Column Archive

Accelerating Exponentially in One Dimension… A few days ago, we dropped in at a popular restaurant for lunch.   As usual there was about a twenty-minute wait for a table.  I don’t mind this delay because it’s an opportunity to sit and relax and wind down from the morning’s activities.   In my contemplative mood, I began to watch the roughly dozen other people who were also waiting for a table.  And what do you suppose I saw?   Every person — without exception — was looking at the lit up display screen on his or her cell phone.   I was the only one who did not have a phone in front of my face.  Constant electronic communication has become the norm.  Whether at an airport, or store, or just walking along a quiet forest trail, everyone we encounter is talking and/or looking at an electronic gadget.  And all this has happened in just a few short years.  In the mid-80s, it was a real “yuppie toy” to have a car phone.  It was a sign of entrepreneurial success to have a phone mounted on the center console of a BMW.   Do any of you remember “Iridium”?  That was a very expensive attempt to send 77 satellites into earth orbit so that we would be able to have worldwide communications with portable phones – phones that were going to be about the size of a large shoebox. How did we get from those relatively recent rudimentary beginnings to today’s addictive non-stop need to communicate every waking minute?  Technology has certainly played a part by miniaturizing receivers and transmitters, compute power, and the display technology to make it possible.  But beyond that is the social impact and the rapid change in our behaviors that is perhaps even more amazing.  There must be some primordial desire for us to be in constant touch with everyone we know – and perhaps even those who we don’t yet know.  Are we afraid of being left out of some tribal unit?  The rapidity with which this has happened and how it has affected every age group must be unprecedented in the history of human development.  It did not take a generation.  It took just a few years and has encompassed all age groups.   Are we there yet?  Is this a change that is now in the maturing stages or is there still more to come?   The growth and proliferation has been exponential by any measure, but will it and can it continue?   It is also interesting to note that we are not seeing such rapid change or progress in other areas of our lives.  Consider that our basic survival needs such as food and shelter have not been changing nearly as quickly.  Houses are built today much as they have been for the last several hundred years.  New technology incorporation in the construction industry has been slow and steady – with the emphasis on “slow”.  Our transportation methods are also not all that different from what they have been for the last hundred years.  Trucks, trains, and boats deliver most of our goods.  Cars are improving but are not dramatically different than they were 50 or 60 years ago.  Perhaps the biggest breakthroughs so far have been the catalytic converter and the air bag.  Airplanes today fly slower than they did in the early days of the jet age.  Trains have not improved much at all – at least in the US.   And it’s been many years since man set foot on the moon.  In the field of medicine, we are making some progress, but at a pace that many of us would like to see go much faster.  In spite of great predictions that “nanobots” will soon cure whatever ails us, that is more in the science fiction category than any reality we can expect in the next few decades.  I can’t think of any other segment of our lives where a new behavior has had an impact as huge and as rapid as the portable communicator we call the “cell phone” or the “iPhone”.  Can you?  Even the PC took significantly longer to become ingrained in our lives — and has not become as encompassing in our minute-by-minute activities.  Every day as I observe my human compatriots, I marvel at these new behaviors.  I marvel at the rapidity with which a portion of our lives has changed.  I marvel at the depth to which this change has taken place.  And I marvel at how there is no difference based on age, gender, or social status – everyone has become equally adept.  Given this, can we even begin to imagine what else could be around the corner?  It’s possible that this could be a singular event in human development.  However, since we have no precedent to go on, it appears that we are  “along for the ride” and have no way to predict where this journey will take us.  Should you have thoughts to offer on this topic or others, you may reach me directly from this site, by email at silzars@attglobal.net, or by phone at 425-898-9117.

