Aris Silzard

Out With the Old… Digital cameras are in! Film cameras are old fashioned. LCD computer monitors represent great new technology! CRT monitors are obsolete. PDP TVs are glamorous! Large-screen CRT TVs and projection sets are lower priced compromises. The new technologies must be incredibly better to cause such dramatically rapid shifts in consumer buying patters. Right? Are we sure about that? Digital cameras do some things better than their film-based counterparts. For example, we can do short video clips. We can also choose which images to save and which ones to discard. We can do test images before we make the one we wish to keep. We are able to download and e-mail our photos to friends and family almost instantly. But film continues to represent an incredibly efficient and versatile long-term storage medium. Each set of negatives or transparencies can be stored in a viewable plastic sheet no larger than a standard piece of paper. For a few dollars, including the film processing, each page provides us with over one gigabyte of read-only storage capacity. And no matter how the digital formats and digital imaging media change in the future, we will always be able to directly view the information on these pieces of film. Of course, depending on the film selected, there may be some gradual long-term degradation of the images. But the digital media are not immune to this either. They too are susceptible to changes and deterioration. If not stored and handled with some care, these failures could be catastrophic. It may require periodic re-recording to avoid such problems and to keep up with whatever changes occur in digital media over the coming decades – will we still be using 3-1/2″ floppy disks ten years from now? Therefore, it seems to me that instead of trying to force consumers to choose between film and digital photography, it would be better if we had more products that facilitate the use of both, and the conversion from one to the other. Film scanners are available, but they are slow with limited preview capability. Why not have an analog preview mode that allows the presentation of images from negatives or slides instantly on our computer screens? Then, after pre-selecting the images we want to digitize, the slower digital scans would not be so frustrating. And why not have a convenient method for converting digital images to film? If nothing else, that would be a great way to back up the digital data. Wouldn’t this represent a more useful example of technology convergence than gluing LCD screens onto refrigerator doors? LCD technology made the laptop computer possible. But what is behind the recent and still growing shift to LCD screens for the desktop? I have several desktop systems in my office with LC displays up to 17-inches in size, and two computers with high-end flat-faced CRTs. Especially for imaging applications, I still find the CRTs to be better. And even the sales personnel in most computer stores will tell you that for games and for imaging, CRT displays are superior. So why are we all buying those “great new flat-panel displays”? They’re certainly not cheaper. Are we so terribly concerned about space utilization? I think not. The answer is most likely one of customer expectations that are not all that carefully researched or tested during the buying “experience”. Once a technology begins to catch on, its popularity can extend way beyond what is rational. The buying decisions are no longer made based on real need, on measurable performance features, on demonstrated quality, or on overall value. Just as most of us don’t have a justifiable need for a 2 GHz computer (that actually runs at only a few hundred megahertz for most operations), so we buy flat panel displays because they represent “the best and newest technology”. The same thing is happening currently with the buying patterns for large-screen televisions. In the US, we are seeing a major trend developing that will be accelerating over the next few years for virtually all homes to have some kind of large-screen entertainment center. Plasma panels are considered the newest technology and, therefore, “must be the best”. I suppose one reaction from those of us in the display industry might be – that’s great! The more new technology we can create and the more excitement we can generate – no matter how irrational – is going to be good for the industry. And mostly, I think, this is not such a bad idea. My only reservation is that this exuberance for the latest and newest FPD technologies may harm the existing direct-view CRT and projection-based product sales to the point where manufacturers will no longer be willing to support improvements in these technologies and will phase out production prematurely. In other words, the new will drive out the old simply because of market momentum. If the CRT can still produce a superior image, for some applications at least, and can do this for an attractive price, why should it see a premature demise? If that happens, that will indeed be a sad outcome. Unfortunately, from what I am being told by several of the major CRT manufacturers, that is currently a likely scenario. Perhaps the best that we can hope for is that there will be a continued consolidation within the CRT industry and a realization by enough knowledgeable consumers that the CRT has benefits that make it sufficiently interesting to keep it a viable technology for some years to come. Since anyone reading this column should be in the “knowledgeable” user category, what are your thoughts? Are you happy with your new LCD desktop monitor for all of your applications or are you still a dedicated CRT user? Is it possible that we will see a modest backlash of buying preferences or a slowing of the conversion from CRTs to LCD panels? There is some evidence of that for film vs. digital. While digital camera sales are still growing, the usage

How Big is REALLY Big?… A few days ago, I read that Samsung had just announced that they have decided on the size of their seventh generation mother-glass for TFT LCDs. The planned size of these next generation TFT arrays will be 1,870 x 2,200 mm. For those of us still mired in inches and feet when thinking about display sizes, that translates to about 74 x 87 inches, or if we speak in the even more familiar diagonal-size terminology that is approximately a 114 inch diagonal piece of glass. Wow! Now that should be large enough for even the most ambitious home entertainment system aficionados. These numbers were so impressive that I decided to go back and review the sizes of the other 6 generations. Most of the current work is being done to refine the manufacturing processes for the generation 5 and generation 6 factories. At the SID show in Baltimore, I heard comments from some of our more knowledgeable colleagues that even the generation 5 plants are still having difficulties getting all the problems worked out. As I looked in various references, it became apparent that there was and is no complete agreement on exactly the size that defines each generation. I suppose that is to be expected because these choices are somewhat arbitrary. Glass is easy to cut to about any size one wishes. If