According to our (unverified) source, Samsung is set to acquire quantum dots developer QDVision for $70 million. Samsung is accelerating its quantum dot technology development, and according to some reports aims to produce QLED TVs by 2019.

It seems a rather low price for QD Vision - our source says that the company is low on cash, although QDV did raise $22 million exactly a year ago. QDVision also announced a new joint-development agreement with BASF for a QD-enhanced backlight and color filter for LCD displays.

eMagin reported the company's financial results for Q3 0216. Revenues were $4.3 million, down 20% from Q3 2015, operating loss was $3.8 million (up from $3.3 million in Q3 2015) - and net loss was $2.4 million (up from $2.2 million in Q3 2015). As of the end of September the company had about $6.9 million in cash and equivalents (down from $9.3 million in the end of 2015).

These are disappointing results, but eMagin says it is making considerable strategic business progress. On the technical side, eMagin is developing direct-patterning micro OLEDs, and expect to complete its development work under the Man Tech program in 2017. Military customers will be offered displays in the second half of 2017. The 2K x 2K full-color OLED microdisplay is also progressing is on schedule to produce engineering samples. Samples will be shipped to customers in the beginning of December.

LG Display announced its entry to the flexible OLED automotive market back in July 2014, and the company LGD unveiled a 12.3" Full-HD flexible automotive OLED panel in early 2016. LGD is already collaborating with Tesla, Cadillac and Mercedes, but the company's panels are not in production yet the company previously revealed that mass production will only start in 2018.

According to ETNews, LG Electronics Vehicle Components (VC) is now speeding up its process of commercializing automotive OLEDs, and recently hired OLED touch experts. It is not clear if this means that LGD hopes to commercialize automotive OLEDs sooner than 2018 - and in any case ETNews estimates that the first premium cars to feature these OLEDs will only arrive in 2-3 years.

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Sunic System recently unveiled a new evaporation-FMM based AMOLED system that enables high resolution deposition - Sunic says it will enable PPI up to 2,250 PPI. Sunic's new technology makes use of a plane source for evaporating OLED materials, as opposed to the currently-used linear source. Such high resolution displays will be very useful for VR applications.

Sunic System now announced that it succeeded in implementing 1.1um shadow distance by using the new plane source evaporation and 100um shadow mask. Such a small shadow distance can achieve 1,000 to 1,500 PPI resolutions. The company's next step is to lower shadow distance to 0.37um - which will indeed enable 2,250 PPI and 11K high-resolution mobile AMOLEDs.

Samsung announced that it began the global rollout of its latest smartwatch, the Gear S3. The Gear S3 is now available in Korea, and will start shipping in more countries (including the US, UK, Germany and Australia) on November 18.

The Gear S3 is a round Tizen-based smartwatch that features a round 1.3" 360x360 (278 PPI) full-color Always-On Super AMOLED display. Other features include IP68 water resistant, LTE connectivity, mobile payments and built-in speaker and GPS. The Gear S3 comes in two editions, Gear S3 frontier and classic.

Researchers from South China University of Technology (SCUT) demonstrated a new MgO-based OLED encapsulation layer. The researchers say that MgO provides an efficient barrier at a low cost, and can be deposited in low temperatures.

The researchers say that this is the first time that MgO is used for OLED encapsulation, but this material has a number of advantages - a low refractive index, a wide bandgap, high dielectric constant, high chemical stability and the lack of UV irradiation treatment requirements.

Japan Display (JDI) announced it is cutting 4,700 jobs (about 30% of its workforce) to improve profitability, but also said that it is seeing strong demand for its LCD screens from Chinese phone makers.

JDI says that these phone makers are switching from OLED displays back to LCD ones. JDI explains that its LCD panels have "caught up with OLED rivals in thinness and power efficiency" and so phone makers are now beginning to have "doubts about the future of OLEDs".

LG apparently sent its upcoming 2017 OLED TV range to get certified by the WiFi Alliance, and the model names are now available on the website. Seems like LG is using a simple naming scheme - switching the 6 in the 2016 models to 7 for 2017: so we have the B7, C7, E7 and G7.

The only TV that seems new is the OLEDW7 series - the OLED65W7 and OLED77W7. It may mean anything, but FlatPanelHD speculates that this may be LG's Wallpaper OLED TVs. In May 2015 LG Display demonstrated those 0.97 mm thick 55" OLED panels that stick to the wall using magnets. The entire 55" OLED panel weighs only 1.9 Kg.

A post on a Korean site (Pulse News) quotes an unnamed SDC official that stated that SDC will reach its goal of 400 million AMOLED panels in 2016, and aims to ship more than 550 million AMOLED panels in 2017 - a 35% increase. SDC is aiming to meet demand for OLED panels from Chinese phones makers (and, probably, Apple too).

Pulse News also presents the charts above, sourced from IHS. The company sees revenues from OLED shipments rising from $10.6 billion in 2016 to $11.8 billion in 2017. IHS shipments estimates are 455 million for 2017. This is rather a low estimate compared to other reports we've seen, as IHS seems to be forecasting sharp decreases in average panel price as the massive increases in capacity do not translate into much higher revenues.