A Ride into the Future… I find myself in the fortunate position of not having to commute to and from work every day.   On those rare occasions when I have to be out on the road during rush hour, I find it difficult to accept that just about everyone else who is caught up in the traffic mess around me is having to do this each and every workday.  This seems like an incredible waste of human energy and resources.  During these daily “migrations”, what else is one to do except listen to some form of audio entertainment?  Fighting one’s way through the daily rush hour battle to get to and from work is not exactly a restful activity.  Not only that, time spent driving is in direct conflict with our newly discovered fascination to be in constant electronic contact with everyone we know.  How can we check for and respond to all those important messages — each and every minute of the day — if we have to spend all this time paying attention to driving our cars?  And of course, if we take a longer trip by car, the problem just gets worse.   A really bad solution is to try to combine communicating with driving.  That can and will lead to a bad outcome for sure.  Had we as a Society been a bit more astute, we might have seen a new opportunity emerging.  If instead of driving ourselves to and from work we let someone else do it, then we could spend all those wasted hours doing the constant communicating that has become so important to us.   No, I am not suggesting that we all hire personal chauffeurs.  What I am suggesting instead is an increased use of public transit – a trend that has apparently already been happening for several years now.  According to the National Household Travel Survey the vehicle miles traveled by those ages 16 to 34 fell by 23 percent from 2001 to 2009 while passenger miles on public transit increased by 40 percent.  Until I read about this, I had no idea that such a trend has already been occurring. A well-run public transportation system could solve all sorts of problems.  We would no longer be frustrated in our needs for constant communication, we would be less tired when we arrive home at the end of the day, there would be fewer accidents, and there would be less pollution.   In effect, the world would become a nicer place for many of us. The missing piece in this puzzle is the need to make public transportation more enjoyable.  Busses could be made more comfortable.  But the real opportunity may be in what could be done to improve train service in the US.  The shorter commuter train routes seem to be getting some attention already but progress is painfully slow.  The longer routes that need high-speed trains are in total disarray in the US.  We seem to be stuck in all kinds of political and economic issues while the opportunity passes us by.     Are self-driving cars perhaps the answer?  They only resolve part of the problem.  Even if they work perfectly, they will not reduce the congestion on roads.  Clearly, it takes a lot more space and consumes more energy to move one person and the 3,000-pound car in which they are sitting than it does to just move that person. As is often the case, the world changed in one area and we missed seeing the effect of this change on another — seemingly unrelated area.  With our newfound addictive love of staring at the display screens of our electronic gadgets, more of us would prefer to spend our time communicating rather than driving our cars.  What a great opportunity this then becomes for those working to improve our mass transit networks.  If they could respond with a better product, i.e. more comfortable conveyances and improved schedules, the rest of us will respond by jumping on board.  This may not be so good for the automotive industry but it could be a very nice new direction for planet earth.  Should you have some ideas that you would like to share on this topic, or others, you may contact me directly from this site, by e-mail at silzars@attglobal.net, or by telephone at 425-898-9117.

A Surprising Vitality… Over the last few years, flat-panel displays have achieved an amazing level of technology maturity as well as market penetration.  Liquid Crystal displays have taken over.  The CRT has been replaced.   Plasma panels are rapidly disappearing, and OLED is still a technology in evolution.   Consumers have mostly met their needs and/or desires for flat-panel displays in all sizes — from the smallest cell phones to the largest televisions.  The image quality of these displays is better than we can appreciate in most applications.  So other than further price reductions and minor improvements, where do we go from here? Not so long ago, there was the false hope of stereoscopic 3-D.  However, we should have known better.  Stereoscopic 3-D was doomed from the beginning because realistic 3-D is far more complicated than the display of two stereo images.  Those inherent deficiencies and the need for cumbersome polarizing glasses were enough to turn off all but the most ardent gadget-loving viewers.   Is there something else we can conceive of to renew consumer enthusiasm?  The recent trend to even higher display resolutions looks promising.  We have already seen this in cell phones and tablet computers.  And as consumers continue the migration to larger screens for televisions, the higher resolution begins to have an appealing advantage.  This combination of bigger screens together with higher resolution should help increase sales over the next few years.  However, aren’t these just incremental improvements?  When compared to the changeover from CRT displays to flat panels, the answer has to be “yes”.  Also when compared to the days before we had cell phones and tablet computers, the answer also has to be “yes”.  It is hard to imagine that we will again see such a convergence of new display capabilities that finally realized our long-held dreams of “hang-on-the-wall” televisions, and portable communication devices.  We have brought our dreams to life and don’t seem to yet have other unfulfilled ones to replace them.  Does this mean that there is little left for those of us in the worldwide display community except to make incremental improvements? In reviewing the program for the upcoming Society for Information Display technical conference – now known as Display Week, I find a vitality that leads to quite a different conclusion.  