the rest of the production equipment has some flexibility, then there is no absolute standard necessary. Nevertheless, the numbers that seemed to be in most common usage were the following. Generation 6 is 1500 x 1650 mm or sometimes 1250 x 1650 mm. The larger of these dimensions converts to a size of about 60 x 70 inches. Generation 5 most commonly appears to be specified as 1100 x 1250 mm, and generation 4 is 730 x 920 mm (29″ x 36″). Generation 3 (sometimes also noted as generation 3.5) is 590 x 670 mm (23″ x 26″). With a 34″ diagonal, even that is not all that miniscule. The discussions of earlier generations have almost disappeared into the history books. And I suppose the pioneering researchers working with these really small pieces of glass did not realize that they were supposed to call them generation 1 or maybe even generation 0.1. At this year’s SID Symposium in Baltimore (May 19 – 23) large displays were everywhere. This should be no surprise to readers of this column because we have been predicting for some time now that large-screen television is about to become a major growth opportunity for the display industry. What, however, has caught many in the display industry by surprise is the recent rapid evolution of large-screen LCD panels. At an invited talk that I gave a few years ago in Japan, I mentioned that we should be prepared to see serious competition between LCDs and plasma panels not too far into the future. I’m quite sure that not many in the audience believed me. Well, that day has arrived! At the SID Exhibition, Samsung showed a 46-inch LCD with 720 x 1280 resolution and an even more impressive one with a 54-inch diagonal and 1080 x 1920 resolution. These displays were placed so that it was possible to make an easy visual comparison with similar size plasma panels from the same manufacturer. I’m not sure that I can quantify what I observed, but if I were asked to make a choice, I would have selected the LCDs over the plasma displays. In fact, this was the first time that I had to admit that if only the display were visible to me, from a stationary position I would most likely not be able to tell whether I was looking at an LCD, a plasma display, or even a CRT. The display was as perfect as I could observe without making detailed measurements. Perhaps what attracted me to the LCD panels was their superb contrast and gray scale. The whites were clean and the blacks were properly black. The colors were bright and crisp but not overly saturated. The overall brightness was at least as high as the comparable plasma panels and perhaps a little higher. The back lights being used on these panels must be spectacularly bright. Some warmth could be felt near the front surface. By a small but significant margin, I would rate these as the most impressive displays I have ever seen. What makes this statement even stronger is that for the first time ever I honestly had to admit that I would no longer be able to say that a CRT is still better. The only possible quibble could be with the speed of response, but I had no way to observe that with the program material being shown. However, I suspect that this would not be enough to dissuade me from trying to take one of these displays home with me. At 54 inches, on the 16:9 format diagonal, we are at about the size that most big-screen television enthusiasts will find exciting for the typical US home. Eventually, 60-inch displays may also become interesting as prices continue to come down — or even perhaps something as large as 70-inches. But once these become available we will have covered the significant part of the market. So how big should the mother-glass eventually become to accommodate these future needs? Is there a limit to this growth? What will generations 10 and higher look like? Linear extrapolation is clearly a dangerous way to try to predict this future. The increases in area from generation 3 to 4, 4 to 5, and 5 to 6 were each by about a factor of two. The increase from generation 6 to 7 being planned by Samsung is “only” an increase of about 50%. The size race may be slowing. Perhaps the next steps will be a change in aspect ratio and the move to a more continuous production process instead. A logical improvement would be to put

Seeds of Change… From an engineer’s perspective, it’s really quite amazing how many real-world situations are so highly non-linear. We scientists are great at observing and measuring, and then making projections based on all the data we have accumulated. But what about that proverbial “straw that breaks the camel’s back”? How do we learn about limits of materials, technology boundaries, or even the perversity of human behaviors until we encounter them? And are we sometimes misled by the comforting thoughts of “Well, it’s still working!” or “I haven’t seen any problems so far.” I am reminded of another proverb-like story that always seemed to describe a really dumb situation. The story is about a greedy farmer who decides to save money by gradually cutting back on the food for his horse — with the expectation that the horse will learn to get by on less and less. The punch line to this story is, of course, that the horse dies. I’m sure that there isn’t a farmer in the world that would be this stupid, so I have never been able to figure out why such a story would even come about. But perhaps the idea is to illustrate the workings of non-linear processes in a way that even children can understand. But is it possible that even the most uneducated farmers are smarter than some of the folks running our major corporations these days? Allow me to present two examples for your consideration. Example 1. For many years, AT&T has been the provider of my long distance telephone service. For at least several of those years now, I have been paying five cents per minute for all my long distance calls, and for a small additional monthly charge, I have been getting reasonable rates for overseas calls as well. Recently, they started promoting a new even cheaper plan for unlimited long distance calling. Even though I was perfectly happy with the existing situation, I decided that saving a few more dollars each month couldn’t hurt. When the next monthly bill arrived, sure enough there had been changes made. I was now being billed at $0.33 per minute! Not only had the new even-lower-cost plan not kicked in, but the old one had disappeared as well. Well, not to worry! A quick call to customer service should take care of everything. Good plan – except for one minor detail. Apparently, along with this new even-cheaper-plan some other cost-savings changes had been introduced. As I came to experience, customer service now consisted of only a voice-responsive computer that forced me into certain categories that it thought I would find useful. Unfortunately, there did not seem to be a category for an incorrect monthly invoice. Of course not! A computer wouldn’t make such a mistake. And for the final insult, there was now no way to get out of the computer menu to get to a real person. The method I finally found to subvert the system was to continue to put in incorrect responses until the computer finally gave up and decided to transfer me to