Aris Silzard

We’re All Thumbs – and That’s Good… On a recent cross-country flight, I happened to be sitting across the aisle from a lady of rather large stature. No, I don’t mean that she was overweight – she was simply quite large in comparison to the typical Caucasian female. She was well over 6 feet tall and of large bone structure to go with her extra height. As our trip progressed, I found it difficult not to watch her as she worked on answering various messages that were stored in her Blackberry communicator. As we all know, the keyboard on this device is somewhere between really small and tiny. There is no way to use a normal hand position over this itsy-bitsy keyboard to type a message. The only way most of us can do it is by using our thumbs in a slow and laborious hunt and peck method. Of course it helps to have learned touch typing somewhere along the way since at least then the relative location of the various keys is familiar. But how does one do this with hands that are substantially larger than average and have long artificial fingernails added to make the task even more challenging? It was really quite amazing to watch her cosmetically-enhanced thumbs flying over the tiny keys as message after message was completed and stored away for later sending. Even after watching off and on for several hours, I can’t fully explain how she was able to access each little key without hitting at least four of its neighbors. It just didn’t look possible. I must admit that I cannot claim this level of thumb dexterity — even after many years of practicing to play the piano. But although I don’t use a Blackberry in my normal business activities, I too have had to undergo at least rudimentary “symbological” training in thumb-addressed communications. For me that came about as cell phones became smaller and the need to communicate at all times and from all locations became the expected norm. I must admit that it took some practice in positioning the phone in the palm of my hand and a few mis-dialed numbers but I am now able to dial a number while driving – using just my thumb — without taking my eyes off the road and with a high degree of accuracy. Isn’t all of this really quite amazing? As human beings we are remarkably adaptable, trainable, and have quite extraordinary abilities to interact with various mechanical devices. The only problem is that once we are trained we really don’t like to have to change or to start all over again. That is of course at least one of the reasons why the QWERTY keyboard is still the one we use on our computers – be they normal size or miniaturized. And personally I’m glad that this stick-in-the-mud stability exists. I learned touch typing in high school on a manual typewriter as a way to prepare for what I thought would be a useful skill in college and graduate school. And it sure came in handy with all the term papers, and later on, thesis work. My only challenge was that although I could type quite quickly, doing it without mistakes was an entirely different matter. What a blessing it was when the desktop computer came along and even the first rudimentary word processors allowed me to make, and instantly correct, as many mistakes as my poorly-organized mind produced. Changes and revisions became a trivial task. It was no longer necessary to write out drafts just so the typing would end up looking unspoiled by white-outs and erasures. And here I am, many years later, typing on a keyboard that is not all that different than the one I used in high school. But, of course, way back then I had no way to anticipate that not only would I use all ten of my fingers to write these messages, I would also have to train my thumbs to do extra duty. So as I poke away at my cell phone and my other communications devices with their miniaturized keyboards, it seems like a miracle of evolution that my largest digits are the ones doing the work requiring the greatest dexterity. Is it likely that this is but a transitory phenomenon? Will we come up with something a bit more efficient – and faster – in the next few years? It seems to me that there are at least two possibilities. One would be to have direct voice communication with our computers. That would work for many situations but may not be so good in noisy environments like airplanes – or where others are likely to overhear our private communications. The other possibility might be a keyboard combined with a flexible display that could be unrolled and used more like a laptop computer. That may not be so far off with the progress that is being made on flexible circuits and flexible displays. The need and desire for portable “wearable” electronics will grow over the coming years. Devices that enhance our abilities to communicate from any location at any time will be especially in demand. Anything that we in the display community can do to facilitate further improvements in this area will find rapid acceptance by the marketplace. But in the meantime, we will just have to keep our thumbs flexible and in practice so that they can flit from key to tiny key on our currently available rudimentary electronic communicators. Should you wish to make a few brief comments about this column, I invite you to do so by whatever large or small keyboard you happen to have available to you. Of course, the older methods of telephone and fax machine will work equally well. I look forward to hearing from you. You may reach me from this site, directly by e-mail at silzars@attglobal.net, by telephone at 425-898-9117, or by fax at 425-898-1727.

