SMART Board interactive whiteboards installed at state-of-the-art research facility
Simon Fraser University’s IRMACS Centre collaborates with researchers worldwide
CALGARY, Alberta --- June 9, 2005 --- SMART Technologies Inc. announces that six SMART Board™ for Flat-Panel Displays interactive whiteboards are part of a leading-edge research facility at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. The Interdisciplinary Research in the Mathematical and Computational Sciences (IRMACS) Centre officially opened in April 2005 to provide a technologically sophisticated environment for more than 100 scientists who use computers as their primary laboratory tool.
The IRMACS Centre uses 90 Power Macintosh™ G5 computers that are networked into every room of the center and configured in a Beowulf-style-cluster supercomputer. This configuration makes it easy for researchers to collaborate, enabling them to increase computational power by linking computers or to work individually by sharing software configurations, data and files on the network. The focal point of the IRMACS Centre is a 100-seat, media-rich presentation theater which is equipped with three 61" (154.9-cm) SMART Board for Flat-Panel Displays interactive whiteboards and associated plasma displays, a large 3-D projection display, full videoconferencing capability and multimedia suite. The IRMACS Centre also has two other specially designed meeting rooms, each equipped with the same technology in varying configurations. Each interactive whiteboard is used for making and delivering detailed, interactive presentations that also allow researchers to capture notes, and then save and distribute the notes in standard file formats. Currently, IRMACS provides collaborative research space for a variety of project areas, including collaborative communications, computational algebra, health informatics, statistical genetics, telecommunications, signal processing, computational genomics, modeling and prediction, optimization, cryptography and computational number theory.
“Scientific research is rapidly becoming a global endeavor needing a wide range of technology and expertise to aid in problem solving,” says Brian Corrie, collaboration and visualization coordinator for the IRMACS Centre at Simon Fraser University. “The SMART Board for Flat-Panel Displays interactive whiteboards are ideal tools for such collaboration with their high level of functionality, easy-to-use interactive touch-screen manipulation and robust capabilities.”
“Being able to effectively collaborate is a key requirement for researchers in any field,” says David Martin, SMART’s chairman and co-CEO. “During the investigative process, researchers use SMART Board interactive whiteboards to record ideas, goals and results, and share with colleagues around the world. They are of great benefit when you need to communicate a lot of information with people in geographically dispersed areas.”
About SMART Board for Flat-Panel Displays interactive whiteboards
The SMART Board for Flat-Panel Displays interactive whiteboard attaches to a plasma display or LCD panel and transforms it into a group collaboration tool. The custom-sized overlay fastens easily and securely to the display and preserves its crisp, bright image. Simply by touching the large display, users can access and control any computer application or multimedia platform, including the Internet, CD-ROMs and DVDs. With SMART Board software, users can write over applications in digital ink and then edit, save, print or post their notes to a website for future reference. SMART Board interactive whiteboards are being used in classrooms, briefing rooms and boardrooms around the world, enabling people to collaborate effectively whether they are in the same room or in another location. Feature-rich software and intuitive functionality make the SMART Board interactive whiteboard the number one choice of educators, presenters and trainers in more than 75 countries. For more information, visit www.smarttech.com/flatpanel.
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