Amazon now lists Samsung's KN55S9C Full-HD 55" curved OLED TV. The S9C ships now for $8,997 from Video & Audio Center. Amazon's page says there's only one TV left in stock, hopefully more will arrive soon.

Samsung KN55S9C offers the "perfect picture quality" (according to Samsung) as the distance from the viewer to the TV screen is the same from almost any angle. It supports Multi-view (where two users can watch two different 2D programs using active-shutter 3D glasses) and it's also compatible with the company's Evolution Kit, ensuring that the TV is future-proofed. The OLED TV weighs 27Kg and is 5.3 inches deep. You cannot mount it on a wall due to the curve.

A few weeks ago we reported that DisplaySearch forecast that OLED material revenues will reach $529 million in 2013 - and will grow to $3.4 billion in 2017. Now DisplaySearch released more information, including this interesting chart, showing their OLED material sales forecast per application:

As you can see, virtually all the growth will come from OLED TV sales. For materials sold for mobile phones, materials will actually decline after 2014. This chart include materials used for emission and common layers. DisplaySearch forecasts that only 10 million OLED TV units will be shipped in 2017. This still means a low penetration into the TV market. Of course for the OLED market 10 million by 2017 TVs represents a rapid growth in the revenue.

Pioneer and Mitsubishi established a new company called MC Pioneer OLED Lighting (MPOL). The new company (jointly owned 50:50) will handle OLED lighting marketing and sales in Japan. MPOL offers Verbatim's Velve color-tunable OLED lighting panels (jointly made by Mitsubishi and Pioneer).

MPOL has a nice website (in Japanese, though) that shows nice photos of the latest Velve installations such as the Issey Miyake store at Tokyo's JP Tower and the Kaiteki Cafe in Tokyo.

There are rumors that Sony will soon (before the Tokyo Game Show - September 19) unveil the next generation PS Vita. The new handheld console will sport a larger display - a 6.3" AMOLED (with the same resolution as the original Vita: 960x544). This AMOLED will be made by SDC of course. The new Vita will also sport more RAM (1Gb) and will be backward compatible with the first generation device. Sony will probably also upgrade the CPU and GPU.

Sony PS Vita

The original Vita featured a 5" touch OLED display (960x544, Samsung made, apparently with green PHOLED, so we can assume the next-gen Vita to also include green PHOLED for power efficiency), a quad-core ARM Cortex A9 processor and a quad-core PowerVR (SGX543MP4+) GPU (Sony says that it is as powerful as a PS3), Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth and optional 3G. Gaming controls include dual analog sticks, motion controls and a multi-touch pad on the rear side.

Researchers at the Human Media Lab at Canada's Queen's University developed a new panoramic compound camera that uses a flexible OLED viewfinder with an array of lenses at the back. The camera array optical characteristics are changed when the camera is flexed. Special software stitches the final image from all the lenses dynamically. Pretty cool:

The researchers say that the prototype "envisions the use of photographs as cameras in one aggregate flexible, thin-film device". The video seems to have been filmed back in 2012 but they released it just a few days ago.

Last week Samsung launched their 55" curved OLED TV (the KN55S9C) in the US (for $9000). CNET's David Katzmaier posted a very positive review on Samsung's OLED TV, saying that the TV offers the best picture he ever saw.

David says that Samsung's OLED TV picture quality surpasses plasma (even Pioneer's legendary Kuro) and LED LCDs with no major downsides. He does say that he'd like a flat OLED even better than a curved one, though.

Samsung launched a new flexible display contest in the US titled the "Flexible Future Business Plan Competition". Samsung wants people and companies to submit gadget concepts that use flexible displays (1 to 20 inches in size, up to Full-HD resolution). The prizes aren't large: $10,000 for the first prize, and $5,000 and $2,500 for the second and third runners up.

Samsung will choose the winners based on how important the flexible display is in the device, and will also consider the design and the practicality of the hardware and business plan. Samsung allows for four flexible display categories: plane displays (which look like regular rigid panels), bendable displays, foldable displays and rollable displays. You will have to submit your idea and business plan by October 6th.

Just one day after slashing their curved OLED TV's price from $15,000 to $8,900 in Korea, Samsung finally launched the TV in the US as well. The KN55S9C costs $9,000 and should be available today. It will also be on sale at "select retailers" soon.

The OLED TV has a curved Full-HD 55" panel that offers the "perfect picture quality" (according to Samsung, at least) as the distance from the viewer to the TV screen is the same from almost any angle. It sports a "timeless arena" design (the display is placed within a luxurious frame whose curved shape mirrors the curvature of an arena). and supports Multi-view (where two users can watch two different 2D programs using active-shutter 3D glasses) and it's also compatible with the company's Evolution Kit, ensuring that the TV is future-proofed.

Today we reached 2,500 fans on Facebook for the OLED-Info page! That's really cool - we've got a real community in there now. Thanks everyone! If you're not a fan already, you can hop over to our Facebook page and become one now. You'll get OLED updates to your feed and can join the discussions. And show your support, too ;-)

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Only a few weeks after launching the KN55S9 55" curved OLED TV in South Korea for 15 million Won (about $13,000), Samsung slashed the price today by 34% - to 9.9 million Won (about $8,900). Samsung said that this price cut will enable them to reach more consumers and lead the OLED TV market. Samsung will refund the difference for customers who already bought the TV.

Reports from Korea say that Samsung were also able to improve the production yield of these OLED TVs and so can now produce more panels and lower the price. Now it will be interesting to see how LG responds - their own curved OLED TV costs $13,000. LG is using a theoretically more cost-effective production technology (WRGB vs Samsung's direct-emission OLEDs).