A Quiet Walk on the Beach… Tonight, I went for a walk on the beach. Sally was with me and we held hands as we walked. We talked some, but not all that much. The sun was setting and the ocean was calm. A few other people were out doing the same. But there was lots of empty space for everyone to enjoy, and the peaceful mood of the setting sun was in control. The summer evening was cool, as is usually the case on the Oregon Coast. The coastal mountains on the opposite side added a certain intimacy to the openness of the broad sandy beach. The various homes and lodges that populate this section of the coast were beginning to glow in the dusk. Driftwood fires and the people huddled around them added to the romantic mood. During our walk, for us, the world was at peace. For these all too brief moments, there was no need or desire to check our cell phones for messages, no need to hurry back and catch up on the latest e-mails, no need to have an iPod blasting in our ears – no need at all for anything electronic. In spite of what some folks think, we may be reaching our limits for how much information we can absorb – no matter how compellingly it is presented. A few weeks ago, I visited the latest Seattle Street of Dreams. This is an annual event that consists of approximately half-dozen homes that are intended to feature the latest ideas in upscale living. Just a few years ago, the major innovation being promoted was the home theater. The concept was to create the ambiance of a movie theater but on a much smaller scale. These home theaters featured the latest in front projection technology along with line doublers to create projected images better than could be done with standard NTSC scan rates. Then a year or so ago, the first flat screen televisions made their appearance. They were prominently featured and were the centerpieces of these upper end homes. Well, this year flat screen televisions were also in evidence – just about everywhere. In addition to the “normal” places one would expect to find them, they were in kitchens, laundry rooms, bedrooms, on outdoor patios, with some installations consisting of several placed next to each other. The home theaters were still just as prominent as ever, but now of course featuring HDTV-quality projection systems. The concept of “a” television for these homes seemed silly and quaint. The “new” concept is to have some form of video capability not only in every room but in every identifiable space where a family member might happen to spend even a few minutes during a day. The interesting question is, what will we find for content that is worth watching every minute of every day? Personally, I am finding that over the last few years I have already begun to make a conversion of sorts. As I work on my computer during the day, each time I access the Internet, the home page shows me the latest developing world events. Occasionally, if something looks especially important, I will look up the details. Given this ongoing update on what is going on in the world, I no longer have the same desire or need to watch the evening news as I did a few years ago. I may still do it as a way to relax and hear the weather forecast, but that may not last much longer either. There certainly are times when I want to be entertained, such as when I am stuck at an airport or have been on an airplane for so many hours that my brain can no longer do anything productive. There may be a few other times when we are just too tired to do useful work or are placed in a situation where there is nothing else to do except wait. That is when a portable entertainment or information appliance can be highly useful. On the other hand, some quiet time can be equally beneficial. If we are continually bombarded with audio and visual inputs, when will we find time for creative contemplation? Those quiet walks on the beach will often turn out to be far more productive than responding to just one more e-mail or returning just one more cell-phone message. It is my prediction that what will evolve over the next few decades is a better balance between incessant activity and time to reflect. At least it will for those individuals who will become the creative leaders of the next generation. Those who get lost in the world of never-ending electronic stimulation will not be able to develop the creative thinking capabilities that will be needed to excel in the business world in the coming decades. Display technology will play an important role in all this because, properly used, it will be an aid to efficient information access and information manipulation. That in turn will help to provide the optimal balance between information overload and creative contemplation. Therefore, please promise me that the next time you go for a walk on the beach you will leave your cell phone behind – as well as every other electronic gadget known to man and yet to be invented. Then after you are feeling refreshed and revitalized, you may wish to contact me with your thoughts on the future of the information age. You can reach me from this site, directly by e-mail at silzars@attglobal.net, by fax at 425-898-1727, or by telephone at 425-898-9117.

The Joy of Modest Means… Jeff was a man of modest means.  He had a steady job, but it did not pay all that well.  He had a loving wife and two pre-school children.  They lived in an apartment in a typical suburban neighborhood.  They were comfortable but finances were always something they had to watch and manage with care. One day their 20-year old television — that Jeff had purchased second hand for a very modest sum through a want ad in the Sunday paper — gave out.  Watching television was about the only affordable means of entertainment for Jeff and his family.  They couldn’t very well do without one altogether.  And since Jeff had been able to save a few hundred dollars he and his wife decided that they should take a step up and this time go shopping for a new one.  They were hoping they could afford a model that had some of the new “digital” features they had been reading about.  Perhaps they could consider purchasing one of the new “digital high definition flat panel televisions” that seemed to be so popular these days.  The salesperson at the first major electronic store they visited was full of enthusiasm and full of “information”.  He told them they had come at the perfect time.  Prices were the lowest they had ever been and these “great new digital flat panel televisions” were incredibly popular.  The salesperson quickly pointed out several large screen models they could take home that very day.  Unfortunately, as Jeff and his wife looked at the prices and compared them to their available resources, there was an obvious mismatch.  And being the financially conservative family they had always been, Jeff wasn’t about to accept the salesperson’s offer of interest free extended payments.  Jeff and his wife both liked the large screens and the contemporary look of the flat panel technologies, but what surprised both of them was that the picture quality did not seem all that different from what they could see on the conventional CRT sets.  Larger yes, but otherwise pretty much the same.  The picture sharpness looked about the same and the colors were also about the same, although his wife commented that on the flat panel sets the colors seemed to “jump out” more than she was used to seeing on their set at home.  And they were really disappointed that the prices seemed to be beyond the reach of their current finances.  Nevertheless, the couple continued their search hoping they would find something that could meet their needs and also be affordable.  They thought about the fact that their apartment was relatively small so the larger hang-on-the-wall sets were really not all that compatible with their viewing environment.   