Brothers Chris and Tim Conlon and their partner, Mike McComb, have every right to believe their product — the incredible HyperScreens digital display system — is destined to be a huge part of the next wave of technological advancement. They just wish it would hurry up and happen.
“There is no limit to what you can do with the HyperScreens,” Chris Conlon said of the display unit he designed, developed and built in his garage. “What you have is a product with the capability of the Internet. Anything you can imagine, you can do.”
One of Hyper’s interactive display screens is already up and running at the Albany Mall, and the team has installed similar units in San Diego, Panama City, Fla., and in the lobby of the South Jackson Street Albany Microbusiness Center, where their offices are located. A table model is currently being demoed at the IS Kids Interactive Museum on Dawson Road.
But it’s the pending possibilities that have the Hyper crew champing at the bit.
To wit: An in-the-works deal with Florida-based CaptivEye that could lead to an immediate need for mass-marketing of the HyperScreens products ... Representatives of major national corporations flying into Albany to see Hyper’s products up close and personal ... Pending installation deals at a Washington, D.C. mall and at Las Vegas gambling casinos ... A number of local companies anxious to talk with the Conlons and McComb about applications for the display units.
And there are the investers who have come calling, plus that offer by the representative of a Japanese company who wanted to move Hyper’s entire operation to the Land of the Rising Sun.
“When you just look at the possibility for displays like the one we have at the mall, the numbers are astounding,” McComb says. “There are more than 50,000 malls in the United States alone, and experts predict that up to 20 percent of them will convert to digital display technology per year for the next five years.
“That’s 10,000 malls a year, and there aren’t many players in this game. If we could get our share of that ...”
If (more likely when) Hyper’s star does take off, it will signal the realization of Chris Conlon’s dream that started taking shape in the 1980s. While working on information system delivery platforms for the NFL’s New York Giants and Jets, the NBA’s New Jersey Nets and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, Conlon developed a keen interest in digital information.
He had graduated to refurbishing Jumbo-Tron display screens for the sports franchises in the ’90s when he came south to Albany.
“I followed a girl,” Conlon says sheepishly.
The displaced Jersey guy established his own graphic design company in Albany and designed 10 award-winning issues of Albany magazine before creating the Matrix graphic design/digital print business in 2001. Hyper spun off from the still-successful Matrix business.
Tim Conlon was studying film production in Florida when big brother Chris asked him to help out on the design and production of the mall display screen project.
“I had a knack for multimedia software, and Chris needed help with the project,” Tim Conlon said. “I saw what he was doing and knew this was a great opportunity.”
McComb had talked with Chris Conlon about his plans in 2005 while McComb was in his 16-year stint with Ikon Office Solutions. In June of ’07, McComb bought in as a partner.
“I’d seen Chris’ vision when we talked before, but when I saw the progress he had made (by 2007), I wanted to be a part of what he was doing,” McComb said. “I don’t think there’s a limit to where we can go.”
While the Conlons work on constant software upgrades for their HyperScreens and McComb continues to make business contacts, a plant in Florida stands ready to mass-produce the product.
“It would be nice if one day we were able to see a plant developed here that could fabricate our products, but we have a company ready to start work immediately,” Chris Conlon said. “They’ve got my plans; they’re ready to go.”
HyperScreens are currently being used for interactive educational purposes, as a marketing/advertising tool and as a source of boundless information. Those uses only scratch the surface of the product’s capabilities.
“The possibilities are absolutely endless,” Tim Conlon says. “You can customize the HyperScreens to any type of business imaginable.”
Over the course of an extended afternoon conversation with Hyper’s three honchos, a list of possibilities emerges: Customer service ... vivid newspaper display ... self-service debit card portal ... gaming table ... information gatherer ... mapping ... centerpiece of a community network ...
“We can envision a scenario where we go to folks at the government center, at the airport, at Darton (College), at Albany State (University), at Phoebe (Putney Memorial Hospital),” McComb says. “We say ‘Can we give you a screen?’ and we set up a hometown community network.
“Imagine all the possibilities at these various places as they promote what’s going on. It’s such an incredible delivery platform for information, for marketing. There’s just no limit.”
No one could ever accuse McComb or the Conlons of thinking small as they share the vision they have for their space-age technology that brings sci-fi-like elements used on TV (“CSI”) and in movies (“Minority Report”) to real life. But that’s just the way it is when you’re sitting on the verge of something this big.