It appears that there are still plenty of new and innovative technical paths that are being pursued.  Even in the area of LC technology, there are new concepts and new materials for TFT back-plane structures.  There are papers on new LC phases, on further developments in cell structures, and films for alignment.  New concepts are also being explored and described for developing flexible displays.  Where would such displays be used?  It could turn out that they will need to be extremely rugged if we are going to abuse them like we do printed paper displays.  That means plenty of work ahead – and perhaps the need for a breakthrough that is beyond our current capabilities.  There is of course also much more work to be done on OLED displays if they are to become mainstream products.  Those currently being manufactured are providing a good test bed.  It has turned out that the complexity of the actual back-plane circuitry is well beyond what is typically described in textbooks, seminar lectures, or tutorials.  How will this additional complexity affect the eventual product cost?  Will OLED displays provide images that are sufficiently superior to LC displays to justify the additional complexity challenges? Alternate technologies such a quantum dots in combination with LC panels are also receiving considerable attention.  This combination could result in improved color capability for LC displays that will rival or even exceed anything that can be created with OLED technology.   Finally, we should note that engineers never give up.  The failure of stereoscopic 3-D has become a challenge to overcome.  Recent efforts are leading to a better understanding of what is required to create a good virtual reality display.  And that is leading to new innovations.  The more modest goals of head-mounted displays as entry products into the world of virtual reality appear to be an excellent place for a re-start.  While we may never again see a time where so much changed so quickly, there is still plenty of opportunity for innovation and the creation of new display products.  Should you wish to comment on this topic or others, you may contact me directly from this site, by e-mail at silzars@attglobal.net, or by telephone at 425-898-9117.

Make More Money – or Maybe Not?… Every day I get at least one e-mail from Facebook with a list of people that I should “friend”.  About ninety-nine percent of these people I have no idea who they are or why they would want me to be their friend – or even distant acquaintance.  And conversely, why would I want them to be my “friend”?  I have no idea how they live, where they live, and what they do.  It naturally makes one wonder; why does Facebook care so much about my lack of friendships? Facebook is just one of several “social network” companies that offer their services for “free”.  Is this an act of charity that they want us all to become friends?  I’m sure that no one reading this column will be so naive.  As with all companies — and especially ones that are publicly owned through stock purchases — they are in it to make money for their stockholders and early investors.  So how can they make money providing a free service?  And an even more important question is how will they sustain the expected increases in revenue and profits once their early growth spurt is over?  The magic answer is of course – advertising.  Ad revenue will have to be the engine that drives revenue and profit growth.  And so Facebook wants me to tell them what I like to do, who I like to do it with, and what I may be interested in acquiring next.  In the early stages, this may not be all that intrusive.  However, as time goes on, Facebook’s hunger to know more and more about us will continue to grow.  Why?  Because that will be the path by which they can attract more advertising revenue.   And of course the advertisers want to make sure that we see their messages.  So not only will we have other humans as “friends”.   We will have businesses who will persuasively try to pressure us to befriend them as well. To a large degree this has already happened with trade publications that used to come to us in the mail but are now “on-line” only.  This was supposed to be a more efficient and lower cost way to deliver useful information to us.  And it certainly is lower cost for the sender.  But what about us – the readers?   In a print publication, I can scan each page quickly and decide if there is anything of interest.  If I find an article interesting, I can read as much or as little of it as I wish.  I have complete control over how I use my time.  The electronic on-line versions could of course be similarly configured.  But apparently, greed has gotten in the way.  The advertising-revenue driven business model has come up with far more intrusive ways to try to get us to look and linger over what is being promoted – without giving us a convenient alternate choice. An article that you may wish to read will typically be divided into several screen pages.  Four pages seems to be a favorite number for many articles but if there are images included then one can expect perhaps 10 or 15 screens with the most interesting images near the end.   As we click on the article of interest, an ad pops up instead.  In the upper corner there may be a small text box that says the ad will end in 10 or 15 seconds but that you can skip past it by clicking on this location.  Of course, when you click on it nothing happens – for about 10 seconds.   And that delay is not by accident.  What else can you look at while waiting?  However, that is not the end of the story.  When you have finished reading the first page and attempt to go to the next one, the same process is repeated.  Once again an ad pops up with the proffered opportunity to skip past it – in about 10 seconds.  The result is that an article that in print might have taken a few minutes to scan becomes a laborious process of clicking and waiting.  And if the article is based on a sequence of images, the process becomes one of requiring several minutes for each desired image to finally pop up.  