And while having a flat panel set would be very exciting, they began to look at the available conventional picture tube televisions.  As they compared, they really couldn’t see any disadvantages in the quality of the images.  The older technology sets were just as bright, seemed to have good color capability, and also had flat screens.  The only problem seemed to be that they were bulkier and the salesperson told them that they were not the “new digital technology”.  Well, then that would just have to be something they would have to give up.  Actually, Jeff kept wondering what exactly was this “new digital technology”, but the salesperson seemed so definite in saying these words that Jeff was too embarrassed to ask. Jeff and his family ended up with a conventional “old style” CRT television that had the required built-in tuner to receive high-definition broadcasts and a flat screen just like the newer flat panel sets.  And since their apartment had a nice alcove, the extra bulk of the CRT was really no problem for Jeff’s family.  Once the TV was delivered they were quite pleased with their purchase.  And they had been able to get a very attractive price because this particular electronics store was in the process of phasing out the sale of CRT based sets.  Management had decided that in the future they would be selling only flat panel technologies. Jeff and his wife did continue to wonder if they would have been happier if they could have afforded one of the new flat panel technologies.  But they decided to just be appreciative of what they had purchased, since the picture quality seemed to be everything that they could have wished for.  Had Jeff and his wife met a truly knowledgeable salesperson — and one who was not driven by commission-based rewards — they might have had a few more pleasant surprises.  They would have learned that indeed the picture quality of the older style TVs is not inferior.  In fact, in most cases it is either as good or better – especially when it comes to gray scale and color accuracy. Epilogue – A personal experience.In my own travels, I am now finding that more and more hotels are switching over to either plasma or LC flat panels TVs – typically in the 40 – 42” sizes.  And most of the time I wish that they had just stayed with the conventional CRT televisions.  I have yet to have a viewing experience that can be compared to what I get at home on my conventional (but high-resolution) 32” flat-screen CRT set.  There are two problems that seem to plague virtually all of the current installations of flat panel technologies.  The first is that the colors are generally set so they are overly saturated and this makes the gray scale performance dismal.  Flat panel technologies already have to work hard to achieve the gray scale capability that comes so easily for a CRT.   When the sets are mis-adjusted, the results can be truly awful.  The second problem with these wide-screen sets is that there is no consistency in how the various program sources are displayed.  Sometimes people and objects appear fat and distorted because they are stretched to fill

What If You Could Have?… What if you could have a laptop computer that was ready to use the moment you turned it on?  What if this laptop used so little power that it could operate for several days with no recharging?  What if this laptop had a display that you could easily read outdoors in full sunlight?  And what if you could buy such a product for around $150?   And what if all this wasn’t just idle speculation?  What if such a product was within a month or two of reality?  Now, do I have your attention?  Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it?  At this year’s SID Business Conference, I had invited Mary Lou Jepsen to present the luncheon talk.  She is the Chief Technology Officer at One Laptop per Child in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  The goal of this organization is to develop computer-aided education for parts of the world where there are few financial resources for purchasing currently available high technology devices.  This is a wonderful goal and deserves the support from all of us.  However, as I listened to her luncheon talk at the Business Conference, the thought kept popping into my head that the laptop she was describing would be a very nice electronic appliance to have for my own use.  At the time that seemed like a rather selfish way of thinking, but isn’t it even more wonderful that those in greater need are not being relegated to something that is of less value than the rest of us would wish to have?    Since then I have had occasion to follow up on how this product is coming along and my convictions are growing that there is something here that goes beyond the admirable goal of supporting the economically less fortunate children of the world.  And for the very selfish reasons stated above, I want one of these laptop computers all for myself.  I’ll even buy two and send one to a needy person if I can keep the other one for my own use.  Frankly, I am tired and frustrated of having to sit on an airplane or in a gate area while waiting many minutes for my laptop to get itself ready to do something useful.  And then of course having to wait for another several minutes at shutdown.   I’m tired of having to rush to finish what I am doing when the low-battery light begins to flash — invariably while I am in the middle of a really important thought that I want to capture before it evaporates.  That happens after less than two hours of operation on my current top-brand-name computer.   The LC display that I have on this machine is really not all that bad, but it is still not adequate for use in most outdoor environments.  Then today, in our local paper, I read what I consider to be the “last straw” in all of this unhelpful complexity that has beset our computers.  This article quoted a representative from Dell who stated that the upgrade to the new Windows Vista would most likely require more that the one Gigabyte of memory that is currently being recommended.  His conclusion was that Vista could require as much as two Gigabytes to operate properly.  And I thought that 512 Megabytes was a whole bunch!  And that is just for the operating system!  Is all this complexity necessary for the simple tasks that I typically do such as reading e-mails, searching the Internet, writing word documents, and occasionally preparing a presentation?  What is happening here?  Why do I need an operating system requiring two Gigabytes of memory to do these straightforward tasks?  I could do almost all of them in the “good old days” using DOS.  And even if I do more involved projects such as image manipulation shouldn’t those be a controlled by whatever software I am using?  Isn’t my operating system supposed to just let me load programs and execute them when I wish to do so?  And what effect will this extra complexity have on how long it takes my computer to boot up?  Will I now have to wait for more than ten minutes?   This unbounded rush to add ever more features and complexity clearly needs a balancing influence.   Perhaps that is why I am so enthusiastic and supportive of the One Laptop per Child effort.  It will help all the really needy children of the world but it may also give the rest of us not-so-poor and not-so-childlike users something that will be as exciting and become as popular as cell phones and iPods.   I for one am going to keep close watch on the development of this product.  I want to be among the first in line to buy one if and when that becomes possible.   If you would like to enlighten me on your own wishes and predictions for the next generation of laptop computers — and the displays they will have — you may contact me directly from this site, by e-mail at silzars@attglobal.net, by telephone at 425-898-9117, or by fax at 425-898-1727.

