A couple of weeks ago we announced our new platform, the OLED Auditorium, which is an online library of OLED presentations made by industry professionals. The Auditorium is a new and exciting way to learn about OLEDs, whether you're working in the industry or simply taking your first steps in getting to know OLED technology.

We intended to launch the Auditorium as a paid service, but initial response has not met our expectations. It was not an easy decision, but we have decided to refund all subscribers and open up the Auditorium to all users - for free. You can now access the presentations here! We hope you will find this a useful library of OLED knowledge, and we hope companies will continue to contribute and help the entire industry.

While this is not what we set out to do, we view this as an opportunity to better the OLED industry and contribute this fascinating body of work. Now everyone's invited!

Researchers at the University of Michigan developed a new deep-blue energy-efficient phosphorescent OLED (PHOLED) emitter. The researchers say that this is the brightest deep-blue PHOLED ever reported - in fact it is about 10 times brighter than previous deep-blue PHOLEDs. The lifetime of this material is still very low, and future research will attempt to stabilize the molecule.

The new emitter is based on a N-heterocyclic carbene iridium-III complex molecule. This is an efficient compound because its design reduces the chances that light-emitting excitons will either get lost as heat or destroy the compound itself. This research is sponsored by Universal Display Corporation and the U.S. Air Force.

It turns out that two months ago RiT Display demonstrated two new flexible PMOLED prototypes - one "fixed curved" and one bendable. You can see the bendable panel below:

According to Touch Display Research, RiT Display aims to start mass producing flexible PMOLEDs by the end of 2015.

Motorola is set to unveil new phones on October 27th, and according to leaked brochures, the Droid Turbo 2 phone will have a "shatterproof" screen - Motorola will even accept trade-ins with phones that have cracked screens - just to emphasize this new feature.

It's not clear what does a shatterproof screen actually means - but it may be that the new phone uses a plastic-based flexible OLED. Up until now all phones that adopt a flexible OLED actually use a cover glass which makes them as shatter prone as any other display... it's not likely but perhaps Motorola uses a new flexible OLED that has no glass at all?

LG Chem announced that it has sold its OLED lighting business to LG Display, for 160 billion Won (a little over $142 million USD). LG decided that LG Display will be in charge of all OLED-based products while LG chem will focus on high-end materials (including OLED materials) and batteries. The idea is that consolidating the OLED production of both displays and lighting in the same company will enable LG to advance OLED lighting more quickly - and at a lower cost.

LG Chem is developing and producing OLED lighting panels, including the world's first truly-bendable panels (a few days ago they announced 406x60 mm plastic-based bendable panels), and is one of the clear leaders in the OLED lighting industry. The deal is set to take plan on December 15th, 2015.

Mirage Vision, a US-based outdoor television outfitters announced the world's first outdoor OLED TV, which is a weather-proof LG 65" 4K curved OLED TV:

During a trade show in Beijing, Everdisplay (EDO) demonstrated the company's first transparent OLED, a 5.57" panel as you can see below. The panel features a pixel density of 264 PPI and the transmittance seems to be 40%.

Everdisplay recently also unveiled a 5.6" WQHD (2560x1440, 525 PPI) flexible OLED prototype. Everdisplay started mass producing 5" 720p AMOLED displays towards the end of 2014. Since then the company seems to be accelerating its OLED program, and besides the new transparent and flexible prototypes, we know it is developing larger displays (5.5", 6" and an 8" AMOLED for the automobile market), round AMOLEDs (a 1.4" 400x400 circular AMOLED for the wearable market) and high density (734 PPI) AMOLEDs.

LG Chem launched a new flexible OLED lighting panel sized 406x60 mm - more than twice the size of their current flexible panel (which is 200x50 mm). The new plastic-based panel model number is P6BD, and it is only 0.41 mm thick.

The P6BD offers 20,000 hours of lifetime, efficiency of 50 lm/W and a CRI of 85. LG Chem says that the panel's uniformity is 70% and above.

A few days ago LG lowered the price of their 2014 model Full-HD 55" curved OLED TV (55EC9300) to only $1,799. It turns out that some online retailed actually offer this TV for only $1,199 - which is quite within reach of many consumers. It's great to see such relatively low prices for an OLED TV, even for a last-year model.

LG's 2015 model (the 55EG9100) is now shipping for $1,999.

LG Display is shifting its focus towards OLED technologies, and the company has high hopes for OLED displays. LGD published a new video showing how OLEDs can change the way we work and live:

This somewhat reminds me of Corning's day made of glass videos - LG shows flexible and transparent panels and new ways of interaction based on such technologies. Nothing really new here, and it's only concepts of course, but it's nice to see LG's dedicated to OLEDs.