There are no provisions for skipping around.  Page by page we are forced to look at ads before we can see what we want to see. The end result for me has become that I now have to encounter an article title that I think could be of especially high interest to me before I even attempt to access it.  If it simply looks interesting that is not enough for me to go through this frustrating process each and every time.  So what happens if readers stop reading?  What advantage will this aggressive “push” advertising be to the companies attempting to get their message to us.  By trying to force onto us what the publishers think we should look at, it has instead created the opposite result.     I suspect that “social media” will go through a similar evolutionary growth process and eventually come to the same unhappy end result.  We can expect to see ever more intrusive advertising that is supposed to be geared to our particular interests.  We can expect to be bombarded with messages that we really don’t want to see – especially among our “friends” network.  This intrusiveness will cause us to abandon these services and come up with new and more intimate ways to share personal information with our real friends.  So for all you folks out there who Facebook thinks I need to “friend”; please don’t be concerned, I won’t be intruding into your personal lives.  And if you want to be my friend, it will have to be through a more personal introduction.  That way we can decide if we have enough in common to share thoughts that will stimulate and intrigue us.  Should you

A World of Thieves and Pickpockets… During the past week, I have been informed that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and several other well-known companies have an important position available and I have already been selected to fill it.  I have been informed that Southwest Airlines, Jet Blue Air Lines and at least one or two more have travel certificates ready for me to redeem – just click on the link.  I have been informed that virtually every major retailer, including Target and Walmart, is anxious to offer me a gift certificate — if only I will click on the link and answer a few simple questions.   Each day, I am presented with these “opportunities” as I sort through at least a hundred additional e-mails that offer all kinds of products and services.   And of course, there is still the occasional e-mail from the incredibly wealthy sick person who has nowhere to put $12 million and would be most appreciative for my help.  And all these e-mails are in addition to many others that have been caught by Spam-filter software that is struggling to outwit the cleverness of these senders.  Of all these e-mails that come my way, only a few percent are legitimate.  Can you imagine any other situation or venue where 98% of everything that happens to you is attempted thievery?   How is it that we have become so tolerant and accepting of such a situation?    The Internet has brought us many blessings.  By entering a few key words, we can find information on any subject.  We can connect with virtually anyone on the entire planet as conveniently as talking to our neighbors next door.  We can use the Internet to shop for products and have them delivered to our homes or businesses.  However, we can also get our pockets picked and our identities stolen and sold to a worldwide network of unscrupulous characters. How are we to know that the e-mails we receive from a business are real or an attempted scam?  If I am offered an “upgrade” on an airline that I have not used, then that’s pretty obviously not legitimate.  But what if it’s not that easy to tell?  Suppose it happens to come at a time when I have made a travel reservation for a few weeks out and such an e-mail shows up?  It could catch me at a time when it would appear to make sense and I might respond.  Of course that is the objective of all these attempted scams.  It only takes a small percentage of users to become victims to make it a profitable business.  In addition, we see almost daily reports of attacks on company databases – attacks that have been sufficiently successful to affect almost every one of us.  And to add insult to injury, what do we encounter when we attempt to pay for a purchase?   “Would you like your receipt to be sent to you by e-mail?”   And when we visit our local bank — “We are going paperless; from now on we will send your financial statements by e-mail.” It seems to me that we are truly living on the edge of a financial cliff.  It takes continual alertness and an awareness of each new technique that the thieves and pickpockets invent.  In the material world, as we used to know it, we could count of some protection from unruly characters by those designated to protect us.  But the Internet seems to be like the proverbial Wild West – with no sheriff in town.  The attempts so far to apprehend perpetrators have been few and far between.  Only when massive losses of personal information occur do we see any concerted effort to apprehend and punish.  For most of us, we have to rely on our own knowledge, caution, and common sense to keep us from being victimized.  The end result of all this is that legitimate businesses desiring to use e-mail as a way to reach customers may as well forget it.  Since I have no way to tell if it’s a legitimate offer or a scam, I will most certainly not bother to open it.  Optimistically, we might expect that in time even the scammers will end up getting no responses and give up.  However, in the meantime we will all have to put up with a system that is in a very precarious state.  Unfortunately, it’s not a problem that we engineers can fix.  It will require countries to work together to root out and put out of business the unsavory characters that have found the Internet a playground with little risk of punishment.  This may take a while. I would be interested to hear what techniques you have adopted to avoid becoming a victim of Internet scams.  Have you found e-mail filters that are effective but do not delete those e-mails that you would like to read?  You may contact me directly from this site, by e-mail at silzars@attglobal.net, or by telephone at 425-898-9117.

