Blog

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Jan 14, 2016

Location, Location, Location

With Apple Maps, Google Maps, Uber, and a range of location-based apps and wearables, we are getting a real understanding of consumer travel patterns in the physical world. What is the impact of this? What would you do with this information that was never before possible? In digital signage we are seeing a trend towards instrumentation and measurement analysis. It used to measure traffic, linger times, and to calculate ROIs of particular installations or campaigns. Combine this with mobile and location data, and point of sale retail data, and we start to have a complete impact on how signage affects purchase behavior.
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Dec 16, 2015

Planar Offers AIA CE Courses with HSW Designation

Architects in most states must complete a minimum number of continuing education learning unit (LU) hours per year in order to renew their license. These educational sessions are provided by building product manufacturers like Planar. The architects in these states as well as members of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) are required to take a minimum of 12 LU hours in approved Health, Safety, Welfare (HSW) topics. The course content must directly support the HSW definition, it must include one or more specific HSW topics, and 75% of the content must be on HSW topics (see the AIA HSW guidelines). Many continuing education courses do not More…

architecture , AIA , ce

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Dec 10, 2015

Behind the Scenes: A Conversation with Planar's VP of International Sales, Rob Stewart

We are running a series of interviews with our executive team. Today we hear from Rob Stewart, the VP of International Sales. Q: What are the top things that you do for the company and what’s your role? A: The top things I do for the company is help sell our products outside the United States and Canada. My role is to oversee our international team and to guide and direct them to focus on markets and partners that we need to sell our products to our customers in these non-North American countries. Q: How are you able to use your strengths and experiences at Planar? A: Planar gives many of our employees the freedom to go about their jobs without More…

interview , innovation

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Dec 03, 2015

Transparent OLED Displays for Retail: Help People See what to Buy

Retail is all about eye candy.  Now someone trained in the intricacies of design and psychology might want to give a more nuanced description of all the aspects that go into creating a successful retail space, but in the end, it mostly boils down to finding ways to focus the attention of customers on specific things. The Brain Follows the Eye Of all the senses that human beings possess, vision is by far the most dominant. There are more and larger regions of the brain devoted to processing vision than any other sense. And it’s not surprising since vision has been so vitally important to human survival throughout history. We are primed to look More…

oled , transparent

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Nov 25, 2015

Experience Museum Exhibits in a Whole New Light

Museums have a reputation for being boring. They tend to be dimly lit, quiet, sleepy places. Like libraries without the books. Which is a shame since museums are also where some of the most wonderful objects in the world are stored. But as technology gets better the wonder and engagement that makes learning magical can be brought back into museums. The Promise of Transparent Displays Imagine stepping into an ancient history museum and seeing the fragments of a statue from thousands of years ago in a case. Then imagine the spaces between the fragments being filled in by a transparent display allowing you to see what the ancients did so long ago. Or More…

oled , transparent

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Nov 17, 2015

Black is Clear and other Design Considerations for Transparent OLED Displays

Getting the most out of technology often requires learning some new techniques and ideas. When photography was first invented, people would need to stand still for minutes to capture a portrait instead of the hours it took for a painter. When moving pictures were new, actors had to learn how to emote for the camera without using any words or sounds. When color movies first came along, directors had to begin thinking about palettes and hues and saturation. The Planar® LookThru™ OLED transparent display brings the same type of challenges along with its exciting new possibilities. Black is Clear What makes a transparent display unique is, of course, More…

transparent , OLED , LookThru

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Nov 09, 2015

Introducing Transparent OLED Displays

On November 5, 2015, Planar Systems became the first company in the world to sell a transparent OLED display.  The LookThru™ line from Planar has already shown our industry-leading transparent displays with LCDs, but due to the limitations of that technology – namely requiring backlights – sizes and installation options were limited. With the new Planar LookThru OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) transparent display technology, the screen emits its own light allowing for free-standing installations that don’t require any sort of backlight or enclosure to provide a full-HD, yet transparent display. From Sci-Fi to Reality Movies and TV shows have More…

LookThru , OLED

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Nov 03, 2015

Behind the Scenes: A Conversation with Planar's VP of Sales, Adam Schmidt

We are running a series of interviews with our executive team. Today we hear from Adam Schmidt, the VP of Sales. Planar: How long have you been at Planar? In the industry? Adam Schmidt: I’ve been at Planar since June 2001. Before I came to Planar I was at an Electronic Design Automation software company where I worked in competitive intelligence and market research.  I’ve always been a bit of an A/V geek, but my time at Planar is my only experience in the industry. Q: Why did you come to Planar? A: When Planar recruited me, I was working at Mentor Graphics after interning there during grad school.  Mentor is, and was, a fantastic place to work, More…

interview , innovation

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Oct 27, 2015

Aventura Mall Chooses Planar UltraLux Touch to Bring Unique Retail Experience

Aventura Mall is Miami’s premier fashion destination. It includes more than 300 retailers in its 2,700,000 square feet of space. Today it is an architectural design gem which provides an unrivaled shopping experience for 30 million visitors each year. Aventura Mall has earned recognition as an exciting, always evolving environment that blends a distinctive aesthetic and design with the innovative use of advanced technology. Among the most recent examples of this are the dual-sided, interactive digital directories currently in place at each of the mall’s entrances. The directories – Planar® UltraLux™ Touch 70” displays (LUX70-T) – which display More…

retail , UltraLux

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Oct 13, 2015

Planar Sponsors 4K 4Charity Fun Run in Portland

Planar Systems is a premier sponsor of the 4K 4Charity Fun Run in Portland on Wednesday, October 21st.  The 4K 4Charity Run celebrates the achievements of the growing technology community and promotes wellness and diversity. Planar joins other locals businesses like Elemental Technologies, Act-On Software, Portland Trail Blazers in giving back to our community! Proceeds from the 4K 4Charity Fun Run PDX will benefit Rosemary Anderson High School (RAHS), an Opportunities Industrialization Center, Inc. (OIC) community-based alternative high school. Learn more about RAHS directly from the school’s students and faculty in this inspiring video. 

technology