Sony announced a new single-lens attachable OLED-based display module for eyewear applications - which can turn any glasses into Google-Glass like smart devices. Sony aims to mass produce this display module in 2015, and will offer it to a wide variety of customers - eyewear makers, electronics makers and enterprise device developers.

In this concept device, Sony adopted their new 0.23" 640x400 (nHD+) OLED microdisplay unveiled in June 2014. Sony says that the OLED display enabled the module to be compact and light. The OLED is coupled with a micro-optical unit optimized for the OLED display. The projected image's diagonal angle of view converts to 13 degrees, which is equivalent to the field of view for a 16-inch display 2 meters in the distance.

Royole, a startup established in the US in 2012, unveils their first prototype, a 0.01 mm thick (thin?) flexible AMOLED prototype (which they say is the thinnest ever). Here's a video showing the display in action:

The display is bendable, and has a bending radius of 1 mm. Samsung's recent flexible AMOLED prototypes has a radius of 5 mm - but these prototypes are closer to production units (the flexible OLED in the Galaxy Note Edge has a radius of 7 mm). Samsung's aim is to achieve a radius of 1 mm in production within two years.

Following earlier reports that LG is set to release Quantum-Dots enhanced LCD TVs in 2015, LG Electronics announced today that they will unveil the first 4K QD-LCDs in CES 2015 next month. LG's QD-LCDs will offer better colors (wider palette and improved saturation) compared to their regular LCDs.

LG 55-inch curved OLED TV

Those Quantum Dot TVs will be positioned above LG's current high-end Ultra HD LCDs but below the company's OLED TV range, which offer the best image quality ever achieved. Indeed LG still considers OLED to be the superior technology in the long run.

According to OLEDNet, Seiko Epson developed a new OLED ink-jet printer head that can achieve a resolution of 360 PPI. This high-density print head uses two 180 PPI nozzles in 2 offset rows. The company managed to print prototype bottom-emitting and top-emitting OLED devices using this print head.

OLEDNet says that Seiko Epson is now aiming to develop a 600 PPI ink-jet printer head, by using two rows of 400 PPI nozzles.

Last month we reported that China's Everdisplay (EDO) started mass producing 5" 720p AMOLED displays with a capacity of 600,000 panels per month. EDO presented in a trade show in China, and showed their near-future AMOLED roadmap:

We already knew that EDO aims to start making 5.6" FHD panels in February 2015 and smaller 1.63" 320x320 ones in Q2 2015, but according to the new roadmap, there are some more panels underway. First up will be a circular 1.35" panel for smartwatches, and it will also be released in Q2 2015. Further down the road EDO plans a 6" WQHD (2560x1440 489 PPI) and a 5" FHD panel.

Best Buy has been offering LG's 65EC9700 65" 4K OLED TV since September (although shipments have been very limited) and now Digital Trends posted the first review of LG's flagship TV. And the verdict? it's the best TV they ever saw, nothing else comes close (not even LG's 55" FHD OLED TV).

In fact, the reviewer says that "best TV ever" doesn't really do it justice. LG's 65EC9700 got incredible resolution, a top-notch resolution upscaler, perfect black levels, insane contrast, eye-dazzling color, and class-leading WebOS smart TV interface.

According to C|Net, LG Display developed a 55" 8K (7680x4320, 160 PPI) OLED TV prototype panel, and the Korean company will show this prototype next month at CES 2015.

LG 55-inch FHD OLED TV

This panel, which has a total of 33.2 million pixel and a brightness of 500 nits, has over 20 display drivers ICs inside (apparently these were developed in collaboration with NVidia), and was already produced in early November. LG is actually planning to commercialize this display, even though many people will argue that it doesn't make much sense to have such a high resolution in a 55" display. A nice technical achievement by LGD in any case.

IHS estimates the current OLED lighting market (at the panel level) at $2.7 million in 2014, and says that the market will grow tenfold by 2020 - to reach $26 million. IHS expects panel prices to drop 40% in the next several years, but OLEDs will still not be able to compete with LED lighting, and this is why it does not expect OLED lighting to really emerge as a mass market in the near future.

A Philips OLED installation

IHS is rather pessimistic, and other analysts see panel prices dropping much more quickly and volumes rise at a much more dramatic rate. IDTechEx for example see a $200 million panel market in 2019 that will grow to $1.9 billion in 2025. Cintelliq sees OLED competing with LEDs in 2016, and 500 million 100x100 mm OLED lighting panels produced in 2023.

Researchers from the Korean Inha University developed a new method to produce shadow masks that could lead to masks that have higher densities and are also more robust - leading to higher yields in OLED production. The team are going to transfer the technology to a company that will commercialize it.

Samsung AMOLED production

The researchers used an electrochemical processing technique to manufacture the new masks. This enables masks that are stronger (and thus fail less often) and still reach pixel densities of up to 500 PPI.

Idemitsu Kosan and LG display entered into an expanded alliance to cooperate on OLED technologies. LGD aims to accelerate its OLED development and now have a license to use Idemitsu's OLED device patents.

Idemitsu has been collaborating with LGD on OLED technologies since 2009, and in 2010 Idemitsu acquired a 32.73% stake in Global OLED Technology (LG's OLED patent holdings company, acquired from Kodak's in December 2009).