Trident Case™ Provides Deserving Schools the Opportunity to Win a Free Charging Cart!

Trident Case™, manufacturer of rugged and eco-friendly tablet and mobile device cases and accessories, today announced an exciting opportunity for deserving schools to receive a free Trident Charging Cart. Beginning March 23, schools can submit a 200-word essay for a chance to win.

“More and more schools are implementing technology like tablets into their curriculums,” Trident Vice President of Marketing Vickie Achee explained. “We’re proud to offer schools the opportunity to obtain a Trident Charging Cart, a product that will make a positive impact in the lives of students for years to come.”

For a chance to win, teachers, administrators, or other school personnel should submit a 200-word essay answering the question: “What makes your school unique and how would a new Charging Cart help your school?” The stories can be submitted directly tomarketing@tridentcase.com from March 23 through April 23, 2015. A panel of judges will review all submissions and award the most deserving school a Trident Charging Cart.

The Trident Charging Cart is the ideal solution for charging multiple tablets in K-12 classrooms. Built-in charging ports allow users to charge up to 30 tablets at once, while a UV light inside the Charging Cart disinfects the cases while charging them. The cart, equipped with an acrylic frosted window to view the devices, fully charges all tablets in up to 4-6 hours. A red LED light indicates that the devices are charging, and a green LED light indicates that the devices are fully charged.

Trident’s Charging Cart is available in white, beige and black and comes with built-in handles and lockable wheels make it easy to move the cart to and from different locations around a classroom or throughout the entire school. Meanwhile, a front stand securely holds the door to prevent from swinging when open. The Charging Cart is available for tablets 11” and under.   

“Trident offers a variety of mobile device accessories and solutions that allow people to live with impact,” Achee added. “The Charging Cart is an example of how Trident’s products can make a positive impact in the lives of many. We’re excited to provide K-12 schools the opportunity to win this useful product.”

The official contest rules can be found on www.tridentcase.com/chargingcartrules. The deadline for entering the contest is April 23, 2015. Judges decision will be final.

Advanced Brings York University Atrium To Life With Stunning Ultra-Thin Bezel Videowall Installation!

York University’s Schulich School of Business, one of the world’s top business schools, wanted to replace their dim projector screen with a vivid display to compliment the modern aesthetic of their new atrium. To do so, they turned to Advanced, Canada’s leading AV integrator, to envision and install a 4x4 panel 55” LCD ultra-thin bezel videowall in the school’s new space.

“Advanced is honored to have been selected for this prestigious project,” Advanced President David Weatherhead said today. “The school’s former projector screen was not compatible with the room’s natural light. We were able to replace the old system with a videowall that vividly delivers content to students.”

The ultra-thin LCD bezel videowall with a 4mm seam gap is made up of 16 panels to display one, complete image. The content feed, comprised of announcements, videos and photos, is managed from the network operations room. All content is managed and displayed by a BrightSign XD digital media player.

“The ultra-thin bezel LCD videowall is the ideal technology for this space because it is as visually stunning in high ambient light and more cost effective than traditional LED displays,” Weatherhead said. “The videowall’s content distribution mechanism allows administrators to send an image to any monitor from the network operations room. This gives them complete control over the content in real time.”

What’s more, the videowall is easily serviceable due to the unique pull-out videowall bracket system Advanced installed. Since the University runs the display twelve hours per day, it’s important that the videowall can be easily serviced should a failure happen.  “The videowall mounting system allows for increased maintenance flexibility, which is vital when managing a display in a public space,” Weatherhead added.

Known as Canada’s Global Business School™, the Schulich School of Business in Toronto is ranked among the world’s leading business schools by a number of global surveys. Schulich’s MBA program is ranked #1 in the world by the Aspen Institute (a Washington, DC-based leadership think tank) in a global survey that identifies which schools are doing the best job of preparing future business leaders for the environmental, social and ethical complexities of modern-day business. Schulich’s MBA program is ranked #1 in Canada by Forbes.

Panamax’s M4315-Pro SmartSequencer Keeps Classes At Saint Louis University Up and Running

As university classrooms move deeper into a digital environment, they encounter many of digital’s pitfalls, including system crashes. Having a system go down in mid-class not only disrupts the flow of the educational process, but it would also often require a visit from someone from the school’s IT department to reboot the system.