Santa Claus and the 3-D Disconnect… 3-D is coming!  3-D is coming!  We’re finally going to have all of our movies in 3-D!   At least so goes the self-serving promotional excitement among some display industry forecasters as well as entertainment industry gurus.  But didn’t we go through all of this once before about fifty years ago?  What’s different this time?  Is the quality of the images so much better?  Is polarization technology now so superior?  Yes, the projected image quality is better, and no, polarization technology has not changed much at all.  However, there is one very interesting change that does create a new opportunity for stereoscopic 3-D.  The advent of computer generated images and entire movies that no longer resemble the Disney-like cartoon movies of forty and fifty years ago is a major driving force for exploring 3-D effects.   As computer generated images become more and more realistic, adding a 3-D effect can perhaps enhance our viewing experiences even further. But what about truly realistic 3-D movies and having those become the standard fare for viewing rather than a novelty feature that shows up in only a few “I’ve suspended my reality” movie experiences?    Well, that’s where we run into trouble. In an earlier column that I wrote for the June 2006 issue of Information Display magazine, I made the rather audacious prediction that, “Truly realistic 3-D such as needed to create a believable virtual-reality experience, is at least 25 years away for single viewers and perhaps 50 years away for multiple viewers – and that is at the unlimited cost level.”   Actually, the first time that I made this assertion was roughly four years earlier, so we are now probably only 20 years away from fulfilling at least the first part of my prediction.  With all the recent excitement about 3-D, what could I have been thinking?  Have I lost my touch with the interesting new developments in stereoscopic viewing?  Well, no, I don’t think I have, but that is not the reason for my perhaps pessimistic conclusion. This was all brought home to me once again at the most recent meeting of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of SID.  The presentation was by Brian Schowengerdt from the University of Washington.  He and his group are doing research into what it will take to produce a 3-D image that begins to replicate how our visual system interacts with the world around us.  And unless we understand and properly imitate this image acquisition process, there are problems created that go way beyond a less-than-fully-realistic visual experience.  For good reasons — some going back to our caveman days — our visual systems have developed to tell us a lot more than just what our immediate environment looks like.  For example, our visual system works with our two other senses to tell us what is moving and whether we are part of that motion or not.  In a complicated process, it also tells us what danger may be lurking close by or further away.  This is accomplished not only by the stereoscopic effect of seeing with two eyes, but also by what is in focus and what is out of focus, and how that corresponds to what our eye muscles are doing to position our eyes at the correct angle to focus on a given object.  And then of course our head position and slight movements that we make add to the data stream that our brains are continually processing.  The problem is that if our sensory system senses a conflict, it goes into a conflict resolution mode – typically by responding in ways that we don’t find very enjoyable.  If the conflict is slight and persistent, it may react mildly by giving us a headache.  If the conflict is sudden, it reacts by making us nauseous.  I posed the question to Brian why should we get nauseous if we have a visual disconnect.  His explanation is that this was built into us during our early evolutionary days when signs of dizziness meant we had eaten something poisonous and, therefore, our bodies were set up to get rid of the poison.  So, as far as our visual sensory system is concerned, a 3-D movie that only presents a stereoscopic view is not going to be acceptable for anything more than a novelty experience.  It cannot “look right” because the focal planes are all at infinity and as objects move in and out of the scene our eyes get all conflicted by the lack of focus changes and eye directional accommodation errors.  For most of us, the disconnect is not bad enough to make us nauseous, but a headache is certainly not out of the question, and the feeling that we were in a “spacey” and unrealistic environment will be a typically minimal reaction.  I have also heard this called a “dollhouse” effect or a diorama-like effect.  If the conventional approaches to stereoscopic 3-D are unlikely to be successful then is anything on the horizon that is likely to make my seemingly pessimistic prediction come true?  The work that Brian’s group is doing at the University of Washington may provide for the first inklings of future success.  They are doing research on a laser-based system that projects an image onto the retina.  For each part of the image the correct focal distance is generated and the viewer sees the scene with the objects in their correct focal planes.  (This work is described in more detail in a paper published in the Journal of the SID, 14/2, pages 135–143).   Therefore, we may finally be on the path to truly realistic 3-D that will be adequate at least for single viewers.  Realistic 3-D that can be enjoyed by a large audience would indeed be a wonderful Christmas present from Santa to the display community.  However, it seems that we will have to set our sights at a more modest level and first get to where we can present realistic 3-D images to single viewers.  That

