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We would like to express our thanks and
gratitude to all who made the print redesign
possible: John Schmitz of Research Studios;
Spectrum’s Mark Montgomery and his art team:
Laura Azran, Brandon Palacio, and Randi
Silberman; and Bryan Christie Design, which does
our information graphics. We’d also like to
thank the IEEE’s production group, notably Peter
Tuohy, Roy Carubia, Bonnie Nani, and Felicia
Spagnoli. Finally, we would like to thank the
members of the IEEE for their ongoing support.
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Over the past 20 years, technology has tsunamied
publishing. E‑mail, the Internet, and desktop
publishing, to name a few, have engulfed the industry.
Virtually all print magazines have had to redesign and
realign themselves to withstand these tidal forces.
We’re no different. Our print redesign, introduced in
this issue, forced us to think about all the ways we
are—and will be—delivering IEEE Spectrum’s stories to
you.
What’s changed in print? On the graphics side, we’ve
moved to an elegant design executed for us by Research
Studios. The number of pages every month will remain
about the same—but we hope to make better use of them.
As you can tell, we like it. If you don’t, let us know.
On the content side, a new section in the front of the
book called Update is full of shorter and punchier
articles. More and more of these kinds of stories will
be making their way to Spectrum Online
(http://spectrum.ieee.org), where we
can take advantage of the Web’s 24/7 timeliness and
multimedia features like audio and video. Robert W.
Lucky and Paul McFedries will move up to the front with
Update, and the last page of the magazine will now be
devoted to The Data, a monthly story that lends itself
to statistical treatment. This month’s numbers reveal
how statistics can be used to fuel different points of
view on greenhouse-gas trends.
Spectrum Online will continue to be home to our blogs,
podcasts, and videos. Over the coming year we are
planning to add even more features for the practicing
technologist—more Webinars, white papers, and the
like—to help you keep up with developments and
significant new tools.
There are lots of reports in the publishing world
about the ongoing demise of print, and we think they’re
greatly exaggerated. But we also know that Spectrum
Online, the digital edition of Spectrum, our e-mail
alerts, RSS feeds, and other editorial delivery
platforms are critical to getting information to you
whenever you want it, wherever you want it in this
information-hungry age.
It’s clear that technology will continue to redefine
publishing and the way we develop and share our ideas.
Literate editors at today’s magazines must understand
and work in many forms of media. Reading and writing are
no longer enough. So as our digital content moves from
media to media, from format to format, from device to
device, we will move along with it.
What hasn’t changed? Our passionate commitment to
bringing you the best and most important stories about
success and failure in technological innovation is
unwavering—as you will see when you turn to our Winners
& Losers feature in this issue. We’ll keep you
informed and amazed by developments springing up all
around you. Occasionally, we might even surprise you
with something you didn’t know about your own field.
You might be a print-loving digital immigrant who
remembers a time when there was no Internet, and maybe
no personal computer, and certainly no BlackBerry
buzzing in your pocket. Or maybe you’re a digital native
who can’t imagine life without a cellphone and T1 access
who reads everything online. Either way, Spectrum will
continue to bring you the ideas and inventions that are
shaping our world.