a real person. Is that the end of the story? Unfortunately, it is not. The customer service person was able to recognize the immediate problem but couldn’t tell me if the next bill would be correct. Apparently, “the computer” will not allow them to look until the end of the monthly billing cycle. A promised call back never materialized. This sad story ends with me canceling the service after many years as a steady and reliable customer. For me, apparently, the “straw that broke the camel’s back” was my inability to talk to a customer service person who could help me with an obvious problem. Example 2. I spend a considerable number of my days each year on airplanes in travels to various clients and other display-related activities. Nearly 40 years ago, I took my first airplane flight on a United Airlines 727 — shortly after I had commenced my graduate school studies. And I still remember that flight. It was an amazing step up from the twenty-hour bus rides between Portland and Salt Lake City. The new Boeing 727 was so much more elegant and spacious than the not-so-pristine Greyhound buses that had been my more affordable mode of transport. After I began my professional career, the airlines continued to compete on the basis of excellent service, customer comfort, and best schedules. But ever so slowly the seeds of change were planted and took root. I don’t know exactly in what order, but a number of bad things began to happen. The price of tickets became an incomprehensible jumble of mostly random numbers. Can you think of any other product that fluctuates in price by an order of magnitude for exactly the same thing? What kind of perverted marketing logic makes possible a situation where I can be sitting cramped into a middle seat near the back of a plane having paid over $2,000 for this uncomfortable experience while someone next to me in the aisle or window seat paid perhaps only $200? As we all know, food on airplanes has slowly gone from decent to less-than-decent to gone-altogether. Customer service is disappearing as well. The airlines have almost completely abandoned the travel agent industry. Pressure is now being exerted to get all of to use computerized check-in and computerized ticketing. Then, of course, we now have to deal with the security measures that seem to change from day to day and from airport to airport. Of course, the airlines cannot be blamed for that part of the traveling experience, but nevertheless, this contributes to the unpleasantness and uncertainty of any trip. So how much further can we go? Where is the breaking point? I think we are quite close to it now. For me as a business traveler, for the first time I am beginning to look for alternate ways to spend my time and for how I can reduce the number

The Glamour of New Technology… Gee whiz, this new technology stuff is exciting! But I don’t know much about it. However, I’m a journalist! I’m supposed to write a flashy – but balanced – article. So let’s take a crack at the new flat-panel displays. Was it a scenario perhaps like this one that led to a recent syndicated article in our local paper? The title of the article was “The skinny on flat TVs” with the sub-heading, “Appeal of new television screens also comes with fragility, price”. The article was authored by a Bobbi Ignelzi, writing for the Copley News Service, and appeared in a special section of the paper dedicated to the latest Seattle Street of Dreams homes show. The year the Street of Dreams was extra “dreamy” featuring homes with prices ranging from $1.3 million to $2.2 million. I suppose for these prices, one should expect to encounter at least a few items that fit into the wishful-thinking category. So why not flat panel displays? Let’s take a look at what we should know about these latest technologies. To begin, let’s see what this article said about image quality. “And just like those on flat computer screens, images on flat-panel televisions are brighter, crisper and more defined than the picture on standard television. No matter which flat-screen technology you choose – plasma or liquid crystal display (LCD) – both offer flicker-free viewing with less glare or room-light reflection.” Now, wasn’t that easy? Why have we display engineers been struggling so hard to get those 300 or more nits? And I guess contrast ratio just improved as a simple consequence of making the displays flat. It’s a given then – make the displays flat and the images will become brighter, crisper, and better defined. Next came a paragraph for those of us who are extra sensitive to energy conservation. “They’re also cheaper to operate than standard sets. While it’s doubtful you’ll be nit-picking energy costs if you can afford a flat panel, it’s still nice to know thin televisions consume about 50 percent less electricity.” Can anyone tell me what that warm glow is coming from the front of my plasma panel? I don’t remember feeling that cozy warmth while watching my old energy inefficient CRT television. Next, perhaps to balance our growing enthusiasm, the author provides a few claimed disadvantages. Otherwise, I suppose, we might just rush right out and buy “a 32-inch thin plasma high-definition-ready television with built-in speakers and tuner” for “about $6,000.” Here’s apparently what we need to know! “— you need to know that some flat-panel television have an early mortality rate. Plasma sets, featuring the larger screens, can grow dim with age and eventually die after about 20,000 viewing hours, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. They can also burn a still image onto the screen if it sits on the screen a long time.” The dim-with-age I can understand, but the “eventually die”? From what? I wonder what cataclysmic event we should expect to befall our plasma panel after the 20,000 hours? The article continues with an attempt at a description of how plasma panels and LCDs operate. “In a plasma set, tiny gas-filled cells are sandwiched between two plates of glass. When an electrical current passes through the cells, the gas glows red, green or blue. When millions of these cells switch on and off fast enough you get a television picture. LCD screens also have the tiny, sandwiched cells, but these are filled with liquid. As light passes through the cells, it changes color when an electrical charge is applied.” The gas glows red, green, or blue? Light changes color when an electrical charge is applied? Finally, to complete our education of flat panel technologies, here are some important differences that the author decided we should know about. “The majority of plasma flat panels are only monitors. The television tuner and speakers are separate components. Most of the LCDs are self-contained televisions, with everything built in.” “Most of the plasma televisions monitors are high-definition-ready (they will receive a high-definition picture with a special decoder box). Most of the LCD televisions are not capable of picking up high-definition. However, as LCD screens get larger, they may offer it.” “The plasma flat-panel televisions usually offer a slightly better –quality picture than the LCDs.” Have I selected an exceptionally bad example of technical writing? While this