A New Beginning

I have been the Editor of Information Display for nearly 19 years – and now it is over. This is the last issue of the magazine I will edit (although I will write an occasional article).

For the most part, these years have been remarkably enjoyable and rewarding. Over this period, ID has become the voice of the global display community, read and respected (and, I hope, enjoyed) in every country where displays are either made or integrated into products.

But these years have been most rewarding because of you, the writers and readers of the many articles and columns that have appeared in ID. It is through you that I have learned about display technology, manufacturing, applications, integration, sales, and marketing. It is through you that I have had the privilege of visiting display-related companies and educational institutions around the world. And it is because of you that I have been able to share this knowledge of display people, things, and places in the pages of IDand in the presentations I have delivered in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Not surprisingly, many of you have become my close friends. It has been a wonderful ride.

Although the ride of editing ID is over, my ride covering, commenting on, and analyzing the display industry is entering a new and exhilarating stage. It begins at a very exciting time in the history of the display industry.

It begins at a time when

• Cellular-telephone television will soon make TV (and high-quality flat-panel displays) truly ubiquitous.

• Large-screen LCD TV and PDP TV are becoming inexpensive enough to enter the commercial mainstream.

• LCDs are beginning to press PDPs for dominance in the 40-in. range.

• LEDs and other non-conventional lighting sources are about to make a substantial impact in LCD backlights.

• Major new initiatives will substantially reduce motion blur in LCD TVs.

• We can look forward to LEDs being used as a mainstream lighting source in projection displays.

• Small, cheap projectors will enable new categories of display applications.

• AMOLEDs penetrate mass-production applications.

• SEDs finally find their way into commercial TV products, and we will see if they can apply significant pressure on LCDs and PDPs.

• LCDs are displacing CRTs for medium-sized TV sets.

As I continue to learn about these issues and many others – mostly, of course, by talking to you – we will be communicating with each other as we always have by speaking at international technical conferences and trade shows, by talking during company visits, by exchanging e-mails and phone calls, and through the pages (both digital and hardcopy) of leading display-industry publications.

I look forward to seeing you.

— KIW