Konkuk University Medical Center and its ... - Korea IT Times

IMID2010
The Beginning
of the Interactive Displays Era
Keywords: Fundamental technology, Perspective, and Marketability
IMID is celebrating its 10th anniversary
this year. For IMID, aside from its
anniversary, there is another special
meaning to this exhibition. It hopes this
year to be a turning point to a whole
new direction. "We are now putting
much more weight on the growth of
quality rather than the quantitative expansion,"
said Kwon Oh-kyong, Ph. D.,
general chair of IMID and president of
the Korean Information Display
Society. "The ultimate goal of ours is to
develop displays that are interactive
with humans," said Lee Sin-doo, Ph. D,
executive chair of IMID. "Touch panels
have made interactive displays possible.
Either portable devices such as cell
phones, or home appliances such as TVs
has become far closer to humans these
days thanks to touch panels," Lee explained.
He added, "Software had been
driven by hardware until iPhone came
out. Before the iPhone, software was no
more than some components to be purveyed
for the cell phone companies.
These days, however, people actually select
hardware considering which software
it carries and performs. Hardware
has become more of a carrier, and software
has become equal with content
which you define to be." According to
Lee, TVs are also transforming into
VODs (Video On Demand) as well.
Now we are facing the advent of 'Smart
TV', a TV that provides you a program
you want to watch right when you want
to watch it. We all know that computers
can do a lot of things in an extremely
short amount of time. They, however,
needs 'input' to start anything. Here
comes the human imagination to the
rescue. CEO of Media Display Industry
of Samsung, Yoon Boo-gun, addressed
the similar idea today at the IMID
keynote speech. "The paradigm of TV
was never expected to change this
much. We are now debating how we
can maximize the convenience and advantages
we will provide consumers
with through smart TV." He added,
"TVs in the future will evolve into as
close as virtual reality through the imagination
of human and technologies interacting
with each other."
Now Lee explains how to get there,
virtual reality. Lee's concern, however,
is that Korea is still on its way to develop
the hardware technology enough to support
the system. He said, "In order to
make Korea the No.1 country in this
field, we can take every strong point of
Europe, Japan, and the U.S as a benchmark
and draw a 'road map' of our own.
Korea's research capacity, however, is
slightly behind to follow the map." He
then pointed out the need to focus on
the uniqueness only Korea has, what
Korea is good at. So, what is the most
important thing about displays technology,
no, any technology? "The first thing
of TV manufacturing should be to provide
proper-value products in a reasonable
price. When the new technology is
applied to a product and so the higher
price, at least 60% of consumers should
be willing to buy to keep manufacturing
the product." CEO Yoon's point is, the
only thing that comes before the speed
of technology advancement is the benefit
of consumers. "IMID 2010 is not just
a one-time event to boast our new gadgets
and gizmos. We want to provide a
new perspective to prepare for the next
ten years, and a place to foster fundamental
technologies," Lee concluded
with confidence.
Kwon Oh-kyong, Ph. D, general chair of IMID
Lee Sin-doo, Ph. D, executive chair of IMID
Yoon Boo-gun, CEO of Media Display Industry of
Samsung
66 KOREA IT TIMES | October 2010