The Game is Over – The Computers Won, Humans Lost… We should have seen it coming, but the changes were so gradual and so subtle that it all happened without us taking much notice.   However, we cannot ignore the outcome any longer.  We humans have lost this game — big time.  Here’s what happened to me today to make me realize that the computers no longer find it necessary to hide their victorious plot. I took two rather large packages of electronic equipment that I planned to send to a colleague in Canada to the local FedEx depot for shipment.  Since the boxes are quite substantial and since there was no great urgency, I told the lady behind the counter that I wanted to ship them by the cheapest method – namely by ground.  As usual, I had already taken the time to fill out the shipment form.  When I presented the boxes and the filled out form to her, her reply was something that should have been right out of the Twilight Zone.  “I’m sorry sir, but if you want to do a ground shipment you will have to go back to your office, go online and enter the information on your computer.  Then, when you have done that, the computer will print out a customs form for you to fill out.”  I stood there for a few seconds staring at her in disbelief.  I really wasn’t having a bad dream, was I?  “You mean to tell me that there is no way for me to do this here at your major facility?”  I asked, clearly showing my incredulity.  “No, sir.  You have to do it from your computer.”  “So, what you are telling me is that I have to haul these boxes back home and request the forms from my computer?”   “Yes sir, that is correct.”   “And then what do I do with these boxes after I have done that?”   “Then you can bring them back here with the completed forms and we can accept them for shipment.”    “You mean to tell me there is no way for me to get this shipment done in any other way?”   “Not, if you want to ship by ground.   If you want to ship them by any other method it will be MUCH more expensive,” came the final and unequivocal response.       As I left, lugging my heavy boxes, I could tell that my final outburst stating that I would never do business with FedEx again had absolutely no effect.  It didn’t elicit anything – not even as much as a barely perceptible shrug. While still fuming about this unbelievably stupid situation, I went across the street to the nearest Home Depot.  I needed to pick up a few small plumbing items in order to make an adapter so that I can use my digital camera with my Mitutoyo microscope.  (Perhaps this use of fifty-cent plumbing parts to do high-grade optical mounts is the topic for a future column.) As usual I took my handful of items to the checkout area.   But this time the only checkout registers open were the self-service ones.  Having had some “wonderful” experiences with these registers in the past, I basically refuse to use them.  So I walked up to the one clerk who was watching over four of these marvelous machines and said,  “Here, you do it.  I don’t seem to be able to make these machines work for me.”   The response was not quite as helpful as I would have hoped.   “Sorry, this is the self-service area.  If you want to have someone help check you out, you will have to go to the other end of the store where we have a register open for contractors.” So I did, and after one more wonderful shopping experience, I was finally on my way home.  As I drove, I could see the big boxes — still in the back of the car – every time I looked in the rearview mirror.  What a wonderfully productive day!   Over an hour wasted so that a computer could be satisfied — and I wasn’t even done yet.  In fact, I had made no progress at all.  I still had the boxes, and I still didn’t know how much more time it would take me to now do all the online searching to finally get what this “system” demanded.   Well, there is at least one other alternative.  Tomorrow, I’m going to try UPS and see if their computer is as stubborn and unforgiving as the one at FedEx.  Maybe I’ll get lucky and the two computers have not yet gotten together to compare notes and make our lives equally frustrating.  But I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.  The fix is in.  The computers have won and we have all been relegated to do their bidding.  The human touch and customer service – gone except for a few small remaining pockets of resistance.  As I drove home, I decided that my New Year’s resolution for 2007 would be to try to do my part to keep the gentle flame of humanity burning for as long as possible.  Maybe — just maybe — if enough of us do this, the concept of humanity and the warmth of human interactions will survive.  It seems almost subversive to entertain such thoughts, but such reversals have happened before and perhaps they will happen again. With that hopeful thought, I send each of you my personal wish for a successful and productive 2007.  And if you are ever desirous of having a real human being respond to a message you send, you can be assured that if you write to me through this site, directly by e-mail at silzars@attglobal.net, or call me at 425-898-9117, that it will be my pleasure to send you a personal response.