article may contain more inaccuracies per square inch than most, the popular press is having a difficult time writing about what we display engineers have created. The desire to capture reader interest leads one down a path in search of the spectacular. How interesting would it be to read a news story that says something like the following: “The great new flat panel displays are flatter than CRTs. But when you look at the images being displayed you won’t see much difference. In some respects they may be a little better, in others a little worse, depending mostly on the kind of program material you are watching. However, for a given size they are a lot more expensive than CRTs or projection systems. So rush right out and buy one anyway because they are the cool new technology!” As the glamour of newness wears off flat panel displays, I think that we will begin to see more articles that provide useful and accurate information. Perhaps those of us in the display industry can speed up that process by trying to influence what is showing up in the popular press. We can try to do this by calling the editors to task when they publish articles of such dubious distinction. However, in any given situation success may be hard to predict. I tried it with a publication as well known and prestigious as the Scientific American. In an article on flat panel displays, the errors were significant. I pointed them out. They chose to ignore me. Nevertheless, I plan to continue to try to make my

The Gray Scale of Obsolescence… I don’t like, or find credible, the predictions made by most futurists. They seem to be driven more by the need for publicity than by a careful analysis of what is really likely to happen. This typically means that the more audacious the prognostication the more likely it is to be picked up by the popular press. One recent example is the prediction that we are on the threshold of immortality. Of course, I can’t prove to you that it can’t happen and I may even wish that it could. But most changes are not nearly that dramatic. In fact, other than cataclysmic events of nature or self-destructive behaviors such as wars, change often creeps up on us so gradually that we don’t even notice it happening. Even dramatic improvements in technology become common place in a few short years. Consider, for example, the catalytic converter and the collision-activated air bags for cars. It still amazes me that someone could come up with the idea of inflating a protective balloon while the collision is happening and make it sufficiently foolproof to be used in a consumer product. The display industry is currently in the midst of such a dramatic change, but one that we have similarly come to accept as seemingly obvious. Never before has our progress paralleled that of the semiconductor industry. Now we are doing just that – but on an even grander scale! The semiconductor industry did it with wafers of ever-larger diameters and components with ever-smaller dimensions. Now, the display industry is progressing from generation 5, to 6, to 7 in the quest for ever-larger flat panels. This path is revolutionary and we could not have imagined it just a few years ago. But already we have come to accept it as inevitable and “obvious.” Sometimes change occurs so gradually that if we are not regular participants, the “sudden” realization of what has happened can catch us by surprise. For me, one such recent illustrative example is the changeover from the use of 35mm slides and overhead transparencies to all-electronic media for any and all presentations. Most of you will remember the first attempts at using laptop computers and floppy disks a few years ago at technical conferences. These attempts often led to embarrassing pauses while everyone scrambled to locate the hardware and/or software incompatibilities between the presenter’s computer and the projector. Sometimes these efforts were unsuccessful and the speaker had to resort to overhead transparencies and/or slides for a backup. Only the bravest – or perhaps most foolhardy – speakers dared to come with only their floppy disks in hand. But in just a few years, most of the problems have been resolved. And recently – as I came to learn – something else has happened. There is now the expectation that every presentation will be made using a laptop computer and an electronic projector. For a two-day course that I teach on the fundamentals of displays I have, up to now, been using a combination of overhead transparencies, 35 mm slides, and video clips. While many of the overhead transparencies are already resident on my computer, I had chosen the absolutely safe route for my two days of presentations, i.e. no unexpected computer crashes. I also like the convenience of being able to face my audience while I point out information. This comes naturally when using an overhead projector but does not work nearly as well with a computer/projector combination. And trying to use the mouse, while staring at a laptop screen, also does not provide the dynamics of being able to gesture-while-talking. Since course attendees also receive a book with copies of all the slides, there should not be a problem in any case, right? One year ago, it was no problem. Six months ago, it was also not a problem. Today – it’s a problem! No more overheads, and no more 35mm slides! The telling comment: “We’ve got to get Aris into the 21st century.” The attendees gave me excellent ratings for the course, but they no longer found these visuals suitable. The changeover occurred, and even as an active participant, I missed it. I too had already made the transition to computer based visuals for my shorter talks and those for larger audiences. But the totality of it all caught me by surprise. When did we all — suddenly? — decide that only a laptop computer and electronic projector are acceptable? Or did this happen so gradually and with such subtlety that we didn’t even think about it? When did we transition from the “brave and the few ” to the all encompassing “this is the only way we do it”? And by the way, what has happened to the sales of overhead and 35mm projectors? Are they gone forever? Their few remaining advantages were apparently not sufficient to keep these products viable. We were willing to modify our behaviors for the new and more glamorous technologies. In spite of the dramatic predictions of the futurists, most of us don’t handle change all that well. We especially don’t do well with disruptive changes. The really interesting stuff seems to creep up on us subtly and gradually. We may be willing to try something a little new here or a little new there, and if it works for us, pretty soon we’re in the middle of quite a different world. Word processors, cell phones, the Internet, laptop computers – almost without effort we just slipped right into them. Electronic images, large screen television – we’re well on our way with these as well. What’s next? Perhaps, computer generated personalities. To share your ideas on the future and the gray-scale of change, you may contact me through this web site, directly by e-mail at silzars@attglobal.net, by phone at 425-898-9117, or by fax at 425-898-1727. 425-898-1727.

