LG Electronics announced today that they will release their EL9500 15" OLED TV in May in Europe. It will cost 1999 euro ($2700) - similar to the cost in Korea. The 15" panel has 1366x768 resolution and is only 1.7mm thick.
Engadget reports that Google's Nexus One will soon be launched by Vodafone UK. The Nexus One is running Android v2.1 on a 1 Ghz CPU and has a 3.7" WVGA touch AMOLED, 5Mp camera, 4GB microSD (included) and is only 11.5mm thick.
Google Nexus OneThe Nexus One is available unlocked for $530 in the US or with a T-Mobile plan.
Remember the Philips Mirrorwall? It's a wall made out of white Lumiblade OLED panels and a camera, and it basically acts as a mirror, display shadow reflections of people standing in front of it. It turns out that Philips are actually offering this limited-edition wall. The price? about 10-12K⬠per m² (they'll made it just for you). That's one expensive mirror... But what a spectacular one!
If you want a cheaper option, you can also rent the whole thing for about 10K⬠per week (excl. transport, insurance and approx. 3
man-days for installation and dismantling). I'm not sure how large the rented wall will be (in the video it seems rather big).
The DisplayBlog and DisplayMate are working on an interesting series of tests for Google's Nexus One phone AMOLED display and the iPhone's 3GS display. It's not finished yet, but they have posted the first tests of the AMOLED display. There's a lot of technical information, but here are the main conclusions:
We've just got word from OSRAM, and it seems that they are happy with the ORBEOS OLED Lighting so far. Here's the official quote: "we have seen a very successfull start of our ORBEOS panel in November and we still see a high interest in this product".
OSRAM ORBEUS OLED Lighting panel
3D-Micromac AG has developed and introduced a new laser structuring process for OLED thin film layers. Based on the microSTRUCT workstations a laser system was developed in the mayor field for selective structuring application of anode layers. Hereby the nearly transparent semiconductor tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) is used as anode material.
3D-Micromac says that the integration of an ultra short pulsed laser in microSTRUCT
guarantees a gentle structuring of anode without material damage at substrate level. Special highlight is the processing of variable and scalable substrate sizes. It is realized by an innovative software controlled scanner machining concept achieving a structuring speed of up to 1 meter per second. In addition further layers of OLED can be machined with the same laser system. For instance there is a possibility to repair short circuits and remove other defects in the layer system of the OLED. The laser system can also be used engrave the glass substrate. Marking can be done at the surface of the substrate and also as intra glass marking. The nearly athermal laser machining allows a micro marking of glass without micro cracks in the substrate.
Electronista reports that Sprint's first Wimax (4G) phone will be the HTC Supersonic. It's a hign-end Android 2.1 phone with a 4.3" OLED, 1Ghz processor and a 5 mp camera. If this is true, than this is the largest AMOLED display on any phone. The 4G network will enable 3-6Mbps speeds. The phone will be ready in the first half of 2010.
Sprint's WiMAX covers only 27 cities in the US with major cities such as Boston, New York and San Francisco to get covered later this year.
Samsung are going to push the new Wave phone (with the Super AMOLED and Bada OS) - it will be available in 50 countries by May and Samsung will offer developer support in 20 countries. They hope to get at least 1000 Bada apps by the end of 2010, and expects to sell around 10 million Wave phones in 2010.
Samsung Wave s8500
"We want to push feature phones into the mass market, and get feature phone users into smartphones." says Samsung. Bada is important to Samsung, but they are pursuing a multi-platform strategy, and they are not diverting resources from competing handset platforms such as Android.
Korea's Modistech is working on flexible OLED Lighting for indirect applications for quite some time, and are now planning to commercialize the technology in 2010. They will produce 150x150mm flexible OLED panels. Back in 2009, Modistech said they plan to do so in 2011, so apparently they are ahead of schedule.
Modistech's slogan for the displays is 'paper-like, fabric-like and film-like'. They say that they will change the paradigm of lighting from 'to install' to 'to attach'. They want to use OLEDs as indirect lighting which does not require high luminance, and is suitable for the flexible OLEDs. It can be used in furniture, kitchenware, airplanes and especially automobiles (make up light, glove box light, foot light and trunk light).
Modistech say that their technology minimizes the number of substrate processes and is using roll-to-roll deposition and self-developed encapsulation material. They claim that they reduce the manufacturing cost by up to 90%!.
DuPont are working on a new OLED (and CIGS solar cells) barrier technology that uses thin layers of ceramic and polymer materials instead of glass. They hope that they'll be able to demo a tool in 2010. Commercialization is expected within a few years.
DuPont says that the new barrier will be cheaper than glass, weight less, and be flexible. DuPont is working under a DOE grant.