Shifting the Burden… What good are bits when I need atoms!   It has not been all that many years since certain leading proponents of “computers for everything” pronounced that the world was in the midst of a fundamental shift from working with atoms (in the form of paper) to bits (in the form of computer data).  Those were the heady days of the paperless office about-to-arrive.   Of course, now we know that it didn’t exactly turn out that way.   Today we create more paper than ever.  However, who ends up having to create all this paper and what this does to enhance or mess up our day is what is beginning to bother me more and more — mainly because I am beginning to realize that others may be taking advantage of me.  Furthermore, the problem is not only that it’s a minor inconvenience of having to print out a few pages.  Let me share a real-life example with you.  A few days ago, I received a shiny little computer disk by FedEx that was meant to provide me with information so that I could participate in the selection of a “best product” award in several categories.  In past years, this information came by way of a stack of papers that contained the nomination forms with all the back-up material attached.  The process of getting to an answer was a relatively easy one. To do my evaluations and make my recommendations, I would start by sorting through the stack and picking out the ones that seemed most interesting.  Then I would glance at the back-up information and continue to rearrange the stack by doing a comparative ranking – this one is better than the one above it, and so forth.  Sometimes I would conclude the process by spreading all the nominations out on a large table to do the final comparative rankings.  It would not be long before the final order emerged with the satisfaction that I had examined all the important information provided and answered all the pertinent questions.  Now, let’s compare what I have just described to the shiny computer disk approach.  I put the disk in the usual computer slot and opened it.  And what did I find in front of me on the screen?  There were approximately fifty FOLDERS – not just files, folders.  Each folder, with its short and cryptic title, contained not only the nomination form, but also all the back-up information in several more files and photo images.  So how could I easily go through all this information to create order out of chaos?  Should I try to read the documents one-by-one?  If so, how would I remember what I read about product eighteen, or was it product twenty-seven?  And how did product twenty-two compare to product five?   I was already getting confused by the time I was reading about product number four.   How could I possibly retain all my impressions to achieve a decent ranking by the time I finished reading?  And not only that, I also didn’t have the time or patience to try to absorb so much information one page at a time.  My preference was to begin the sorting process immediately.  The more I tried to make some sense of all this, the more frustrated I became. So, why did I end up with a computer disk instead of information in the printed paper form that I could use?  Well, of course — it was easier for the sender.  The person on the other end did not have to worry about making multiple copies of all the information.  They did not have to put together packages to mail.  They just created the disk and then could burn as many copies as they wished and the burden would be on me to figure out how to make the information unraveling useful.   Unfortunately, the end result in this case was that all I could do was to print out the cover pages of each nomination, and then go back and forth within all the folders and files and try to do my best to arrive at an ordered selection.  By only having one page at a time available to me, I’m not at all sure that I didn’t miss something important.  Isn’t there something that we in the display community could do to satisfy both the needs of those who don’t want to take (or don’t have) the time to put information into a conveniently usable form, as well as those who wish to have access to more than one page at a time?  One possibility would be to have a display that is much larger than the ones we commonly use today with our computers – let’s say desktop size.  Then we could electronically spread all these files and folders onto our desktops and begin to move them around like pieces of paper on a large table.  One mandatory requirement would have to be an abstract or a small image that would tell us key information about each file so that we could instantly recognize it and be able to use this concise information as a sorting tool.  The back-up information would be quickly accessible by clicking on the information abstract – like we do now on a typical desktop icon.  I think a display of about 50 or 60-inch diagonal would suit us just fine for this task.  However, the resolution would have to be quite good.  In order to display the information at the same lines per inch as on our current computer monitors, we would need at least 3,000 lines and maybe as many as 5,000.  Don’t you think that a display of that size and resolution would start to get really interesting for sorting the larger amounts of information?  Making such a large high-resolution display at an affordable cost could keep us display engineers busy for at least a few more years.  In general, I have not been able to find all that many interesting

And Suddenly it Stopped… Joe was a man of modest means.  He lived in a modest home in a small community on the outskirts of a larger Pacific Northwest city.  Since his retirement from working in a paper mill, he and his wife of many years got by mostly on their monthly Social Security checks.  Their main source of entertainment was an older television set that was the centerpiece of their small but comfortable living room.   Each morning, Joe turned on the television shortly after they had had their breakfast and the TV stayed on for most of the day until they were ready for their daily late afternoon outing into town.  They enjoyed watching the game shows and their favorite “soaps”.   Their lives were not inspiring by most standards, but they were adequately comfortable with what they had. Then one wintry morning, early in the year 2009, Joe turned on their television and instead of seeing the usual video, all he saw and heard was noise.   No picture on any channel – just a jumble of black and white speckles and a loud hissing sound from the speakers.  For Joe and his wife, this was indeed a major disruption in their routine.  What to do?  What would they do all day without a television to keep them entertained?  Given their modest finances, the thought of paying for a service call was not something that Joe wanted to contemplate.  The best plan he could come up with was to load the television into the back of his pickup truck and take it to a nearby service shop for a diagnosis.  He remembered seeing one remaining small electronic repair shop in the older part of town.  The kindly older gentleman who greeted him as he carried his television into the shop seemed most accommodating.   As Joe explained his problem, a frown and then a smile crossed the older gentleman’s face.  “Joe, I think I can diagnose your problem without even looking at your set.”   “Haven’t you been watching the news?”   Joe had to admit that the news had little interest for him.  