Uh, Oh, I Think We’re in Trouble… The recent acceleration of the occurrence of computer viruses, worms, and spam on top of software that is already frequently unstable got me to thinking and worrying about where all this is likely to end up. And I’m afraid that I didn’t come up with a very pretty picture. In my ponderings, I tried to imagine what would happen if the rest of our technology-based products behaved similarly. I thought about cars that would abruptly quit and have to be restarted (rebooted?) about once each day, but at unpredictable times — of course. I thought of refrigerators and furnaces that randomly changed their temperature settings or quit working altogether because some scoundrel was able to send an electrical glitch over the house wiring. I thought about door lock that had to be “updated” every few weeks because flaws were discovered that allowed thieves to enter. I thought about telephones that would ring 20 or 30 times each day with recorded messages offering sex-enhancement devices or fraudulent riches through the transfer of foreign funds. I thought of television sets that drop channels or quit responding to remote controls and need the periodic installation of “patches” to keep them working? But none of these imaginary scenarios was able to capture the totality of the computer software problems with which most of us are currently struggling. Unfortunately, I’m afraid it’s going to get even worse before it gets better. This is quite a contrast to the hardware side of these same products – including the displays. While there may be that rare monitor or TV that refuses to work right out of the box, in general we can assume that whether the product comes from the local electronics store or from a mail-order merchant, it will work perfectly when we plug it in. Both CRT and flat panel displays can reliably be shipped all over the world — typically ending up with a resounding thud on ones front steps as the delivery person happily relieves his burden. We unpack them, plug them in and they work! Most certainly that is not by accident. We display engineers have spent countless hours anticipating and designing against all the possible ways that these devices could fail or be damaged by careless use or handling. We have also learned that combining too many functions into one device is not always such a great idea. Thus, most of our homes have washers and dryers. We have refrigerators and ovens. We have televisions and audio systems. This specialization has allowed each product to be optimized and to be made as reliable as possible. Couldn’t we do something like that with our computers? Especially, since the hardware is already nicely segmented! We already have separate printers, monitors, scanners, cameras, keyboards, mice, and so forth. Even what we consider as the main “computer box” is in nicely defined pieces such as the hard drive, the floppy, the mother board, the power supply, and various video, sound, and driver cards. There is no fundamental reason why software couldn’t be done in a similar way. Some time ago, in this column we discussed the futuristic concept of “knowledge cubes”. The idea was that eventually we would buy these plug-in modules that optimally combine hardware and software to accomplish specific functions. These knowledge cubes would be immune to being modified except with the specific permission of the owner, perhaps through something as simple as a built-in electro-mechanical switch. Then all the important computer functions would be protected from remote or unauthorized modification. Of course, it would be less convenient than simply downloading updates, but why would we need to do that if the software is well designed to begin with? We certainly don’t expect to do that with our hardware components! For example, what if your monitor manufacturer periodically had to send you notices that you must install modifications to keep your monitor from failing? How happy would you be with that? It seems to me that we engineers have created our computer systems on the naïve premise that the world is populated only with honest and considerate people. Now, wouldn’t that be nice — if only it were true? In terms of percentages, that’s actually not such a bad assumption. The problem of course is that the few bad ones can wreak havoc on a system that makes it trivial to access and control millions of us in fractions of a second. The most difficult — and non-technical — challenge may turn out to be that there will be an unwillingness to give up on the current approach so as to make the fundamental change that is needed in order to solve this problem once and for all. Rather than abandoning the leaky raft for a sturdier boat, we may just continue to add more “patches”. The hardware will continue to be robust and virtually indestructible, while the software “raft” continues to leak and flounder. Aren’t you glad that we display engineers have learned how to make products that are truly robust? Maybe someday our software colleagues will learn the same important lessons that we have already come to accept, i.e. that this is the only path that leads to long-term sustainable business success. Perhaps those of you who are dedicated Apple computer users will let me know that these software problems have already been solved. If that is true, then Apple as a company is missing a great opportunity by not letting the rest of us in on this “secret”. Should you wish to share your frustrations or successes regarding your own computer experiences, please contact me via this web site, directly by e-mail at silzars@attglobal.net, by telephone at 425-898-9117, or by fax at 425-898-1727.