That’s a thing of the past at Saint Louis University (SLU), where the school’s long-time AV technology partner, TSI Global, has been installing the Panamax M4315-PRO in classrooms throughout the campus and beyond. The BlueBOLT® enabled, Power, Energy and Network Manager allows system managers to remotely reboot the room’s Crestron RoomView® control system.

“If the processor went down before we began implementing the M4315-PRO, you would have to physically reconfigure the processor, in some cases having to have someone come all the way across campus to cycle the processor,” explains Paul Murdick, President of Technology Solutions, a division of TSI Global.  Instead, using the BlueBOLT Remote Power and Energy Management Platform option on the M4315-PRO, systems can be remotely rebooted from a central location, saving time, cost, and most importantly, avoiding interruption of classroom time.

Murdick says that SLU’s ITS department encountered the BlueBOLT option at an InfoComm show in 2011. In the three years since, TSI Global has installed over 150 BlueBOLT-equipped M4315-PRO units, including 25 of them in SLU’s recently opened downtown-Saint Louis law school building. “The online diagnostic capabilities of the M4315-PRO are excellent in terms of both knowing the status of everything plugged into the power management system and for getting systems back up and running if there is crash,” he says. “The M4315-PRO is a solution that’s both effective and efficient.”

Designed for commercial A/V Installers, the M4315-PRO combines robust control capabilities via the BlueBOLT platform, advanced AC protection and noise filtration.  

NanoLumens® Helps Elon University Engage and Galvanize Students at its New 'Global Neighborhood'

Two nine-foot-tall and 16-foot wide NanoLumens LED displays engage students and visitors with dynamic high-resolution video content to support the Global Neighborhood’s diverse series of events. 

When Elon University began designing the Great Hall meeting area in its new Global Neighborhood two years ago, they knew they needed to provide a way to incorporate a cutting edge, state of the art display to engage and galvanize the attention of students and visitors on a daily basis. Since the architecture and aesthetics of the room did not allow for any type of video projection, Elon turned to NanoLumens® for displays to ignite this great room.

The Global Neighborhood is the latest piece of the University’s $100 million, multiyear residential campus initiative that bridges what all Elon students learn in the classroom with what they discuss and debate in their campus homes. The neighborhood features five residence halls and the 50,000-square foot Global Commons Building, which houses the Isabella Cannon Global Education Center, multimedia rooms, a digital theater, an organic tea café, academic offices, and the Great Hall – a three-story space overlooking Lake Mary Nell large enough to fit the entire incoming class.

“At Elon, not all learning happens in the classroom,” explained Joe Davis, Elon University’s Assistant Director of Campus Technology/Solutions Architect. “The University has been working to create more intellectual spaces around campus where students can have group discussions, creating an educational atmosphere virtually anywhere. When given the right tools, the quad outside of the student center or even a bench outside a dorm can be evolved into a learning space.”

Some of the tools Davis brought in to enhance the campus’ various learning spaces include on- and off-campus wi-fi access, shared screen capabilities in computer labs, projectors — and large-scale visual display solutions from NanoLumens. 

“As we began planning the Global Neighborhood, we wanted the Great Hall to be the ideal intellectual space for everyone on campus,” Davis continued. “However, since the room is so vast, we also hoped to host large scale events seamlessly, without bringing in a lot of extra materials. To do this, we needed a versatile screen that could display video as well as host presentations in a compelling and engaging way — without a lot of time consuming configuration in between.” 

“When the University came to me with this project, I immediately thought of the NanoLumens’ NanoSlims displays as the ideal solution,” Brian Cox, Sales Engineer from the integration firm Audio & Light stated. “The displays have the thinnest profile from front to back of any LED wall on the market, are front serviceable and deliver a seamless bezel-free viewing experience. The displays are also extremely energy efficient, fitting seamlessly into the University’s LEED building certification standards. On top of that, all NanoLumens displays come with the unprecedented six-year, zero defect warranty program, making the product selection a no-brainer.”

Elon ultimately chose NanoLumens to supply two 5mm NanoSlim displays, measuring nine-feet-tall by 16-feet wide. The displays are ultra-lightweight, slim, and provide vibrant, high-resolution images from all viewing angles, making them ideal for the University’s Great Hall. 

The NanoLumens displays in the Great Hall are engaging students at all hours. During the day, the displays showcase students’ study abroad photos submitted to the Isabella Cannon Global Education Center’s photography contest, CNN or BBC America is broadcast in the evening, and at night, the displays are used for student events such as foreign film nights or game nights.

