Television and Media Possibilities for Pyeongchang in 2018

Congratulations Pyeongchang, host city for the 2018 Winter Olympics!  This morning I noticed a spike in traffic to this blog, all because of a short post I did back in March on the central role of television and the media in the modern Olympics.

Now that the 2018 Winter games have been awarded to Pyeongchang, we may well anticipate the sort of television and media coverage the world has never yet seen for the first Winter Olympics in Korea.  By that time, further digital development, media convergence and further ubiquitous networking will have all progressed well beyond their current state.  Visitors to Pyeongchang will likely have their choice of a nice variety of free and paid apps for their smartphones, augmenting the reality of the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as the Games themselves.  History buffs will no doubt be able to use their phones or tablets to trace the Korean-war era battles and other history that took place on or near some of the ski slopes and other winter sports venues.

A number of interesting possibilities surround the potential of television and the media to assist North-South reconciliation in Korea, especially given that Pyeongchang is not far from the DMZ, which separates the southern part of Gangwon Province from its northern part, including Korea's fabled Diamond Mountain.

These are just some of the thoughts that occur to me today, after the IOC's decision in Durban, South Africa yesterday.

Samsung's Dominance in the Display Industry

The proliferation of displays of all sizes is one of the salient features of the emerging 21st century information age.  Mobile displays are a particularly important feature of this development, as smartphones become increasingly cheaper, more powerful and popular all around the world.  The accompanying illustration (click to see a full-size version) shows a flexible active matrix organic light-emitting diode (AM-OLED) display that Samsung sees as a major growth engine.  As reported in The Korea Times, Samsung Mobile Display (SMD)  was launched in January 2009 with an aim to lead the market in next-generation flat-screens (OLED) as Samsung was seeking breakthroughs in that area.
SMD is dominating global demand for AM-OLED, which requires less power and provides clearer picture quality and a much faster response time than existing LCD displays. OLED screens are used in smartphones and other portable devices and SMD controls over 80 percent of the market, as shown in the graphic below. (click to see a full-size version)

3D Smartphones, Yes! 3D Television with Glasses Required, No!

About a week ago I read an article in the Joongang Daily that was completely devoted to a standards dispute between two different standards for 3D television, both of which require that the viewer wear specially-purchased glasses!  It turns out there are two kinds of 3D technology in use:  active shutter glasses and passive polarized glasses.   Read the article if you're interested in further details.

Last year I toured Samsung Electronics headquarters in Suwon with some international visitors and had a chance to personally try out 3D television, with and without glasses.  I will go on record here and now, predicting that any 3D television technology that requires the use of glasses will likely be a non-starter in the global market and may serve a small niche market at best.  For the reasons why, ask anyone who has worn glasses and think about how this relates to the television viewing experience, especially when a person is out of the home or office, and "on the go."

Consequently, I was very interested to read in the Chosun Ilbo that LG Electronics is set to debut a 3D smartphone at the 2011 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month.   It reportedly allows a viewer to see 3D content without glasses, at a distance of 30-50 cm from the screen.  Now this is a technology that makes sense and will seem natural to users.  Expect to see 3D television become popular on smart phones and small devices, long before it (at least the type that requires glasses) hits the big screen.  If you have good arguments against this scenario, I'd like to hear them.