A report from Japan suggests that Panasonic decided to withdraw from the OLED TV business as production costs are too high for the Japanese company. According to the report, Panasonic hopes to sale its OLED business to Japan Display (an agreement is expected next month).

This report is not confirmed yet. It is rather surprising as Panasonic's OLED business is focused on TV panels, while Japan Display is producing small/medium displays. In the past few years, Panasonic focused on printing technologies using Sumitomo's PLED materials.

I'm happy to announce a new product from OLED-Info, the OLED Microdisplay Market Report. This report provides a great introduction to OLED microdisplays, and covers everything you need to know about this market. This is a great guide if you're considering to adopt OLED microdisplays in your product and if you want to understand this industry better.

Reading this report, you'll learn all about:

• Why OLED microdisplays are better than LCD or DLP ones
• The disadvantages of OLED microdisplays
• What kind of displays are available on the market today
• New technologies on the horizon

The report package also provides:

• A list of all OLED microdisplays on the market
• A list of all OLED microdisplay makers
• Personal contact details into leading microdisplay makers
• A spreadsheet with all microdisplays for easy comparison
• Free updates for a year

Engadget reports that samsung is developing a new virtual reality headset. Samsung's headset (which will be similar to Oculus Rift's headset, seen below) will sport an AMOLED display, and will only work paired with a next-gen Galaxy phone (probably the Note 4) and tablet (hopefully the upcoming AMOLED ones).

Engadget doesn't have a lot of information - but according to them the OLED display will as good or better as the one used by Oculus. This isn't surprising as it was always likely that Oculus are using SDC's panels. In any case, Samsung is set to beat Oculus (and other players such as Sony) to the market and release this headset by the end of 2014.

IGNIS Innovation announced today that they are going to collaborate with Shenzhen China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT) to develop a 5.5" HD AMOLED panel that will use Ignis's MaxLife Lite driving scheme.

The AMOLED panel will be produced by CSOT using an LTPS backplane. Ignis's MaxLife Lite will enable high yields, low cost, low-power consumption, and long life time. CSOT hopes that Ignis' technology will enable them to quickly ramp up production.

Pixelligent Technologies entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) with an aim to optimize the formulation for ORNL’s roll-to-roll process for OLED lighting devices.

Pixelligent says that this agreement will allow them to further optimize materials and formulations to demonstrate improved performance and cost for OLED lighting roll-to-roll processes. This project also gives Pixelligent access to the state-of-the-art facilities and world class expertise at ORNL.

A few weeks ago Japan's Nikkei Asian Review posted an article saying that Samsung decided to scrap their plans for an OLED TV fab. According to Nikkei's report, Samsung decided to setup a new facility to produce small and medium sized OLED panels.

Today Korea's Yonhap news posted an article saying that Samsung indeed decided to setup a new AMOLED fab. Samsung may increase its CapEX spending by 8.6% in 2014 (to $24.4 billion). The investment in the new OLED fab in Asan will be between $3 billion to $5 billion.

In 2012 we posted about light-emitting electrochemical cells (LEC), a cheaper (but less efficient) flexible alternative to OLED lighting. Back then, three Universities (in Sweden and Denmark), involved with Polymer LEC (P-LEC) research, launched a company called LunaLEC to develop and commercialize the technology.

Now LunaLEC unveiled a new technology that can be used to fabricate 3D LECs in air using spray-spintering. This fault-tolerant fabrication technique can produce multi colored large-area emission patterns via sequential deposition of different inks based on identical solvents. The technique can also be used to deposit LECs on complex-shaped surfaces - for example the fork you see above. This is done in-air without the use of cleanrooms.

Yesterday we posted that Acuity Brands launched new editions of their OLED luminaries with the latest LG Chem panels. Today the company sent us this nice video showing their luminaries while also telling us how great OLEDs are:

I liked the part where he says that up until now, we always had to hide the light source because it is uncomfortable to look at. But with OLEDs - you want to look at the light, it's a pleasure and a joy to look at. Like they say in the movie: OLED is perfect.

Acuity Brands launched new editions of their OLED luminaries, that use the latest generation OLED panels. Acuity is using LG Chem's panels, and those newer panels offer a higher CRI (85-90), longer lifetime (30,000 - 40,000 LT70) and are available in 3000K, 3500K and 400K. Currently Acuity offers four luminaries - the Trila, the Revel, the Canvis and the Kindred.

Update: Samsung now sent formal invitations. We only have a few weeks before they hopefully reveal their OLED tablets...

Samsung's 8.4" and 10.5" OLED tablets seem to be getting closer - a report from Korea suggests that Samsung will unveil the new tablets in an unpacked event in New York on June 12 (that's less than a month away).

According to several reports in the past months, Samsung's new OLED tablets will sport WQXGA (2560x1600) resolution - for both the 8.4" display and the 10.5" one.