Some years ago he had decided that the world would just have to get along without his active interest in what the politicians were up to.  And hearing about the latest murders and fires on the evening news was also not something that appealed to him.  So, no, he had not been watching the news.  “Well, Joe your problem is that, as of yesterday, all the analog television signals have been turned off.  You now must have a digital television or tuner box to see your favorite shows.”   “What do you mean ‘turned off’?  You don’t just turn off a television station,” responded Joe, somewhat incredulously.  “Well, yes, that is what has just happened.  The government mandated some years ago that all television broadcasts switch to digital transmission and to new frequencies.  The analog signals would be stopped so that this bandwidth could be used for something else,” explained the repair shop owner.   “What I can do for you is sell you a digital receiver that will make your analog television work with the digital signals.  Television stations have already been transmitting these signals for a few years now, but folks like you didn’t have a need to use them.  But as of today, that is the only way you can receive your programs.  The old transmitters are gone – gone for good.” All the way home, Joe couldn’t believe what he had heard.  He thought back to the days when he was younger and color television was introduced.  He clearly remembered that the color signals were compatible with monochrome sets.  There was no need to buy a new television or a new tuner just because a station started broadcasting in color.  The old monochrome sets continued to work just fine.  How could this be that so many years ago, we were smart enough to develop compatible standards but in this “modern” era we couldn’t come up with something similar?   All this made Joe feel quite disconnected from this world of new technology, where compatibility and maintainability were no longer valued.  It not only made him sad but the extra money he now had to spend would put a real dent into their modest budget.  And for what?  Just so he could once again see the same programs he had been watching every day for the last several years?       Has there ever been a similar situation, where products were purposely made inoperative by a government decision?   The closest that I can come up with is the introduction of unleaded gas and the eventual phase-out of leaded gas.  However, that is not really the same, since additives could — and still can — be purchased to allow older vehicles to operate if their engines need the lead coating to keep the valves from burning.   Television sets have an operating life that can extend well beyond twenty years.  Older TV sets typically are not discarded but migrate into other rooms of the house or even into the garage for casual viewing.  How many digital tuners are we willing to buy to keep these older sets operational?  I suspect that we have just created a major disposal problem for ourselves.  Maybe this is good for the economy and perhaps we in the display industry should be thrilled that this will create additional sales.  But it bothers me that so much still-useful technology and so many products that have years of operational life left in them will soon find their way to local dumpsites.   Maybe I have a bit of “Joe” in me as well.  I do like change and the exiting new experiences that technology can create for us, but at the same time I’m saddened to see that we are contributing to a world of disposable and unrepairable products – to be thrown away whenever something stops working properly.  Why can’t we just replace a faulty switch or lamp

Adapt or Vanish… One Saturday morning, a few weeks ago, I stopped in at a Seattle coffee shop that is renowned for the quality of its doughnuts and the selection of its specialty coffees.  This specialty doughnut/coffee shop is located in one of the older residential neighborhoods close to the core downtown area.  As such, it attracts the younger professionals who rent or own the apartments and condominiums that are the norm for this part of the city.  For these folks, a Saturday morning walk to get a cup of coffee and doughnut is a wonderful way to start the weekend.   The atmosphere in this shop has the feel of an old bookstore that is especially conducive to sitting for a while and just enjoying the pleasant smells of the steaming coffees and fresh pastries.  On a typically Seattle overcast day, this all creates a mood suitable for quiet and restful contemplation. Thus, for me this provided the rare opportunity to just sit – and do nothing.  As I sat there in my best contemplative mood, something began to intrude on my nothingness.  I began to notice that while all the other tables were also occupied by one or more persons similarly enjoying their coffees and doughnuts, in front of virtually every one of these persons was — an open laptop computer.  On a Saturday morning in a quiet coffee shop?   Why?  What were they doing?   What where they looking at?  Wouldn’t it make more sense to see these same people reading a newspaper?  Some seemed to be just staring at their computer screens while others were busily typing something or other.  There was not a newspaper to be seen anywhere.  Are we in the midst of an information revolution that has already happened and we didn’t even notice?  And when it does hit full force what will it take to adapt to this new environment.  It seems to me that the traditional newspapers are going to be in seriously big trouble unless they adapt to what is going on.  As I thought about it, I realized that even for me, the newspaper is no longer the way that I get my news.  Every time I open my e-mail or search the Internet, I am presented with the latest headlines and the additional details of what interests me can be accessed with one click of the mouse.  By the end of the day, I have no need to watch the evening news or read the paper to see what is “new”.  I already know.  So why do I still read the paper – actually several — each day?   I read for the editorial commentary, for the business news, and for the philosophical wisdom that masquerades as the comics or “funnies”.   There is also occasional value in the various advertising supplements and Sunday magazines.  The news is only of value if it provides some details that may be of special interest to me.   And I’m finding that the free news that I now receive on my computer each day seems to be more complete and more interesting than much of what is in the newspaper.  Another change that has already taken place is that I no longer look at the classified ads – those have been replaced by E-bay and by Craig’s list.  The real estate section is still interesting, but for serious house hunters the Internet has become the preferred method.  About the only thing that is left are the car dealer ads.  Have the newspapers figured all this out yet?  I don’t think so.   My sense is that they still think they are in the business of providing the “latest news”.  There seems to be plenty of concern about decreasing revenue and decreasing readership, but I don’t see anyone articulating the need to adapt the core product to the way it is already being used.  I want to continue to have my morning and midday papers.  I don’t want them to go out of business.  But please emphasize those areas that I don’t already get for free and faster – every time I access my computer screen.   