One year ago today the very first story on The Frontier Channel was published. It was a short paragraph I wrote about the future of wall monitors based on an article I read about a company who was licensing art for a plasma television screensaver.

The Dream City site is still up and offering digital collections of art directly or through other distributors such as Eyetide Media, a company offering software for distributing, managing, and displaying collections of images. The emphasis for both companies appears to be on images for computer screens, but the technology is also available for larger wall monitors such as plasma and LCD televisions.

Are we really any closer to the day when all fine art, media, and other content is displayed on gigantic wall-sized displays? Yes, much closer. Monitor sizes are growing, and they are growing fast. Plasma and LCD screens are rapidly approaching 100-inches. Superior OLED technology, is finally making its way into 2-inch displays on cameras and personal media players, while the first OLED monitor for desktop computers is expected by the end of 2005 or early 2006. OLED and other technologies are beginning to show the way to bendable and gigantic screens that cover entire walls with resolution surpassing all prior technologies.

Meanwhile, libraries and museums around the world are ramping up efforts to digitize their collection. High definition video is finally taking off. And, if you visit The Frontier Channel on a regular basis, you know that NASA and other space agencies are making all images returned by their space probes available to the public over the Internet. Sometimes these images are so detailed that viewers cannot get the full effect unless they look at the image on a large monitor.

Expect the first affordable, high resolution, and wall-sized monitor technology to be available to consumers by 2010. The Frontier Channel will continue tracking the trends to give you early warning.