Next generation physical analytics for digital signage

Traditional digital signage analytics are based on a display-centric view of the world, reporting data on the content shown augmented with frequency of views and possibly classification of the audience demographics. What these systems are unable to provide, are insights into viewers' overall experience of content. This is problematic if we want to understand where, for example, to place content in a network of physically distributed digital signs to optimise content exposure. In this paper we propose a new approach that combines mobility simulations with comprehensive signage analytics data to provide viewer-centric physical analytics. Our approach enables us to ask questions of the analytics from the viewer's perspective for the first time, including estimating the exposure of different user groups to specific content across the entire signage network. We describe a proof of concept implementation that demonstrates the feasibility of our approach, and provide an overview of potential applications and analytics reports

Next generation analytics for open pervasive display networks

Public displays and digital signs are becoming increasingly widely deployed as many spaces move towards becoming highly interactive and augmented environments. Market trends suggest further significant increases in the number of digital signs and both researchers and commercial entities are working on designing and developing novel uses for this technology. Given the level of investment, it is increasingly important to be able to understand the effectiveness of public displays. Current state-of-the-art analytics technology is limited in the extent to which it addresses the challenges that arise from display deployments becoming open (increasing numbers of stakeholders), networked (viewer engagement across devices and locations) and pervasive (high density of displays and sensing technology leading to potential privacy threats for viewers). In this thesis, we provide the first exploration into achieving next generation display analytics in the context of open pervasive display networks. In particular, we investigated three areas of challenge: analytics data capture, reporting and automated use of analytics data. Drawing on the increasing number of stakeholders, we conducted an extensive review of related work to identify data that can be captured by individual stakeholders of a display network, and highlighted the opportunities for gaining insights by combining datasets owned by different stakeholders. Additionally, we identified the importance of viewer-centric analytics that use traditional display-oriented analytics data combined with viewer mobility patterns to produce entirely new sets of analytics reports. We explored a range of approaches to generating viewer-centric analytics including the use of mobility models as a way to create 'synthetic analytics' - an approach that provides highly detailed analytics whilst preserving viewer privacy. We created a collection of novel viewer-centric analytics reports providing insights into how viewers experience a large network of pervasive displays including reports regarding the effectiveness of displays, the visibility of content across the display network, and the visibility of content to viewers. We further identified additional reports specific to those display networks that support the delivery of personalised content to viewers. Additionally, we highlighted the similarities between digital signage and Web analytics and introduced novel forms of digital signage analytics reports created by leveraging existing Web analytics engines. Whilst the majority of analytics systems focus solely on the capture and reporting of analytics insights, we additionally explored the automated use of analytics data. One of the challenges in open pervasive display networks is accommodating potentially competing content scheduling constraints and requirements that originate from the large number of stakeholders - in addition to contextual changes that may originate from analytics insights. To address these challenges, we designed and developed the first lottery scheduling approach for digital signage providing a means to accommodate potentially conflicting scheduling constraints, and supporting context- and event-based scheduling based on analytics data fed back into the digital sign. In order to evaluate the set of systems and approaches presented in this thesis, we conducted large-scale, long-term trials allowing us to show both the technical feasibility of the systems developed and provide insights into the accuracy and performance of different analytics capture technologies. Our work provides a set of tools and techniques for next generation digital signage analytics and lays the foundation for more general people-centric analytics that go beyond the domain of digital signs and enable unique analytical insights and understanding into how users interact across the physical and digital world

Information Technology Project Update: 2011-2012

Marshall University Information Technology (MUIT) strives to provide seamless access to global resources, a robust infrastructure and current tools to support our faculty, staff and students, and high levels of technology to compete and excel in a world characterized by constant change with increased mobility. MUIT engages in collaborative relationships within the University and with the local community acting as a trusted partner anticipating needs and responding with innovative solutions in support of the University’s mission of teaching, research, and service via extensive research and planning endeavors

Repurposing web analytics to support the IoT

Internet of Things analytics engines are complex to use and often optimized for a single domain or limited to proprietary data. A prototype system shows that existing Web analytics technologies can successfully be repurposed for IoT applications including sensor monitoring and user engagement tracking

Shopping For Privacy: How Technology in Brick-and-Mortar Retail Stores Poses Privacy Risks for Shoppers

As technology continues to rapidly advance, the American legal system has failed to protect individual shoppers from the technology implemented into retail stores, which poses significant privacy risks but does not violate the law. In particular, I examine the technologies implemented into many brick-and-mortar stores today, many of which the average everyday shopper has no idea exists. This Article criticizes these technologies, suggesting that many, if not all of them, are questionable in their legality taking advantage of their status in a legal gray zone. Because the American judicial system cannot adequately protect the individual shopper from these questionable privacy practices, I call upon the Federal Trade Commission, the de facto privacy regulator in the United States, to increase its policing of physical retail stores to protect the shopper from any further harm

QR Codes in the Library: Are They Worth the Effort? Analysis of a QR Code Pilot Project

The literature is filled with potential uses for Quick Response (QR) codes in the library. Setting, but few library QR code projects have publicized usage statistics. A pilot project carried out in the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library of the Harvard College Library sought to determine whether library patrons actually understand and use QR codes. Results and analysis of the pilot project are provided, attempting to answer the question as to whether QR codes are worth the effort for libraries

A Review of Consumer-Facing Digital Technologies Across Different Types of Fashion Store Formats

Several current trends in the fashion retail and marketing landscape are associated with the ongoing digital revolution, including the increasing tendency for fashion retailers to adopt consumer-facing digital technologies across their online and physical store formats. Such technology helps improve the store environment by conferring a more engaging and stimulating shopping experience for consumers. This chapter provides a review of existing literature, supported by relevant industry reports and current examples from key players in the fashion retail sector, to provide a comprehensive analysis of different types of consumer-facing digital technology in various fashion store formats and how they impact on the overall shopping experience. The authors review a number of technologies including interactive touchscreens, RFID tags, beacon technology, magic mirrors and mobile apps, and consider how they are implemented in online stores, digitally enhanced stores, brand stores and pop-up stores in the fashion sector

Application-driven visual computing towards industry 4.0 2018

245 p.La Tesis recoge contribuciones en tres campos: 1. Agentes Virtuales Interactivos: autónomos, modulares, escalables, ubicuos y atractivos para el usuario. Estos IVA pueden interactuar con los usuarios de manera natural.2. Entornos de RV/RA Inmersivos: RV en la planificación de la producción, el diseño de producto, la simulación de procesos, pruebas y verificación. El Operario Virtual muestra cómo la RV y los Co-bots pueden trabajar en un entorno seguro. En el Operario Aumentado la RA muestra información relevante al trabajador de una manera no intrusiva. 3. Gestión Interactiva de Modelos 3D: gestión online y visualización de modelos CAD multimedia, mediante conversión automática de modelos CAD a la Web. La tecnología Web3D permite la visualización e interacción de estos modelos en dispositivos móviles de baja potencia.Además, estas contribuciones han permitido analizar los desafíos presentados por Industry 4.0. La tesis ha contribuido a proporcionar una prueba de concepto para algunos de esos desafíos: en factores humanos, simulación, visualización e integración de modelos