The same can be said for the evening news on television.   Lately, I have been waiting until most of the news segments are over and then just tuning in to see the weather and sports.  The weather is of interest to me because I like to be outdoors for my exercise, and the sports news is just there for entertainment value.  I’m not much of a sports fan, but it’s still interesting to see what latest silliness the professional players are up to.  The rest of the “news” I already know and I have no interest in hearing about the latest murders, fires, or fatal traffic accidents.  The names and locations seem to change but the stories are remarkably repetitive.    This change in information acquisition habits is, of course, great news for those of us in the display industry.  What could be better than to have people using displays of all sizes each and every minute of the day?  Each day (including Saturdays and Sundays) many of us wake up to immediately activate our laptop computer displays, then we stare at computer monitors all day at work, we text message as we travel from place to place, we look at our cell phones at least once every five minutes, and we come home to watch the big screen TV and/or play video games all night long.  Then we may do a final e-mail check before going to bed and perhaps end the day by watching the bedroom TV to relax us before falling asleep.  In this evolving world of electronic displays, will there be even a few minutes left for anything else?   Oh yes, and soon we will have flexible displays that are even more intimately and conveniently attachable to our bodies.  This world of “conformable” and “wearable” electronics is only a few years away and will be the next

It’s Not Working – Toss It… Do I hear $275?  I’m bid $250, do I hear $275?  Going once at $250 — Anyone for $275?  Going twice at $250.   Do I hear $275?   Going once, going twice, sold to the gentleman holding number 351 for $250.   And so it was that the gentleman holding #351 took home a cart-full of computers.  Not just one computer, mind you, but 20 of them.  Similarly a number of other “lots” of computers stacked onto large roll-around storage carts were disposed of at this auction.   These computers were perfectly functional and only a few years old.  Nevertheless, their owners deemed them obsolete and ready for disposal.  They weren’t even considered suitable for resale on the used equipment market.  And I suppose that was reasonable, since the necessary software was most likely not included.  Next, came several carts of CRT monitors, and just like the computers they were stacked like cordwood — shrink-wrapped only to hold them in place — with no concern for any damage that might result.   The selling prices ended up about the same as the computers, a few hundred dollars for each fully loaded cart.  And so it went with other items — small and large: small ones such as cell phones, and large ones like printers, copiers, television sets, audio equipment, and just about anything else with electronic contents.  Are there any electronics’ repair shops left?   It seems that the best we can hope for is to effect a repair by doing a board swap.   Are there any products left designed with component level repair in mind?  This module or board swap approach has not only taken over computers and the more expensive consumer electronic products; it has spread to encompass all major (and minor) appliances as well as automobiles.  If a segment of an LED goes dim in a microwave oven, the only possible repair is to replace the entire electronics module — for several hundred dollars.  It matters not that the 8-segment LED could in fact be purchased for less than a dollar.  Trying to find the specially designed one that is on this particular circuit board would be a futile search.  For many years I drove a 1978 Mercedes diesel sedan.  It served me well and had relatively few problems.  One time the rocker switch for the driver side window quit working.  I went to the parts department at the local dealer and for $7.50 I had a new replacement switch that took me about 2 minutes to snap into place.   Now, I have a newer vehicle that is the beneficiary of nearly 30 years of additional technology evolution and has a number of new “features”.   Among other problems I have had with this feature-laden new vehicle, the window switch also quit working.  Well, that shouldn’t be so bad — just go buy another switch and plug it in.  Oh, but silly me – the world of “modern technology” no longer works that way.   Not only could I not determine how to remove the faulty switch, when I sought help from the dealer, I was told that in order to make the repair they would need to replace the “switch module”.  With a cheerful smile, I was told that this part costs only $179 and that the labor to install it is even less — only $160.  Later, after paying this “minor” repair bill, I took a good look at the faulty “switch module”.  It was made from a low-grade black plastic with the switch parts riveted in place.  The contacts were exposed and not especially sturdy.  No wonder it failed after only a few years of very limited use – at best a $10 part with just a “tiny” dealer markup.  For all the talk about conservation, recycling, and using “green” materials, we have become a society that only values the newest and latest.  And if a product no longer meets the latest performance expectations, or quits working — we simply toss it and go buy a new one.  The expectation that we can or should repair or maintain products for more than one or two years has vanished.  In our own field of displays, we have recently seen the massive changeover from CRT-based monitors and televisions to flat panel technologies.   We have all seen articles written expressing concern about the disposal of CRTs.   From a conservation standpoint, it’s unfortunate that so many of these products have come to a premature end-of-life because of the misperception that the new flat-panel technologies are guaranteed to provide superior image quality.   Nevertheless, the changeover is taking place and we are entering the new era of flat panel displays — a changeover that is being accelerated by the rapid price decreases for both LCDs and PDPs.  Over the last few years, display manufacturers have made incredible progress in increasing manufacturing efficiency and incorporating design changes that have led to dramatically lower production costs.  However, what happens if these new products quit working?  Are they repairable?  Have we in the display community made a trade-off for lower manufacturing costs at the expense of repairability.   Unfortunately, I think for most of the newer products that is indeed the case.   Have you tried to disassemble one of the newer flat panel monitors?  I have, and it’s not a pretty picture.  One can end up with a large pile of metal support pieces and snap-fitted mounting brackets before the circuit boards are exposed.  And then the replacement boards can, of course, only be obtained from the monitor maker since they are made specifically for this particular model.  Are these boards even available and for how long will they be kept in stock?  It doesn’t bode well for those of us who are not avid shoppers yearning to replace all of our electronics gadgets every few years.  Could we do better?  Of course we could.  Let’s take the example of the carts full of computers that are only a few years old.  Why couldn’t we