Display Week 2008: See You in LA!

By now, of course, you know that Display Week 2008 is coming to Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of the world. I could not think of a better destination for this year's gathering of the industry. While television programs and movies are not the only content applications for displays, they sure are one of the biggest. They are also the ones with which our friends and families can most easily associate. When casual friends ask me what I do for a living, I describe my work in the context of computer displays and flat-panel tele-visions. Saying that I design parts of LCD televisions is not such a stretch because several of my designs are used are in commercial television products today. But more importantly, it is easy to explain what I do in terms that people can readily appreciate. Such would not be the case if I had chosen to be a Medieval archaeologist or an insolvency practitioner. Maybe Medieval archaeologists have some pretty good industry events, but I think ours is much better. I could go on and on about all the great things contained in Display Week, but Managing Editor Michael Morgenthal has done that for me in his article, "Hollywood Blockbuster: Display Week 2008 Comes to Los Angeles." This great preview should give you all the motivation you need to make your plans and block off your calendar.

And what visit to LA would be complete without an awards show? This issue also features profiles of the annual 2008 SID Honors and Awards winners, a distinguished group that will be honored at a formal dinner to be held Monday night of Display Week – always one of the best events of the entire week. The winners are chosen each year from a very diverse and prestigious list of nominees. However, I won't steal the thunder by naming names, you need to read the article to find out who the winners are.

Meanwhile, as a long-time proponent of LCOS technology, I was pleased to read Dr. Yong-Jing Wang's article on the ongoing investment in LCOS in China, and the high-level visibility these efforts are receiving from Chinese President Hu Jingtao. Dr. Wang has provided us a unique and well-considered point of view on the opportunity afforded by LCOS to make mainland -China-based companies competitive in the global HDTV marketplace. If Chinese display manufacturers can achieve a unique technological and economic advantage by commercializing LCOS technology as described in Dr. Wang's article, then it may serve as a new model for business development in other parts of the world as well. I tend to believe that LCOS can achieve broader commercial success than it has thus far, but the circumstances must be very carefully considered and surely will be cost driven, since the dominance of direct-view panels has created real downward pressure on the demand for projection TV products.

This month, we also feature a very persuasive article on the use of alternate compounds such as fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) as a transparent conductor for PDPs and other applications. FTO can be used as a viable substitute for indium tin oxide (ITO), which is especially interesting given the various reports about the scarcity of indium and rapidly rising price of this rare material. Along with the interesting description of their particular research, authors H. Tolner, B. Feldman, et. al. give us some unique insight into the processes used for coating ITO on substrates, and a better understanding of the physics of transparent conductors in general.

Finally, on the cover of our February issue of Information Display, we featured a commercial measurement system along with the tagline "Introduction to the ICDM Display Measurement Standard." Inadvertently, we implied that the new ICDM standard is in some specific way linked to the instrumentation shown. This is not correct. In fact, as committee chair Joe Miseli pointed out in his article in the same issue, the ICDM is being developed to be as platform-independent as possible. While the methods described in the ICDM will be very detailed, they will not be tied to a specific manufacturer's system; in fact, many suppliers today already have equipment suitable for use with the ICDM methods, or are gearing up their new offerings toward the ICDM. This is a worldwide effort with representation at all levels of the display industry. A significant number of measurement-equipment suppliers are represented on the committee and many are also advertisers here in the pages of Information Display. The system shown on the cover was meant simply to convey a theme, and we regret any misunderstanding this may have caused.

I wish everyone safe travels to LA and look forward to seeing you at Display Week 2008.