TCL's CSoT subsidiary demonstrated curved 31" FHD AMOLED displays at the 18th China High- Tech Fair. CSoT showed three such panels side-by-side, to create a 5760x1080 80" display. The WOLED WRGB panels offer 150 nits brightness (which is rather low).

CSoT are producing those panels in its Gen-4.5 pilot R&D line in Shenzhen. CSoT already demonstrated 31" AMOLED panels in June 2015, it is not clear what is the difference in the new prototypes.

According to ETNews, Skyworth recently introduced an OLED TV that uses panels produced by BOE Display. If this is correct, then this is the first TV since 2013 that does not use an LGD OLED panel. According to the report, Skyworth will start shipping these TVs in China and Europe (under the Metz brand) in 2017.

55-inch OLED TV prototypes, BOE 2014

In the past Skyworth used LGD panels for its OLED TVs. In December 2015 the company launched its latest OLED and OLED HDR TVs , and back then Skyworth said it aims to sell 30,000 OLED TVs by the end of March 2016 (the company's FY2015) - and hopes to sell 200,000 OLED TVs by the end of March 2017. Skyworth said its main problem with those OLEDs is that LG Display cannot supply them with enough panels, especially the 65" ones - so now it seems Skyworth found its answer with BOE Display.

Japan Display developed a new foldable device concept that uses two thin-bezel LCD displays. JDI is working with a Chinese smartphone maker to introduce such a device in the summer of 2017.

To create those thin-bezel displays, JDI collaborated with Minebea and other companies to use a specially designed backlight and LCD panel.The frame is less than 1mm wide, which means that the gap between the two displays is less than 2mm.

When the nice guys from LG's Israeli public relations office reach out and offer to send an OLED TV for a review - you say yes. Naturally, I graciously accepted and received a new 65" OLEDB6 TV. Here's my hands-on review of LG's new TV.

The OLEDB6 was launched in early 2016, and is actually LG's entry-level OLED TV for 2016, alongside the curved OLEDC6. The B6 features a flat 4K WRGB (WOLED-CF) OLED panel, LG's latest WebOS 3.0 operation system, HDR support and LG's Color Prime Pro technology. The TV does not support 3D, but strangely LG did bundle a couple of passive 3D glasses with the TV. The B6 comes in two sizes - 55" and 65".

Flexible OLED technology and VR headset developer Royole announced that it received a $80 million series Pre-D funding from the Warmsun Holding Group. Royole raised around $280 million since its inception in 2012 - and the current valuation is set at around $3 billion!

So what does Royole do to justify such a lofty valuation? A couple of months ago Royole launched its first product, the Royole Moon foldable VR headset - that uses OLED microdisplays to achieve a PPI of over 3,000. The $799 Moon also includes noise-cancelling headphones and runs on the company's own Moon OS.

The Korea Herald reports that famed industrial designer Ross Lovegrove (who has designed Sony's Walkman, Apple's iMac and also worked with Airbus, Peugeot and Huawei) is currently working with LG Display to design an OLED lighting installation.

Ross's lighting structure will be an affordable OLED lamp for general household lighting - and it will be introduced next year. The installation will be unveiled next year at the Salone del Mobile (April 2017).

Futaba demonstrated a new transparent PMOLED prototype display that it aims to release commercially next month. The ELA0502AAGS is a segmented monochrome (white, blue or amber) T-OLED that features high transparency (80%).

The display has a glass outline of 22 x 20 mm and the active area diameter is 0.59". The pixel size is about 50 um. The display is very bright at 1,000 cd/m². The demonstrated display has a battery icon, 4 characters and a cross hair in the middle - this is obviously aimed for telescopic sights.

The Nikkei reports that JOLED aims to start producing prototype OLED panels in the second half of 2017. JOLED developed a 21.6" UHD panel and actually aims to start offering the panel in 2017 to medical monitor makers and other commercial applications.

JOLED is using a printing based process and it is estimated that production costs will be 30% to 40% lower than evaporation based processes - but the performance of soluble OLED materials are not yet up to par with evaporation materials. The panels are made on an Oxide-TFT backplane, and the process is optimized for 10 to 30 inch panels. JOLED expects to achieve mass production in FY2018 (April 2018 to March 2019).

Digitimes says that Chinese smartphone makers are increasingly buying AMOLED panels in advance of new phone shipments as the industry expects the AMOLED supply shortage to continue well into 2017.

Apple is reportedly ordering a massive amount of AMOLED panels in advance of its 2017 iPhone launch, and the Chinese phone makers are worried that SDC's capacity will not be enough for 2017. SDC is hurrying to increase capacity, and several other AMOLED makers plan to start producing panels in 2017, but the expanded capacity may not be enough for 2017.

Today we published new versions of our market reports - that cover the transparent, automotive, microdisplay, VR/AR, graphene and flexible OLED markets. OLED-Info provides comprehensive niche OLED market reports, and our reports cover everything you need to know about the niche market, and can be useful if you want to understand how the OLED industry works and what this technology can provide for your own industry. The reports are now updated to November 2016.

The OLED for VR/AR Market Report:

• Why OLEDs are adopted in almost all VR HMDs
• What kind of displays are required for VR and AR applications
• What the future holds for the VR and AR markets
• Current and future VR and AR systems

The report package provides a great introduction to the emerging VR and AR market, and details the role that OLED displays will have. Read more here!