Manufacturing scheme aimed to offer support to firms trying to make new strides in design, aerospace, electronics and other emerging fields. The launch was mainly aimed at a 150 million nationwide package of measures aimed at helping businesses develop manufacturing skills.
Awards
The company has won a variety of awards including the British Computer Society (BCS), award for its innovative technology. When received in 2006, Visual Planet’s ViP InteractiveFoil had been sold through a network of 60 added value resellers across the world. In 2003 Visual Planet won awards at the Nabarro Nathanson Technology Industry Awards in two of the eight categories. These were “Most Innovative Project”, and “Most Innovative use of Technology in a Project”. Further to this, 2003 saw Visual Planet claim the “Personalised Information Product Award” at the Information Management Awards for the most exciting and innovative new product that enables the delivery or personalised information in a business or home environment.
“Because it’s a Visual World”
“Because it’s a Visual World” is the current slogan for Visual Planet with reference to the visual solutions that the company and the Touch Screen Foils offer, on a global scale. The phrase features on the company logo, other literature such as letterheads, brochure inserts, and on the company website. There is also reference to Visual Planet’s connection with partners both on a worldwide basis, and those who address the Retail, Corporate, Entertainment, Education, and Local Authority industries. The technology provides solutions already widely used in shops, offices, libraries, and public spaces worldwide.
References
^ East of England Business Awards The New Facility – businessweekly.co.uk
^ Interactive Store Window Centrepiece at In-Store – 3m.co.uk
^ Weathermen in Touch Ultra-large Screen Sizes – cambridgenetwork.co.uk
^ Digital Signage News & Information Big Just Got Bigger – signageinfo.com
^ Lewisham Library & Information Service World First for Library – cambridgenetwork.co.uk
^ British Council Innovate to Communicate – cambridgenetwork.co.uk
^ The Gadget Show Future Tech – gadgetshow.five.tv
^ Lord Mandelson visits Visual Planet Mandelson’s praise for city – cambridge-news.co.uk
^ BCS Innovation Award Instant Interactivity – bcs.org
^ Workplace Revolution Intranet Broadcasting – businessweekly.co.uk
External
links
Visual Planet Ltd
ViP Interactive Foil
Visual Planet News
Categories: Companies based in Cambridgeshire | Companies established in 2001 | Liquid crystal displays
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Early up-graders to Windows Vista are reporting annoyance by the loads of software and hardware incompatibilities coming to the fore as they use Windows Vista. For the record the Redmond, Wash., software giant launched Vista and a companion update called Windows Vista Application Compatibility Update to the market on Jan 30. Seems like they expected a lot of issues with the system because they made sure that Vista patches were available on the net even before the Compact disks of the operating system left the factory.
That update, KB929427, makes good some of the more challenging application incompatibilities, but the nightmare is far from over, for the early bird upgraders. There is nothing new about
compatibility issues when a new operating system is launched, however, Vista is not only has a number of incompatibilities with existing applications but also lacks many drivers for critical hardware components and hardware peripherals. Support for Vista hardware is compounded by the fact that most vendors have not created drivers of their hardware that is compatible for Vista making support more of a headache. This is understood when it comes to peripherals such as printers and scanners but so far as critical hardware components such as hard drives, chipset controllers and video cards are concerned the lack of compatibility will crash the system. The manufacturers of primary components of the computer hardware system are just not ready with their wares to support Vista.
Early adopters of Vista have the following problems to contend with:
They will face a drastic lack of available drivers vendors leading to conflicts in applications.
New peripheral hardware components will lack compatible Vista drivers and the old components drivers will simply refuse to work in most cases.
New security feature often flags existing applications as suspicious and interrupts service
The OS automatically recommends which Vista versions is best for each PC’s configuration. This will cause small businesses to download different versions of Vista.
SO in the ultimate analysis, Vista may seem attractive in it’s packaging but it still has far to go.