“These screens aren’t just impressive to us in the technology support department,” Davis added. Everyone from students to administrators have commented on how clear and vibrant the displays look. This installation has been so successful we’re already looking to put more of NanoSlims around campus.”

NanoLumens displays are extremely slim, ultra-lightweight, energy efficient, and feature a bright, seamless, high resolution picture quality that can be viewed from any angle throughout the display horizon without color shift or image distortion. The company’s patented display technology, promises to transform the way marketers engage their customers in every type of trade show, retail, hospitality, stadium, arena, transportation and public event environment.

All NanoLumens displays accept input from nearly any device or content management system. There is no need for special software, hardware or special personnel to display content beautifully.  With a profile of only a few inches, NanoSlim displays can be installed on virtually any surface without being obtrusive, adding the ‘WOW’ factor to any environment without taking up precious space. NanoLumens’ patented display technology is optimized for indoor use, operating with virtually zero heat or noise while producing bright, rich, consistent color as well as superior off-axis viewing with no color shift or image distortion throughout the display horizon.

To watch a time-lapse video of the NanoLumens installation at Elon University, click here.

Furman Helps Technical Services Audio Visual (TSAV) Keep the Power on in Education

Knowledge is power, goes the durable maxim. But not much learning can take place without power. That’s the ‘lesson’ that Technical Services Audio-Visual (TSAV), a global professional audio-visual consulting and systems integration company, ‘teaches’ repeatedly with its implementation of Furman AC-power control systems.

Over the course of the last year, TSAV has specified and installed Furman systems, including the CN-1800S SmartSequencer™ 15-amp bidirectional power sequencer, the P-1400 AR E voltage regulator/power conditioner, the AC-210AE compact power conditioner, and other Furman power-control products that have become critical components in all of TSAV’s system designs for education projects.

“Furman just works — it just works,” says TSAV President Pete Dugas, repeating the declaration for emphasis. “The products are dependable and Furman would stand behind them if there was ever a problem. But I say ‘would’ stand behind them because we’ve never, ever had an instance where a Furman product failed. Ever.”

Dugas cited several education facility projects where Furman power control and conditioning systems were crucial to the AV systems’ designs. At the Adult Training Services (ATS) department of Hope Haven Children's Clinic And Family Center in Jacksonville, FL,  educators provide individuals with disabilities quality training, experience, and advocacy. TSAV helped the non-profit in an extensive renovation of the adult education space that included two CN-1800S SmartSequencer units as well as a Furman PS-PRO II power conditioner/sequencer. “These Furman units were able to provide the facility with the highest level of power protection and conditioning at a price they could afford,” says Dugas.

At Georgia Piedmont Technical College, in Clarkston, GA, one of the oldest and most respected of Georgia's technical colleges, TSAV employed both the CN-1800S SmartSequencer and the P-1400 AR E voltage regulator/power conditioner for a new broadcast-systems learning facility that also creates local programming, assuring the school’s technology platforms of safe, reliable and conditioned power. “That’s critical at any college but especially so at a technology school like this,” Dugas observes.

The Macon (GA) State College Recreation Center, where the school’s Recreation and Wellness Program provides students with the opportunity to maintain a healthy lifestyle through the use of the Fitness Centers or by participating in one of 15 club sports programs, a number of the AC-210AE compact power conditioners were used in racks throughout the facility, including those supporting the college’s extensive digital signage deployment and its gaming stations. In addition, the systems there are protected by a CN-2400S 20-amp bidirectional power sequencer.

In perhaps the most challenging education application, TSAV fabricated racks for the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology KAUST), a public research university located in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. These had to be designed, built and tested at TSAV’s U.S. facility, then shipped to the school and installed as soon as they cleared customs. Each rack used Furman’s PS-8R power conditioner/sequencer and PL-PRO DMC E power conditioner with voltmeter/ammeter products, and Dugas says that Furman’s cable adaptor kits made the switch-out of the new racks for the old ones simple and seamless. “The connectivity was incredibly easy and the process went very, very fast,” he recalls.

“We work all over the world and often in some very challenging educational spaces, but we design power conditioning, protection and filtration into every rack, because It makes no sense to cut corners when it comes to the quality of the power that runs everything else,” Dugas concludes.