In this decade we are witnessing a dynamic development of cold atmospheric plasma technologies. While the thermal atmospheric plasma found their applications in a broader scale already in the middle of the last century, the non-equilibrium, non-thermal or “cold” plasma systems have attracted a considerable technological interest much later. It is despite the fact that cold atmospheric plasma systems based on corona discharges were tested for production of ozone in the middle of 19th century by W. von Siemens. One of the greatest engineering science contributions enabling development of cold atmospheric plasma systems has been the invention of alternating current (ac) electric power systems by N. Tesla. Above a certain frequency of the ac power the motion of electrons and ions start to decouple. Therefore at high frequencies, like for example at microwave generation, the power is preferentially absorbed by the electrons while ions as well as the rest of neutral gas remain cold. Moreover, alternating fields represent an important stabilization factor for discharges. The cold atmospheric plasma is being employed mainly in surface treatment, in cleaning, disinfection and decontamination and in coating technologies. It also has a high potential in environmental technologies, in decomposing hazardous gases from exhausts, flue gas, from energy production and in transforming byproducts and chemical compounds from different industries. Cold atmospheric plasma systems and applications are closely related to specific properties of the gas at the atmospheric pressure, particularly to high collision frequency of particles, limiting both the mean free path and transport of particles as well as their maximum energies. Cold atmospheric plasma has been over the years anchored e.g. at the International Symposium on Plasma Chemistry but with development of plasma sources and plasma processing at atmospheric pressure, non-equilibrium plasma has entered also technological conferences. Thus, the first Cold Atmospheric Plasma Technologies symposium at the Electrochemical Society Meeting was held in 2001 in Washington, DC, regular sessions on cold atmospheric plasma were opened e.g. at the International Conference on Metallurgical Coatings and Thin Films (ICMCTF) and AVS Meetings. In 2008, a new session “Deposition and plasma surface treatment at atmospheric pressure” will be organized at the AVS Meeting. A new series of invited articles on Cold Atmospheric Plasma will be published through 2008 and possibly also in 2009 in Plasma Processes & Polymers. The papers will be Feature Articles or Review Articles from the field, devoted to and covering different aspects from this R&D area, mechanisms and diagnostics of the discharges, various concepts of plasma sources, different applications and scale up issues. We believe that important results and interesting overviews will bring about also interesting parallels through different technologies. We are convinced that the series will bring stimulating ideas and inspiration to the readers.