OBN and Rogers team up for interactive LED board

December 20, 2008 by Dave Haynes

This is pretty cool in terms of blending big-ass screens with little handheld devices.In what is touted as a Canadian first, Outdoor BroadCast Network is working with Rogers Wireless on a real-time app at Toronto’s  Yonge-Dundas Square, which is a smaller, colder version of Times Square.

Using Rogers Wireless BlackBerry Pearl Flip smartphones, reports SelfService World, the public can communicate with the Outdoor Broadcast Network’s (OBN) massive video board located in the square. OBN secured the exclusive rights to “Dial to Play” software distributed by iGotcha Media and took the idea to Rogers Wireless through its agencies, MediaCom and Publicis. The software has been integrated into the operating system of the 40′ x 30′ digital display on the tower, enabling smartphone users to interact with it.
 
Rogers will station event teams at the square until the end of the year, inviting up to 10 people at a time to try out one of the new BlackBerry Flip smartphones, which use voice recognition to play the game in real time. Each player controls an avatar by shouting “Flip” into a mobile phone to make the character’s hand reach up to a Christmas stocking and grab phones that appear to tumble from the sky. OBN has incorporated the game into the regular programming run of advertising on the digital display.

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