Technology in Search of Art… Many thousands of years ago, primitive man learned to use fire for warmth, cooking, and light.  As the centuries rolled by, the methods for building fires became more refined and more specialized.  Fires for cooking and warmth were no longer the same as the ones used for light.  The torches of early man evolved into candles that could be used in various locations to provide light as desired.   Soon candlelight took on sophisticated forms such as candelabras that were not only functional but also decorative even when not in use.    Then the 20th century happened.  Electricity and the glowing light bulb changed everything.  Not only was there more light than any candle or combination of candles could produce, there was the ability to put these glowing orbs in all sorts of locations.  Through years of use, we created innumerable shapes and sizes for light fixtures based on these wonderfully glowing bulbs.  Our houses were designed so light fixtures provided us with functional and pleasing illumination.  The only limitation was that these light bulbs were basically point sources of light.  We could use as many as we wished and they could be large or small but they were nevertheless localized warm glowing points of light.   The next evolutionary step was the invention of the fluorescent tube.  This light source was no longer just a point source but could now be tubular and a number of them could be placed side by side to create what would appear to be a panel of light.  This became the preferred lighting method for virtually all commercial establishments.  The superior efficiency and durability of fluorescent lighting made it an obvious choice for businesses.   However, for home use, most of us still preferred the warmer glow of the conventional tungsten light bulbs.  The large rectangles that constitute the great majority of fluorescent light fixtures do not fit well with the home decors we seem to prefer and do not provide the same pleasant light that we can get from the conventional tungsten filament bulb. We have had over a hundred years of living to get used to this technology.  However, we are about to experience a change as dramatic as when we transitioned from candles to light bulbs.  Perhaps you are thinking that I am going to tell you that LED lights that are now becoming more prevalent are the next revolution.  But you would be wrong.  That is not what I am thinking at all.  While that is a nice change, it is really not all that revolutionary.  Replacing a 75 watt tungsten filament light bulb with a 15 watt LED that looks much the same and produces a similar kind of light is good but not all that interesting.   The change that I see coming is the adaptation of light generation technology that can produce light panels in any shape and size.   Lighting technology that can produce any color on demand; that can create entire walls of light.  Light that can be combined with images – still or moving.  We are about to transition from centuries of point sources to a new world of lights that can take on any shape and size.  We will soon experience a revolution with a convergence of imaging and lighting.   The technology for doing this exists today.  But we cannot see the potential yet because we are living with several hundred years of preconceptions for how lighting is supposed to look.  To get us out of this mindset, I believe we need some creative artists to help us get past this traditional way of seeing light.  We need entirely new light fixture concepts that take advantage of glowing surfaces.  We need to envision and create lights that respond to our moods and illuminate our living spaces in entirely new ways.  Light does not even have to be a separate “fixture”.  It can become a part of our living space.  It can imitate whatever environment we wish to create.  Combine light and sound and we can feel like we are at the ocean shore experiencing the crashing surf.   Once these ideas begin to catch on, progress will be rapid.  The base technologies already exist.  They can be implemented into products quickly.   The more difficult challenge is in breaking through the limits of our imagination.  And even after interesting products are created, there is an infrastructure of factories and commercial establishments that currently do not know how to create new sales channels.  The entry point will most likely be through clients who have the financial resources and the desire to try something entirely new.  Perhaps some of the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley or here in Seattle will be among the first to explore and adopt these new ways of illuminating their living spaces.  The next few years will be exciting as these new lighting concepts begin to germinate and grow.  Once the initial adopters show the rest of us what is possible, the growth will be rapid.  This revolution in lighting will turn out to be every bit as interesting as the transition from CRT televisions to large screen flat panels.  Should you wish to offer your thoughts on this topic or others you may reach me directly from this site or by phone at 425-898-9117.

