We just got word from Verbatim that their Velve OLED lighting sample kits will start shipping in May. The price in Japan will be ¥90,000 ($1,050), we do not know the European or US price yet (it seems that Mitsubishi will market these in Japan and Verbatim will market in Europe). Full scale production will begin in July, and then prices will probably drop.

The sample kits include one color-tunable and dimmable OLED module, USB cable, software and a power adapter. Verbatim's software will allow you to program a color sequence (the default one will be red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow). The panel itself is 145x207mm in size, and the actual emitting area is 123x123mm. The lifetime is 8,000 hours at 1000 cd/m². You can read the data sheet here.

Lumiotec sent us some interesting updates today. First of all, the company is already producing and shipping their second generation panels. They call these the 'standard' panels, or Version 2.0. The older panels (like the one we reviewed a while back) is referred to as 'pre series' or Version 1.0. The new panels offer better efficiency and lifetime and come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. They also cost a lot less then the first version - ranging from €115 to €350 (so the large square is down from around €700 to €260!). You can see Lumiotec's updated datasheet here.

A while back we reported that Rohm developed a new OLED lighting panel that uses a red phosphorescent material - which results in a much more efficient panel (25-30lm/W). We assumed that Lumiotec's Version 2.0 panels use Rohm's new panels - but sadly this is not the case. The Ver 2.0 are still all fluorescent, and the efficiency is just a little over 10.5lm/W. Lumiotec says that they consider phosphorescent materials a must for efficient panels and they do plan to go down that route in the future.

Here's another nice OLED lighting installation from the Milano art show, this time from Panasonic Electric Works (PEW). Apparently PEW's OLED panels are transparent when not lit.

Just a couple of weeks ago we learned that PEW and Idemitsu Kosan will establish a new joint venture (called Panasonic Idemitsu OLED Lighting) for developing, manufacturing and marketing OLED lighting panels. The new company will combine PEW's design and manufacturing technologies with Idemitsu OLED materials.

Check out this beautiful video showing Verbatim's Velve OLED lighting installations at the design library in Milan, Italy. Verbatim is showing some pretty neat design ideas, and of course the changing colors of the OLEDs are great:

The Velve OLED lighting panels are made together by Mitsubishi and Pioneer, and are the world's first color-tunable OLED lighting panels. The panels are 14x14cm in size and offer 28lm/W efficiency and 8,000 hours of lifetime. The typical CRI is 80.

Samsung officially announced that the Galaxy S II will launch on May 1st in the UK. There were some reports that the handset was already shipping, and some said it'll ship sooner, but now it's official.

Samsung's Galaxy S2 is the successor to the popular Galaxy S. It has a 4.3" WVGA Super AMOLED plus display, 1.2Ghz dual-core processor, NFC, Bluetooth 3 and HSPA+. It's only 8.49mm thick at its thinnest point.

Japan's JSR says that the Lucera thin film production system is now operable and they are already making samples. The Lucera is an optically isotropic transparent film that offers" superior transparency, optical isotropy, high refractive index, low heat-shrinkable, low dielectric constant and low dielectric loss tangent, low water absorption and a good combine flame resistance". The Lucera has an operating temperature of 260°C or higher and can be used in touch panels, OLED displays and lighting panels, insulating film and more.

There are reports that Dow Chemical decided to build a new OLED facility in Chonan, Korea (where Samsung's LCD and OLED fabs are located). They will start building the new fab in June 2011 and plan to start producing products in 2011. Total investment will be $36 million. According to reports Dow Chemical already supply emissive materials for Samsung's AMOLED displays.

Back in July 2010 it was reported about a Dow Electronic Materials AMOLED fab opened in Chonan in 2009. So I'm not sur whether this is a new plant or simply a misreported news?

Toray developed a new silver nano-wire based transparent conductive film that offers a light transmittance of 90% or more and surface resistivity, which is a measure of conductivity, between 150 and 250 ohm/sq- using wet coating method (Toray says that this is the world's best film in terms of transparency and conductivity). The new material also offers superior flexibility, natural coloration, durability and workability. Toray will begin mass production in the 'near future'.

The new material was developed in partnership with Cambrios (who are also collaborating with Plextronics). The companies say that this new material can find applications in touch panels, solar cells and OLED electrodes.

eMagin hired a team of five design engineers that has extensive experience working on the silicon backplane for eMagin's newest and most sophisticated OLED microdisplay designs including the SXGA (1280x1024) and the TATRC WUXGA (1920x1200), as well as the two customer products designed in 2009 for 2010 manufacturing.

The new team will enable eMagin to develop new microdisplays more rapidly and more efficiently. eMagin also hopes that this in-house team will enable better integration between the backplane design and the OLED process. The new team will also help eMagin's research contracts.

The European OLED100.eu project developed a new OLED lighting panel that is the largest to date: a 33x33cm² panel. The new panel offer 25lm/W at 1000 cd/m² luminance. This relatively good efficiency was achieved using out-coupling and an efficient RGB OLED stack. The panels were fabricated at the Gen-2 line at the Fraunhofer IPMS.

The new panels are based on the on-substrate tiling concept - with 5 segments connected in series. The 33x33cm² panel itself is seamless and so can be tiled to create larger panels. The active area on each panel is 828cm^{2 (}aperture ratio of 76%).