Elearning: electronic, effective, engaging, engaged, e... learning: InfoComm in Las Vegas, Day 2

InfoComm 2016

InfoComm is just enormous -- 1000 exhibitors, over 40,000 attendees, way too many square feet, and the conference even has food trucks and its on tv channel -- just mind boggling.

View of Exhibit Hall

I spent almost 6 hours working my way through the exhibit hall - and I am not done yet...
Here are some products that peeked my interest.

Classroom Design:
As you know part of my mission I chose to accept is to find collaborative technologies that will work for the EASL classrooms. This conference has quite a few, and they are all starting to look rather similar.
Blackbox's Coalesce system This system looks like it would work best in a conference room setting.
Wolfvision Cynap promising system that even allows annotation across multiple displayed devices
Qomo's Ormi and Ormiboard: brand new company that allows for the building of interactive exercises, games, etc - and the students can build, too. I am thinking some of the natural sciences where you need to build molecules, DNA, and other graphically based artifacts. The software they showed is released June 26, so nothing is quite online about it yet. They also have a document camera that can be mounted to the wall and stored in a little cabinet when not in use -- an interesting concept I had not seen before.
Epson interactive portable whiteboard table -- can be adjusted from whiteboard to table to easle, making it an interesting option for any class dealing with design. The table is on wheels but not quite what I would call portable.
Crestron
Phillips D-live
VIA (Kramer): promising system, they think linux collaboration may be possible (for our splinter group on campus), system integrates with Skype for Business, and shared content can be annotated and saved locally. Document camera feed can be annotated as well.
cyviz: This Norwegian company focuses on collaboration - what I found interesting was their remote management of and training on their control touch panels
Barco: Yes, they still have the hockey pucks (Clickshare) but are moving into the same direction of no longer needing that kind of device and using Airplay etc to connect. Their set-up was nice, with the teacher being able to have up to 8 displays on the main screen, to control which student feed needs to be shared to all, to lock the screens for greater focus

I also found some interesting video conference solution that may work for synchronous distance education:
1 beyond - has a portable system, a concept that appears to pick up momentum
onescreen: is software based, with the beginning license covering 25 seats that may accomodate quite a few classes.
vyopta for video conference management was in the innovation corner -- they manage video conference traffic across multiple platforms to trouble shoot, analyze data, and claim that their product can cut down on cost.

Finally, some miscellaneous finds:
Flexglass - so flexible you can roll it up and store
IDEA Screen from Chief: I am wondering if they are connected to IDEA paint - the logo looked the same
Brown Innovations has physical cone of silence solutions
Samsung's large displays synced to mobile devices
Mybeam explained to me how their system together with sound masking could create a cone of silence.
Drywall Trapper: for when you have to cut holes in to the ceiling
Nureva Span sticky note wall uses multiple projectors to create one long interactive wall -- looks quite interesting.

My findings are of course barely scratching the surface - one space is covered in stage light, stage audio system exhibits, with fog machines and light shows (and live music). One place has an artist's installation: Refik Anadol's Infinity Room

Infinity Room

Animation display

Another area has lots of switches, wires, tools, different systems to mount displays, and another area has a lot of projection system, with the big screens at front and center.

curved display

Finally, the hall also has an innovation corner with brand new products that you can vote on as the most likely success.

Speaking of large displays -- we zip lined under the largest display last night at the Fremont Street Experience -- quite the cultural experience, rounded out by a visit to the El Cortez casino which is one of the older ones in town. Just like in the movies...