Osram unveiled their second generation OLED lighting panel, the square Orbeos SDW-058. The new panel (which is built in the new pilot production line in Regensburg) is more efficient at 40 lm/W (up from around 25 lm/W), and it's also larger (119x119 mm). We do not have more information about the new panels yet.

Osram also unveiled a new connector system - a plug&play solution for Orbeos panels. Osram says this is the first step toward a standardized contact system for OLED components. Just one click is need to connect all Orbeos panels (both mechanically and electrically). The new system also allows to connect two Orbeos panels back to back.

T-Mobile announced today that they will launch HTC's One S smartphone on April 25 for $199.99 (with a two-year contract). The HTC One S will be T-Mobile's first Android V4 (ICS) phone. Other features include a 4.3" Super AMOLED display, dual-core 1.5Ghz CPU, a new version of the Sense UI (4.0), a 8mp camera and a uniformly thin alloy unibody that's only 7.9mm thick.

Beneq announced that RusNano, the Russian investment fund, has invested €25 million in the company. Beneq is a supplier of production and research equipment for advanced thin film coatings - including dedicated coating equipment for barriers and transparent conductive oxide (TCO) for the OLED display and lighting industries.

Beneq will open a new activity center in Russia where they will further develop specific applications and equipment for the needs of customers in Russia and the CIS.

AUO will soon start producing 4" to 5" AMOLED panels (Q2 2012), aimed toward smartphone applications. Today Digitimes reveals some details about their first panels, the 4.3" qHD ones. The panels will consume 370mW at 300 nits, and this will drop to 300mW by 2014.

The price of these panels will be around $45-$55 - about 90% higher than an equivalent LTPS LCD. Reports suggest that AUO is collaborating with Sony while other reports say that HTC secured AUO's entire OLED capacity.

I'm happy to announce the second edition of The OLED Handbook, the most comprehensive resource on OLED technology, industry and market, and this new edition not only brings it up to date, it also includes several new sections and in-depth reports.

What's new in the 2012 edition?

• Updated OLED gadgets, panels, fabs and roadmaps
• Info on Samsung's and LG's upcoming OLED TVs
• New production technologies
• Extended sections on backplane, substrate, encapsulation and more
• New sections on direct emission, WOLED-CF, Oxide-TFT, SMS, Nozzle printing, OLED lighting fabrication, polyimide and more
• 30 new companies detailed
• 31 new pages
• Actually, the entire book was revised!

Samsung Electronics's EU marketing director, Michael Zoelle said in a press conference that Samsung plans to launch their OLED TVs in IFA 2012 - in August 31. He also said that the TVs will be launched in 2Q 2012 at earliest, which is actually sooner - which probably means that Samsung is still not sure when it'll start shipments.

Michael says that during the IFA Samsung will disclose the OLED TV's price, spec and product line. The company will also exhibit new TVs with "totally-new designs and concepts" as well as "totally-new premium TVs".

There are reports that TPVision will launch OLED TVs in 2012, and will present the first sets at the IFA fair in August. TPVision will buy OLED panels from LG Display. This report confirms earlier report from February. We do know that LG Display reported that several clients are interested in its OLED panels (some suggest that Sony is one of them).

TPVision is the TV joint-venture between Philips and TPV, now owned by TPV Technology. TPVision uses the "Philips" brand for its televisions.

The Fraunhofer IPMS is showing several new OLED lamp designs at the L+B 2012 show. The most interesting lamp is the OBranch one which uses new transparent OLED panels made at COMEDD. OBranch was designed by Irena Kilibarda (who also designed the OLED Lamped back in 2010):

And here's a pendant OLED luminaire:

Prof. Karl Leo from the Fraunhofer IPMS gives an talk about how to commercialize university technology. Karl Leo focuses on Organic Electronics and he already co-founded a few start-ups, including Novaled and Dresden microdisplay. The later part of the talk is devoted to OLED microdisplays - which Karl considers the most exciting thing he's ever done. Dresden Microdisplay is still looking for seed financing.

Karl also mentions a "killer lighting product" that needs financing, but he wouldn't disclose more info. During the talk, Karl says that OLED displays are already here - at least in smartphones. He believes that the next wave is OLED lighting, followed by organic solar cells and then finally organic electronics.

Panasonic released a nice video from L+B 2012, showing their LED and OLED technologies. Panasonic is now using the ELeaf brand for their OLED panels. The OLED part starts at 1:34 on the video below:

Panasonic Idemitsu OLED Lighting (PIOL), a joint-venture between Panasonic Electric Works (PEW) and Idemitsu Kosan is already shipping OLED panel samples. A short while ago PEW announced that they developed the world's most efficient OLED modules (128 lm/W).