A Fantasy of Learning in 3D… “Just think – wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could enhance our children’s learning experiences by incorporating 3D technology into the classroom?   If only the manufacturers would get serious about this great opportunity, the world would be such a better and smarter place.  Of course it may take some effort to make this happen but isn’t it worth it?” This is a rough paraphrase of the message being touted by a few determined folks in the display industry.  While I admire their dedication and persistence, it makes me wonder what problem they are trying to solve – other than selling their 3D-based products and services.  I thought back over my many years of attending various educational institutions.  I thought about my engineering and physics classes.  I thought back over my heavy doses of humanities and language classes.  I went back over my four years of high school and my eight years of grade school and middle school.  I thought long and hard about where the addition of 3D would have enhanced my learning abilities and/or my enthusiasm.   I couldn’t come up with even one small example.  I can see the desire to make learning “fun”.  However, I think the reality is that learning is hard work.   To acquire understanding of new concepts demands that we stretch ourselves as much as we possibly can.  It requires that we try and try again until we succeed.   It is of course best if we can enjoy the process while challenging ourselves and have a sense of personal reward for doing it.  For me the reward was sometimes getting some small bit of recognition from a teacher I respected.  If a teacher set a high standard for me, I did not want to disappoint.  It caused me to work extra hard.  When learning the sciences, there is great value in live demonstrations and doing experiments that verify what is described in textbooks.  And in the same way, learning a language can only be accomplished by actually trying to use it just as learning to write requires actually doing it.  There is no substitute for these actual hands-on experiences. Even with good teachers there is value in making the supporting presentation material of good quality.  But in stereoscopic 3D?  What possible unique value can this enhancement provide?   There may be some entertainment value.  And perhaps entertainment can be a sneaky way to get some students to learn.  However, no matter how many examples I try to think up, I just don’t see where stereoscopic 3D can add value to the typical grade school, high school, or college curriculum.   Of course if you are studying to be a medical technician who will be reading CAT scans, then the understanding of 3D can be of vital importance.  But that is not my understanding of what is being promoted.  At the general education level, I can’t think of one useful example where 3D would be beneficial – beneficial in the sense of enhancing the understanding of the concept being taught.     It is fascinating, but also somewhat sad, to see the self-delusion of some dedicated champions of a technology that has no logical reason to be.   I suppose when ones career and/or self-image may depend on pushing an idea no matter how marginal and flimsy, then it is hard to step back and look at the real world.  Perhaps we all would like to live in a bit of a fantasy – a fantasy where we are able to accomplish great things of our choosing.  I would be interested in hearing from you – especially if you have some ideas on how 3D could enhance the education experience for children of any or all ages.  You may reach me directly from this site, by e-mail at silzars@attglobal.net, or by telephone at 425-898-9117.

