Barry Blundell's "Glasses-free 3D cinema 70 years ago"

This 60+ page White Paper is an abridged extract from the second volume of “3D Displays and Spatial Interaction” which I’m in the process of writing. The document reviews early efforts (prior to 1950) to implement glasses-free 3D cinema. It focuses on work undertaken in Russia (S P Ivanov), Belgium (E Noaillon), France (F Savoye), and the UK (Dennis Gabor). Other pioneering work will be included elsewhere in the book. The subject is fascinating and I hope that you will find the material of interest. Your feedback would be much appreciated.

The White Paper may be downloaded from www.barrygblundell.com

Parting Ways

From the point where HDTV was ready to implement until it actually was implemented, a full decade past. The time was both a concession to the practical issues involved in updating US TV stations and a bribe to those same stations to make the investment by granting them additional spectrum. Standard Definition color TV (NTSC) lasted for 40 years. Less than a decade into HDTV the consumer electronics industry wants to move from HDTV to 4K. For a variety of reasons, there is no chance that the broadcasters will go along. As with the transition to HDTV, they must make a substantial infrastructure investment with no pathway for earning additional returns. Given the ever increasing value of the radio spectrum, there is no chance that congress will once again bribe them with free spectrum in order to make the transition. The idea of promoting 4K is an acknowledgement of the diminishing relevance of broadcast TV. Given this state; given that the broadcasters no longer have the final word on TV formats, why stop at 4K. 4K is a great boon to the digital signage industry but ordinary consumers might be better served by other format changes such as a wider aspect ratio. Digital signage might also benefit from increased aspect ratios as well. On both TV and other platforms, display technology has been pushed to the point where some specs exceed what the human eye can comprehend while other factors languish with obvious needs for improvement. If the broadcasters are no longer the controlling factor for TV formats, then "let 1,000 flowers bloom."

Chicago, billboard Capital of the US.

Per Bloomberg, JCDecaux will erect 34 massive billboards in Chicago, expected to generate $700 million a year in revenue. This comes on the heels of Wrigley Field's intended adoption of a massive jumbotron.

Boom

"digital signage" Job Trends

"digital Signage" jobs

A picture is worth a thousand words. This chart represents the number of current job postings mentioning "Digital Signage" growing from about 400 in the most recent trough to over 1100 over a period of a few months. Digital signage has the potential to be as big, in terms of total screen square footage, a TV sets. Further, the hiring in digital signage reflects new optimism on the part of retailers, increasing investment in promotion of their business.

While digital signage is not the new internet, digital out of home, incorporating social networking and custom tailored message delivery into brick and mortar retailing will help level the playing field between the B&M's and internet retailing.