BSQUARE Announces its Role as Lead Integrator of Advanced Coffee Vending Device on Behalf of Costa Express

By Anil Sharma

TMCnet Contributor

 

BSQUARE (News - Alert) Corporation, an enabler of smart connected systems, has integrated advanced coffee concession on behalf of Costa Express, one of the U.K.'s largest self-service espresso bar companies.

Costa Express and Intel (News - Alert) had unveiled the CEM-200, a coffee vending device, at the National Retail Federation conference in New York recently. The CEM-200 presents customers with a radically immersive vending experience, including a high-definition touch screen panel that comprises almost the entire store-facing side of the device.

'We were brought in for our expertise on embedded design projects with Microsoft (News - Alert), Intel and other vendors,' said Mark Whiteside, senior vice president professional services, Bsquare, in a statement.

Whiteside said that Bsquare built the user interface, integrated the operating system with the hardware and developed a cloud-based back office management system in less than six months.

'Bsquare brought insight, experience and strategic guidance to the project,' said Scott Martin, managing director, Costa Express.

'As the current world leader in self-serve espresso bars, we have a responsibility to innovate. Bsquare had the embedded technology expertise to help us raise the bar for coffee concessions," said Whiteside.

"Our existing concessions are hugely successful in the channels where we currently operate," he added, "and the CEM-200 will now enable us to offer great espresso drinks to customers in new channels and markets. It is a very exciting time.'

The machine is incredibly responsive.

'You touch an element on the screen and it responds very quickly. The software overlays multiple video assets and performs dynamic animation to illustrate the process of brewing a fresh cup of coffee, while simultaneously rendering video to create the atmosphere of an Italian café,' said Whiteside.

Earlier this month, BSQUARE Corporation announced availability of the new Bsquare Board Support Package for the Texas Instruments (News - Alert) Jacinto 4 / DM8148. The new Board Support Package (BSP) enables the streamlined development on these Texas Instruments (TI) development platforms, ideally suited for human machine interfaces in automotive and industrial applications.