It’s Been Nearly Six Months – Amaze Me… Have we become like spoiled children with too many toys?   Are our purchasing decisions driven more by wants than needs?  This behavior has indeed come to the world of electronic products.  Soon we can expect that even six months will be too long to wait.  We will want new gratification every three months or less.  In the area of small-display electronics, this behavior of “what have you done for me lately” has already become our way of life. This has a positive side but also a negative side.  The positive aspect is that consumers are willing to rush out and buy the latest product in much the same way they become enamored with the latest hit song.  There is a tremendous rush of enthusiasm but this enthusiasm is difficult to maintain for more than a few months.  However, during the hot interest period lots of products are sold and the manufacturer can reap considerable rewards. The negative side is that a successful company must create new hit products on an ongoing basis to grow — or even just to survive.  There is no breathing room.  If the next products is not well received or if a competing product is deemed to be more exciting the consequences can be devastating.  How did we end up in this situation?  As with spoiled children, the fault is not only with what the children demand but with what the parents are willing to provide.  In this scenario we the consumers are the spoiled kids.   We are always asking for something new and exciting.  We want to be amazed.  The “parents” are all the companies that are competing for our attention by trying to outdo each other with the next new product that will amaze us and cause us to rush out and spend our money.   In the world of display technology, we had a great success with HDTV.  Not only were new broadcast standards introduced to provide superior images but, almost simultaneously, flat-panel technologies became cost effective in sizes larger than CRTs could provide.  This created a natural migration to new TV products and resulted in several years of robust sales.  However, what then?  Once the old standard TVs had been replaced one would expect a lull in further TV product acquisitions.  This led TV manufacturers to attempt to lure consumers with the introduction of stereoscopic 3D – an effort that had no chance of succeeding given the limitations of the technology.   The new direction that is now evolving is Ultra-high definition TV – also known as 4K.  This is going to be a great success.  Not only has enough time passed so that the early buyers of HDTVs are ready for an upgrade, but there is a visible performance improvement that can be appreciated even on existing program material.  A further incentive is that more consumers are now desirous of having really large screens of 60 inches or greater.  At those screen sizes, Ultra-high definition displays are capable of truly spectacular images.  This should be a technology wave that manufacturers can ride for at least the next few years.  And after that – I really don’t know what else we might need or want.   In the meantime, in the smaller display sizes, we can expect to see the market battles continue — most likely at an ever-accelerating pace.  It’s amazing to see how some consumers place so little value on their $600 smart phones and how they expect that every few months something even more exciting will come along.  In many people’s eyes, these are disposable products to be used and discarded as soon as something more appealing becomes available.  It’s great for business, but very scary for those companies who cannot keep coming up with the latest “hit song”.     Should you wish to send me your thoughts on this rough and tumble world of electronic product competition, you may reach me directly from this site, by e-mail at silzars@attglobal.net, or by telephone at 425-898-9117.

It Happened – Finally… It was some thirty years ago, and I was attending the annual Society for Information Display (SID) technical conference.  This conference always opens with a keynote session consisting of several presentations by industry luminaries.  The presentation I still remember was by an executive from one of the major US car companies.  His presentation focused on how electronic displays were going to replace traditional dashboard instruments.   Not only did he predict the extensive use of displays, his company brought an exhibit that showed several concepts for electronic dashboards.  There was great enthusiasm for the use of various display technologies – even “heads-up” implementations comparable to those used in military jets. About ten years later, I was once again attending the keynote session at yet another annual SID conference.  And once again an executive from a major auto company had been invited to give the latest predictions on how electronic displays were going to be used in the next generation of cars.  About half-way into his talk, I turned to my colleague and good friend Andy and asked:  “Didn’t we hear this same talk about ten years ago?”  Nothing had changed.  There was still great enthusiasm for electronic dashboards and the use of displays for various functions.  But it felt as if I were in a relativistic time warp. Ten years had passed for me but not for the automotive industry.  They had stood still – at least as far as any real implementation of dashboard displays or electronics.  Why? Apparently, buyers were not as enthusiastic as technologists.  Electronic dashboards did not look at all enticing in the showroom.  Without power to light them up they were blank dark surfaces.  Certainly nothing sexy about that.   And it seemed buyers were also more comfortable with the appearance of clock-like mechanical gauges rather than digital numerical readouts.  Then sometime shortly before the turn of the century — the 21st century that is — GPS came into being.  It was quickly accepted and put into use by many travelers.  