Read Me a Story… “It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly,…” So begins the ultimate – but yet to be completed – mystery story as authored by Charlie Brown’s dog Snoopy in the well-know Peanuts cartoon series. Of course, this is meant to be a spoof on how the “perfect” mystery story should begin. Nevertheless, these few simple words – hardly more than one short sentence – evoke images of Halloween-like haunted houses, shutters banging in the wind, lights flickering and then going out, and an event that is about to happen that fills us with curiosity, anticipation, and a tinge of fear. “Suddenly what? Don’t you dare stop in the middle of this sentence!” How can so few simple words evoke such powerful images? Indeed, we seem to be able to create mind pictures with the tiniest hint of stimulation. For example, somewhere I read that smells can be powerful memory stimulants. I believe it. The smell of certain foods, burning candles, mothballs, moldy basements, new mown grass, all can bring back memories embedded many years ago. We humans (since I don’t know about Snoopy the dog) seem to have the wonderful ability to create images and fill in details where none is provided. I started thinking about all this at the conclusion of a movie on a recent cross- country flight. Typically, it takes a lot of persuading to get me into a movie theater or even to watch something on TV. But on this flight, I was sufficiently tired that the movie being shown began to catch my attention. The screen in this “theater” was one of the many small, overhead LCDs with maybe about six levels of gray scale and somewhat recognizable colors – I’m only exaggerating a tiny bit. Yet for all the defects, accompanied by comparably poor-quality audio from the complimentary headset, I found myself immersed in the story and responding emotionally just about as I would in a movie theater with a large screen and full surround sound. While I can’t claim that I have done a scientific analysis to quantify the relationship, it does seem that we can reasonably conclude that our emotional responses are not directly proportional to the quality or quantity of the information input. If one short phrase, or a sound, or one whiff of a New York subway can get our emotions and memory banks churning, how much more will we be able to do with realistic 3D images and perfectly designed surround sound? Could there be such an effect as too much reality?Live theater and television have survived – and thrived – in spite of movie theaters that provide more “reality” through bigger screens and better quality sound. Frankly, I often prefer going to a play rather than to a movie. I don’t always like all the extra reality that a movie introduces, especially if it involves graphic violence. I like the theater because it gives me more of a choice on how much “reality” I inject into the situation being presented to me.As display engineers, we always assume that any and every improvement that we make in image quality will be welcomed in the marketplace. But is that really true? I have now heard and read numerous complaints from television personalities that HDTV shows too much detail – too many blemishes and too many imperfections are presented to the viewers. I recently read a news story that people were making jokes about a well-known actress because they could now see some minor imperfections in her facial features. For some people this may be just what they want, but for others it may be the destruction of an idealized image that they would have preferred to keep. For the actress, it is unlikely that this was they kind of publicity she was seeking.Imagine that it is about 50 years from now and we have finally achieved the ability to create high-resolution 3D images that require no special viewing aids such as polarizing glasses. Have we achieved the Holy Grail of displays? Perhaps for games and certain emerging applications we have. But what about movies, sports events, and the evening news – by now being read by computer generated personae.Can there be such an effect as too much reality? Because all electronically generated images have some predetermined viewing area – maybe not in 50 years but at least for the more immediate future – there will be a border that defines the outer boundaries of the image. Therefore, our perfect 3D display will have a frame around it. This will have the effect of looking into or out of a window. Is this something that we will learn to accept and appreciate? Or will we feel like voyeurs intruding into someone else’s world? All the attempts to date in creating moving 3D images have been commercially unsuccessful. There is, of course, always the novelty effect but for serious viewing we don’t seem to like this presentation format.When I was about ten years old, I had a “Viewmaster” 3D picture viewer. I can still remember collecting the round disks that had the pairs of images on them for producing a dozen or so stereo views of various popular vacation spots. But when I grew up, I didn’t buy a camera that took stereo photos, although they were available and heavily promoted. It just didn’t seem to add enough value. And it required a special viewer or projector each time I wanted to see my pictures.With all these past failures, one would think that by now there would be some human factor’s studies on what works and what doesn’t. Do any of you know whether anything like that exists? In the meantime, are we display engineers searching for a Holy Grail that we assume exists, but in reality may not? Maybe “leaving something to the imagination” is where most viewers are most comfortable. Maybe if realistic 3D images are at first only accepted for games and engineering simulation

Minor Details… Each year, around the beginning of December, we enter that time of year – a period of about one month duration — known as the “Serious Christmas-Shopping Season”. During this time, hopeful recipients are making final additions to their lists of what they want Santa to bring them, while those who have taken on the designated Santa role are frantically seeking those exactly-right items that they hope will fulfill the most fervent fantasies of their list-makers. In the spirit of this list making, and the giving and receiving of presents, I began to contemplate what some of our more future-oriented technologists and technology prognosticators should consider adding to their list of “presents” that they would like Santa to bring them. So should you decide to play Santa this year, here are some really interesting gift-idea opportunities for your elves to pursue. For those technologists and prognosticators that have been predicting that computers will soon be smarter than humans, may their Christmas list be overflowing with various input and output devices to make such a result possible. Pure compute power and information storage capacity will never result in anything other than ever larger “computers,” ready to process whatever data is entered into a given instruction set. And the instruction sets that try to emulate human behavior will never get it quite right – they will always come across as imitations. What it will take to make computers more human-like is the ability for the data and instruction sets to be modified by experiences with the living environment. A fire is hot — I burned my temperature sensor – that was a dumb thing to do because it will now limit my ability to acquire new temperature data – I need to request a human to repair me – I won’t do that again – I promise. Can these learning experiences be programmed in? Some of course can. But for a computer to become more human-like it will need the ability to