IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing Inaugural Issue: [editor-in-chief's message]

EMBERS of the signal processing community often complain that, for a technology that is so ubiquitous, few outside our world really understand and hence appreciate what it is we do. After all, signal processing engineers don’t pump oil out of the ground, they don’t build cars or iPods, nor do they work in hospitals attending to the sick or disabled. No, instead, we are faced with the task of explaining to friends and family the virtues of the discrete cosine transform, fast transversal filters and space-time coding. I am reminded of BASF’s well-known advertising slogan: “We don’t make the products you buy, we make the products you buy better.” While we cannot claim to be the architects of the products or services that form the foundation of our modern lives, it is fair to say that signal processing is at the heart of the technology that differentiates today’s generations from those of the past. From oil exploration to EEG signal monitoring, anti-lock brakestoMP3encoding,fighter-jetradarstodigitalcameras,GPS positioning devices to IC wafer inspection systems, signal processing is indeed everywhere. Not surprisingly then, the IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN SIGNAL PROCESSING (J-STSP) will be unique among IEEE publications in the broad array of technical subjects that it will address. While the Signal Processing Magazine covers similar topical territory, it does so at a higher level, focusing on introductory explanations and tutorial descriptions. J-STSP digs deeper into these subjects, at the same technical level as articles in other Transactions within the IEEE Signal