The GPS units were stuck to windshields with suction cups or placed on top of dashboards.  It didn’t take long for auto makers to realize that they could make a nice profit by adding GPS units as a factory installed accessory.  And what an accessory it was!  To get a factory installed GPS, the price was in the $3,000 range.  Clearly a highly profitable item for the automobile manufacturers.  Now, whether installed by the factory or stuck on the windshield with a suction cup, we were all beginning to get used to the idea that a display can be a very useful item in our cars.  However, since there is limited space in the center console, it was logical for manufacturers to begin to combine entertainment functions such as the radio with the GPS.  This led to further combinations such as climate control functions.  And after several years of increasing display integration we are FINALLY being led into the era of the electronic dashboard.  The recent crop of cars have dashboards that still resemble the traditional clock-like speedometer and tachometer, but they are no longer mechanical.  The pointer is not a “real” pointer – it is an electronic image of one.  And yes, even the 30-year promise of “heads up” displays is now coming into wider use.  Having tried several cars with these new implementations, I’m not at all sure that it’s not more of a distraction than a driving aid – but it’s there for us to try and decide.    So the promises that were “just around the corner” thirty years ago have finally become reality.  It took an external influence in the form of a new capability —  one that was not known to us at that time – to create the paradigm shift that allowed the changeover to finally take place.   Would it have taken even longer if GPS hadn’t come along?  That is an interesting question to ponder. Should you have some thoughts that you would like to share regarding the evolution of automotive electronics, you may contact me directly from this site, by e-mail at silzars@attglobal.net or by telephone at 425-898-9117.  In the meantime, have a great Holiday Season and may Santa bring you a shiny new vehicle loaded with all the latest in electronic gadgetry. 

Download Overload… A recent article in the Wall Street Journal describes what they are calling “The Music Comeback of 2014: Vinyl Records”.   In this past year there were 8 million of these platters produced and there could have been more if the aging equipment had been capable of making more.  How can this be?   Can’t we just get the same result with a quick  “download”?   In another article in the Seattle Times, authors are upset that the Amazon service that now offers access to 700,000 electronic books for $9.99 per month is destroying their ability to earn a decent income.  Given that most of us are hard pressed to read even one book a week, this would translate to over 13,000 years of reading material for each of us.  In the same vein, we measure the success of a smart phone by how many “Apps” it can download.  Anything less than 100,000 is considered inferior.  How long would it take for even a cursory overview of all these possible choices? Industry trade publications have by and large given up on print and changed over to electronic publishing.  Presumably this is a cheaper way to deliver information.  However,  we are now overwhelmed with multiple e-mails each day that are structured to force us to look at ads that are inserted for maximum interference with the articles we may wish to read.  Each day Facebook sends me names of people I have never heard of insisting that they should be my “friends” — or at the very least I should try to be theirs.   Are we finally reaching a saturation point?  How many more “downloads” can we absorb?  For me the limit was reached quite some time ago.   Therefore, when I see an article that talks about information in tangible and selectable formats like a Vinyl Platter, a CD, a printed magazine, or a book that I can put on my shelf, it gives me hope that we will not be forever lost in Information Space.   For many thousands of years, we have cherished certain possessions as dear to us.  They provided us with tangible ongoing reminders of the knowledge that they held.  I still have many of my physics, EE, and math textbooks from college and graduate school.  And on many occasions I have found it useful to refer back to the information they contain.  Had these books been on a computer drive they would have long ago been deleted and forgotten.  It is wonderful to have Google for information searches and I am not suggesting that we revert back to the 50s or 60s.  However, it is my hope that over time we will be able to find a better balance between quantity and quality as well as where and in what format our most important information resides.  Perhaps this hints at an opportunity for a new business model for how to deliver information in useful doses that don’t overwhelm us.   As I write this column, I am listening to a Dvorak symphony on a CD that I  have in my personal music library.  Having this tangible disk to play whenever I so desire is convenient and it is “mine”.   I don’t need to “download” or “subscribe”.  Once purchased, it is my precious possession for however long I wish to keep it and use it.  Next time that you are trying to read an article in an electronic industry publication that is spread over many pages (screens) that need to be accessed one at a time with ads stuck in between, think back to the days when these same publications came in a print version.  Then, we could read them at a pace that we chose and look at whatever we wanted to see rather than having to get past what was being pushed at us.  Should you have thoughts on how best to handle all the information that is inundating us, you may contact me directly from this site, by e-mail at silzars@attglobal.net, or by phone at 425-898-9117.   Perhaps 2015 will be a year of insight and transition to make our Information Society lives somewhat less hectic.