continue this process, even if it is just to respond to its immediate environment. Otherwise, how does it learn the various habits and desires of the humans with whom it is interacting? Therefore, if Santa is unkind and does not bring all of these wished-for input and output devices, then the ever more powerful computers will just continue to do the tasks they do today – only just imperceptibly faster than our already I/O limited machines. For my next group of Christmas-list makers and present recipients, I have chosen all those technologists and prognosticators who have been telling us how MEMS devices and nano-robots will soon take over the world. According to these prognosticators, incredibly small devices will circulate within our bodies doing all kinds of wonderful repairs, miniature dust-size nano-bots will fly through the air gathering information and perhaps attacking us like germs and viruses. For those prognosticators, may their wish list for Christmas have on it batteries or other power sources small enough and with sufficiently high energy storage capabilities to operate these nano-devices that they have so boldly envisioned. How else will these nano-devices do the marvelous tasks predicted of them? To date many of our attempts to miniaturize have been stymied be our inability to develop suitably small power sources. For example, why does your lap top computer only run for two hours on one set of batteries? What limits the size and usefulness of hearing aids? What about implantable pace makers? This is not the “wish” list we were working on, but you can see that it wouldn’t take much effort to make this one really long as well. So for all you enthusiastic “nano-bot” developers, may Santa be extra good to you and bring you the incredibly tiny and super dense power sources that you will need. Next, let’s turn closer to home and add something to the lists of some of our display start-up companies. I know! I know! Some of you will tell me that you really don’t need anything this year. You are well funded and have 99% of your technology problems solved. Well, let me just suggest that on Christmas eve you put out your stocking asking Santa to bring you that final 1% “minor detail” of a materials problem that is “about solved anyway”. It’s such a small thing to ask and how could Santa possibly turn down such a modest request? And if you promise not to bring it up, I promise not to tell him about all those past Christmases and all those now-extinct companies that decided they did not need to make such a modest request. So even if it seems that your smooth path to that first great product is assured, go ahead, add this small item to your list. Get in touch with Santa right away. He may be able to help you more that you will ever appreciate. Finally, for all you “electronic paper” and “electronic book” developers, may Santa bring you a new and more convenient way to put information onto those electronic pages. Otherwise, with rows and columns and transistors at each pixel, your displays are beginning to look an awful lot like what we already have with today’s existing technologies. Last year, Santa must have been a real “scrooge” in this area because in 2003 we continued to see announcements for more “exciting new media”, but very little about how to input the information into these media once we have created the new information-hungry pages. As for my own list, I’m really quite happy with what I have and what is happening in the display world around me. In spite of the few dominant technologies, there are still exciting opportunities and the display community will be in a growth mode for years to come. I’m looking forward to an exciting 2004. Should you wish to share some of the display-related items from your Christmas list with me, please contact me via this web site, directly by e-mail

I Want it – Now!… As we celebrate the beginning of another New Year, many of us will let out a sigh of relief that the annual stampede to acquire new material possessions has come to a temporary end. It’s really quite amazing that a Holiday intended to celebrate “peace on earth and goodwill toward all men” can cause so much stress and frustration. And all of that just to try to create a few moments of intense joy that dissipates about as quickly as a puff of smoke in a windstorm. This concept of instant and intense gratification has not been with us for all of eternity. In fact, it is a relatively new phenomenon that grew along with the promotion and wide acceptance of credit cards — and the now-acceptable concept expressed so wonderfully and accurately by the phrase, “I’ve maxed out my credit”. This of course means that one has borrowed well beyond all reasonable limits and even the credit card companies have finally put a stop to further purchases. The unfortunate end result can often be personal bankruptcy. I feel fortunate to have grown up during a time when such “opportunities” were not available to me — especially during my college and graduate school years. During those ancient and financially unsophisticated times, if one needed to borrow money, one should expect to be put through a humiliating session with a loan officer and re-payments that started on about the same day as the loan was granted. The benefit of this nasty but rigorous process was that quite quickly we learned what we could afford based on our current incomes. And we were, thereby, forced to assess our most urgent needs and abandon those in the wishful-thinking category. These highly visible financial limitations also taught us to evaluate each purchase and to take a very pragmatic look at why we wanted or needed a certain item. But I am afraid that those days are gone — and gone for good. However, do not despair. For those of us in the display industry, there is a good news side to this story. And I mean really good news! This new world-order of “instant gratification” has created opportunities for the International display community that we never could have imagined even just a few years ago. When LC displays and plasma panels were beginning to make their first product-like appearances at industry trade shows, such as the SID International Symposium, many of us were trying to imagine how these new technologies could possibly make commercially successful products. It appeared that the selling prices would be way beyond the reach of the typical consumer. Several of our major display companies even did consumer profiling studies and came to the “clear” conclusion that, for flat panels to compete with existing CRT-based products, flat panel costs could be no more than about 25% above the equivalent CRT-based products. Therefore, if a CRT television set was selling for $350, a flat panel version could not have a price above $450 to be viable. That’s what the consumer studies were telling us and that’s what we engineers and marketers accepted as the goal we would have to try to meet – even though we had no idea how we would ever accomplish such a feat. But from a logical and scientific viewpoint, how could anyone challenge such a reasonable conclusion? What this seemed to indicate is that the new technologies were going to have to create their markets mostly in professional applications that were less sensitive to selling price. For example, LC displays might be sold for high-priced workstations and Plasma panels might be used in entrance lobbies of large corporations that wanted to project a high-technology image to their visitors. The problem, of course, was that the total size of these markets was not all that large. Nevertheless, for us engineers this made pretty good sense. And who are we to question the wisdom of the