Briefly Noted

City School Placed in New Gehry TowerA new public school with seats for 600 students will be built inside a lower Manhattan skyscraper to be designed by architect Frank Gehry, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced on Feb. 6. Developer Bruce Ratner plans to build the school and the 75-story skyscraper near NYUDowntownHospital on Beekman St. by 2008. The city's first public school built on private land will be treated as a commercial condominium, meaning the city will own the school space. The school will cost taxpayers $650 a square foot -- more than twice the price City Hall has been trying to pay for new schools, reflecting the architectural and planning work to be done by Ratner. Daily News of New YorkActiveLight and Projector Wholesale Supply Merge OperationsActiveLight, a distributor of dynamic signage solutions, and Projector Wholesale Supply (PWS), a distributor of professional projection solutions, have combined products and services and will now operate under the ActiveLight brand. The companies stated that ActiveLight and PWS customers will experience no change in service, and will enjoy an expansion of product options, expertise and solutions as a result of the consolidation. Employees of both companies will be retained in existing or similar roles within the new operating structure. Brad Gleeson will continue to operate as president of ActiveLight, while Jill Miller, former president of PWS, will become executive vice president. Broadcast EngineeringGlasgow Art Nouveau Classic to Become Luxury DevelopmentAN architectural masterpiece by Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh that has lain derelict for more than 20 years is to be converted into a luxury shopping, office and leisure development. A firm of developers has announced plans to restore the A-listed art nouveau building in the centre of Glasgow as a prime landmark. The largely forgotten site in Renfield Lane once housed the Daily Record printworks and the former Scottish Temperance League building in

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. Rnnovation will transform it into offices, shops, a cafe, a restaurant, and a pub. Newsquest Media GroupMatrox Unveils Quad Information Display Graphics CardMatrox Graphics announced a new QID low-profile PCIe graphics card that supports native x16 PCI Express architecture for public information display applications. As single chip on a 128MB board, the QID graphics card offers Matrox’s quad digital and analog feature set. Features include support for up to 1600x1200 quad digital resolution and multi-display features such as flexible display configurations and resolutions. The QID Low-profile PCIe’s half-length, half-height board design allows it to fit any system, including small form factor PCs. It also features the KX20 connector. Its high-density build enables quad digital and quad analog connectivity, while maintaining a high signal quality. Broadcast EngineeringDesign Workshop Moving Utah QuartersDesign Workshop, the Denver-based landscape architecture and planning/urban design firm, will move its Utah office from ParkCity to expanded quarters in downtown Salt Lake City in March. The new 6,600 square foot office at 224 S. 200 W. is about three times larger than its current quarters. The majority of the Utah office's work involves parks and open space, urban design work and brown-fields redevelopment. The firm also created a new master plan for historic PioneerPark in Salt Lake City and participated in the downtown redevelopment efforts in Ogden.Design Workshop also has offices in Denver, Aspen, Lake Tahoe, Asheville, Santa Fe and Tempe, plus three branches in South America.Enteprise of Salt Lake CityJoint Project to Investigate Nano Technology for LED DisplaysCambridge Display Technology has joined forces with ILFORD Imaging Switzerland, in a project that promises to pave the way for more optically efficient display devices. All displays produce more light than is actually seen by the user, due to internal losses in the display itself. By increasing the proportion of observed light, (the 'optical efficiency'), displays can be made brighter without increasing energy consumption. ILFORD research has identified nano-porous structures that have potentially valuable properties when applied to polymer light emitting diode (PLED) displays. The new materials have optical properties that help to transmit light that would otherwise be trapped and lost. The project will complete its initial proof-of-concept by the end of the end of March at CDT's Technology Development Centre near Cambridge, UK, home to much commercial PLED research. PR NewswireAKIRA’s New 42-Inch Plasma Display Is 3 Inches DeepAKIRA has announced it’s PK4201M 42-inch modular plasma display will be available in March. The new displays are designed for single or multi-panel applications. They can produce a matrix with individual panels in a high-resolution and high-contrast monitor with high-quality color reproduction. The PK4201M is three inches in depth and nearly seamless, with a gap of less than 1/8 inch (3mm) between panels. It can be mounted to a wall or be displayed free standing, using wall mount or floor stand accessories. The monitor runs virtually silently and operates on standard 110 to 240V AC. Features include RS-232C and optional external TCP/IP network control for remote operation and status monitoring, a contrast ratio better than 3000:1 and a viewing angle of more than 160 degrees. A demo will be on display at the NSCA System Integration Expo March 10-12 in Orlando, FL.Broadcast Engineering