Rohm developed a new (2nd-generation) OLED lighting panel that uses a red phosphorescent material. The new material results in a more efficient device - about
25-30lm/W, up from about 11lm/W in their first-generation all-fluorescent device.

Lumiotec (which is partly owned by Rohm) will start producing these new panels in "volume" within a few days (Lumiotec reported earlier that it will make around 60,000 panels a year). The new panel's size is 145x145mm (the same size of Lumiotec's older panels) and will cost ¥30,000 (about $365) - which is cheaper than Lumiotec's first-gen panels (the whole development kit used to cost The kit costs ¥84,000 - about $930). Lumiotec will also introduce other shapes and sizes. Here's our review of Lumiotec's older OLED Lighting panels.

Blackbody announced a new OLED 'sculpture' -the Samothrace. Blackbody says that this is more than just a lamp - it's a "modern figurehead" - a silver plated monolith that has an OLED lighting-device on top. It has a 154cm2 OLED surface in total and the whole thing is battery operated. Blackbody says that the batteries last for 8 hours (and charge within an hour and a half). Apparently it is available in 'limited edition' - but we do not know the price.

The Samothrace (which was designed by Bertrand Médas from ID’S) will be presented at the "Maison & Objet 2011 salon NOW!" - starting tomorrow - in Paris.

Plastic Logic announced a major investment from Russia's RUSNANO. The $700 million (!) investment will be used to build a mass-production factory for thin, light and flexible plastic-based e-paper displays. Those displays will be used in Plastic Logic’s first commercial consumer electronics product, a next-generation electronic reader for business that is currently under development.

The new factory will be built in Zelenograd, Russia, and is scheduled to begin production in 2013/2014 - and will be able to produce hundreds of thousands displays monthly. This will be Plastic Logic's second factory (the first one was opened in 2008 in Dresden, Germany). Russia hopes that this move will establish a commercial plastic electronics industry.

Update: The E7 is now finally shipping!

Nokia announced today that they are accepting pre-orders for the E7 smart phone in Finland. The E7 was actually supposed to start shipping on December 2010, but was later delayed to 2011. The E7 is a QWERTY slider running Symbian^3 and has a 4" Clear-Black AMOLED (640x360) display.

There are some reports from the UK that LG Electronics are promising to release a 31" OLED TV in the UK in 2011 (which is not really news) and a 55" TV in 2012. It seems a bit optimistic, and in any case LG thinks that 'commercially priced' OLED TVs will only arrive in 2013. So even if they do release a 55" panel in 2012, it will probably be very expensive (the 31" panel that is planned for March 2011 is said to cost around $9000...).

LG 31-inch OLED TV prototype

LG Display plans to restart making small AMOLED displays in the first half of 2011 (in 4.5-Gen lines with a $225 million investment) and today we hear that one of LGD's customers will be Nokia. LG Display also wants to introduce new OLED TV panels in 2012 - as they see demand for OLED TVs starting in 2013.

Update: The video is now marked as private...

GE has produced a beautiful short video ad showing the history of light, ending with OLEDs, the next chapter of light. Unfortunately, that video is now marked as "private" and is no longer accessible...

OLEDNet has published an article on OLED TVs. They basically say that the technology to make OLED TV is getting ready - but companies (such as Samsung and LG) need to be ready for huge investments. They claim that if OLED 3D TV production won't start by 2013, it might miss the 3D TV bandwagon altogether.

Sony 24.5-inch 3D TV prototype

The idea that 3D is a "killer-application" for OLEDs was raised back in January 2010, and since then we heard Samsung, Sony and other company claim that 3D will drive OLED TV growth.

Olympus announced (well, sort of, it appears in Amazon) the price of the XZ1 - $449. You can pre-order this exciting camera now too. The XZ1 is an "enthusiast compact' camera with a bright lens (F1.18 at 28mm and F2.5 at 112mm), 10mp sensor and image stabilization. The display is a 3" VGA OLED. The camera can record 720p videos and has a built-in flash and a hotshoe.

Unfortunately, we still do not have a release date...

There are reports that Samsung is set to announce the successor to the successful Galaxy S during MWC 2011 (Samsung officially said that they will announce new Super AMOLED Plus phones during the conference). The Galaxy S2 (not an official name yet) will have a 4.3" Super AMOLED Plus display, a dual-core processor, Android v2.3 and NFC support (as in Google's Nexus S phone which is made by Samsung).

This phone was actually leaked in November 2010. Back then it was said that the phone will include a 8mp camera (capable of Full-HD 1080p recording), 1.2Ghz processor, Android v2.3 and 16GB of on board memory.