marketing folks anyway? The logic was good and the conclusions seemed reasonable. The worrisome part for the major display companies was that these limited market opportunities would not lead to sufficiently rapid price reductions that would then allow for penetration into the larger consumer markets. There was just one minor detail that we all forgot. We assumed that consumers behave rationally and that they make logical purchasing decisions. Well, maybe some years ago they did. But we have apparently gone through what management consultants call a “paradigm shift”. We have entered the age of “instant gratification” and “I want it now”. Therefore, if it’s the latest technology and if it is called “digital,” it must clearly be superior to the “old” technology and I need to get it now — regardless of the price. Therefore, since a flat panel is “obviously” better than a CRT because it’s the “new digital technology,” I need it and the cost doesn’t really matter – as long as there is room left on my credit cards. Thus, in the last one to two years, we have witnessed the advent of a completely new pricing structure for consumer electronics products. Television sets that can make some claim to “digital” or “high-definition” command prices of well over $1,000. During this Christmas Season, plasma panels costing in the $5,000 range or above were considered to be at the top of many “most-desired present” lists. As long as it’s new technology it must all be great. At the moment, most consumers are either ignoring quality differences or simply have not yet learned that all of these products are not of equal performance capability. The differences are quite obvious to those of us in the display industry, but the popular press and consumers seem to be at the very early stages of figuring this out. So what better news could we possibly want than customers who will buy almost anything that looks like new technology at almost any price? Well, personally I like the part about

My Great Idea… The other day, I had a really great idea. It was one of those moments of pure inspiration when the solution to a difficult problem suddenly comes bubbling forth, and it seems that nothing can hold it back. There is an emotional high that accompanies such a creative moment – that instant when all the pieces seem to fall into place and the solution to a difficult puzzle is deemed complete. But what should one do with such brilliance? It must, of course, be shared with others or it will wither and die from lack of use. Because my idea was so great, it was my immediate desire to call a colleague and to tell him how I had solved the difficult problem we had been pondering just a few days ago. I knew he would immediately share my enthusiasm and we could then share the solution with the rest of the organization. The implementation would be quick and effective. But, it didn’t happen that way at all. Instead of sharing my enthusiasm, he listened carefully and then brought up several concerns – actually objections. As we spoke, I felt the weight of what I perceived as negativity gradually squashing my enthusiasm and my great idea. Why couldn’t he see the elegance of my solution? Not only that, he was suggesting significant modifications! My enthusiasm had not only evaporated, it was now changing to downright resistance. Nevertheless, we continued the discussion and I had to admit that he just might have a few good points that could resolve the few “minor” weaknesses in my great idea. After a half-hour of conversation I was beginning to feel a bit less resentful and could actually see that we were making some progress toward common ground. And while he never exhibited any signs of the emotional high that I had had, I could see that he too was beginning to like the outcome of our combined effort. We agreed that the next step was to share our conclusions with the rest of the organization. Not surprisingly, when the proposal was made to the larger group, once again resistance was encountered. However, this time I was emotionally better prepared to handle the objections and to demonstrate a willingness to listen and to take all inputs. And, of course, the discussion with my colleague had already smoothed out some of the rougher edges so that the inputs from the group were not as challenging to the basic concept. Nevertheless, a few participants still had serious reservations. Our choice was to either try for an immediate push to a majority acceptance or to allow a few days to pass so that the key concepts could be discussed in smaller groups or person to person. I remembered something that a colleague in another organization had once told me. He said that it was always necessary to “socialize a proposal.” What he meant by that is that we all need some time to accept a proposed change and that this acceptance often comes from having informal discussions with our colleagues. Taking this good advice, we decided not to push for immediate acceptance by the majority, but to let a few days pass for everyone to think about it and to make further suggestions. I must admit that the final outcome was superior to my original inspirational moment of finding the “perfect solution.” My ego would have liked it better if no changes were necessary, but realistically I had to admit that the group had made significant improvements that I had not thought of during my “ah-ha” moment. All this should not be a big surprise to any of us, although it seems that periodic reminders are needed. Management studies have shown time and again that a group decision will produce a better result than the work of any one individual – even if that individual has considerably more expertise than the typical member of the group. Management trainers demonstrate this by creating exercises where groups use their combined knowledge to solve “survival” challenges. What is, therefore, difficult to understand is why so many managers forget this important learning in the way they run their organizations. And sometimes the participants are all too willing to go along with this “wisdom from the top.” It’s far more likely that such an approach will destroy an organization rather than save it. Perhaps the real brilliance of top management lies in knowing when to accept the inputs of others and when those inputs are so diverse that some common ground must be sought. Selecting this common ground that makes an organization successful may be the rare talent that is so hard to find and when found should be properly rewarded. I too have found in my consulting role that people at all levels in an organization have a good understanding of what is really going on and what it will take to make the company a success. If their ideas are suppressed, they will stop offering them openly. But the private conversations will intensify and the concerns will grow. The consequences are all too predictable. It has been my observation that while all of us may have some slight tendencies toward laziness, when confronted with a challenge – one that we can understand and accept — we as a group can rise to greatness that produces outstanding results for the overall organization. These results will be far superior to what any one person, no matter how brilliant, could have imagined. For a very real and recent example, that was the inspiration for this column, I will mention the work of the Executive Committee and the Program Committee for the 2004 SID International Symposium that will be held this May in Seattle, WA. While I am the General Chair of this year’s Symposium, much of the success will be because the members of these committees did their part – and did it extremely well. Early on, we decided to