Kodak - Page 4

Update: The picture frame costed 795$ over at Amazon.com, but they are now out of stock.

The price of the Kodak 7.6" OLED photo frame keeps falling... it started out at 999$ (back in December 2008), then at January it was 856$, and then you could get it for 776$ at TheNerds. They even offered 9$ by using the FEB09 coupon (till end of February, just follow the previous link and claim your coupon). The price is lower now at Amazon.com as well - 795$.

Kodak wireless OLED picture frame

Why is the price falling so faster? It might be that Kodak is finding it very difficult to actually sell those frames at such a high price. Or perhaps CMEL are pricing the 7.6" OLED panels lower now.

Kodak came out with a press release today, regarding their OLED business:

Kodak continues to see great potential for its OLED portfolio, but in the current global economic environment Kodak must more tightly focus its investments. Therefore, the company will pursue growth in its OLED business primarily through licensing and partnerships...

A few days ago we reported that Kodak will cut investments on growth areas, including OLEDs - so now we get to hear more of Kodak's plans.

Kodak also posted a lengthy (14min) video of their OLED business, called "OLED from any angle". It's interesting, even though it's mostly an Ad for their products.

Anyway, it's good to hear that Kodak are still optimstic about OLED TVs, mobile displays and lighting - I hope that indeed they will continue to invest in the technology and that they will find the right partners.

Here's the complete PR:

Kodak Releases OLED Vision and Technology Overview on YouTube

ROCHESTER, N.Y., February 16 -- Kodak's strategic vision continues to thrive on being an OLED industry enabler for the world. "Kodak's intent is to determine the best path forward for finding a way to scale within the OLED industry, said Corey Hewitt, Operations Manager and Vice President, Kodak's Display Business. Kodak continues to see great potential for its OLED portfolio, but in the current global economic environment Kodak must more tightly focus its investments. Therefore, the company will pursue growth in its OLED business primarily through licensing and partnerships. "Kodak will continue to invest in the OLED flat panel and solid-state lighting business, with the appropriate financial cost structure, and will explore numerous business opportunities on a worldwide basis for ensuring the best returns for Kodak and its shareholders as we progress through 2009". For greater in-depth description, please visit youtube here

Kodak is experiencing a hard time with severe losses - and they also forecast more losses down the road. They announced they will cut costs in growth areas including OLEDs.

They also said they will seek new alliances or other business models to try and reduce risk.

A great introduction to OLEDs from the Discovery Channel and Kodak. Explaining why OLEDs are better and greener than today's LCD technology, and why the future is OLED TV technology...

Kodak has reduced the price of their Wireless 7.6" OLED Photo Frame to 856$ (From 999.95$). This is still expensive, but a bit less so. Here's the product page at Amazon (currently only 5 units in stock...)

Hopefully this means that CMEL has lowered the price for the OLED panel - which might enable more applications for it.

Amazon is now listing (and shipping!) the Kodak OLED wireless digital photo frame. Just in time for the holiday shopping... The frame costs 999.95$

As a reminder, the display is a 7.6" AMOLED panel, made by CMEL. It has a 16:9 aspect ratio, 800x480 resolution, a white-to-black contrast of 30,000:1.

A week ago CNet reviewed the frame, and said the colors are brilliant and the image is sharp.

The Kodak OLED frame at amazon

So the 2008 holiday season is almost here - and obviously you'd like a new gadget with an OLED display. So what are your options?

OLED TV, photo frame and keyboard

The top choice will have to be Sony's XEL-1, the world's first OLED-TV. The 11" XEL-1 (960x540) is only 3mm thin. The contrast and colors are great. The only problem? it costs around 2,500$...

Our second choice is an OLED keyboard. Here you can customize the keys to your liking, this is very useful. Art.Lebedev's Optimus keyboard (where all the keys are OLEDs) costs 1,500$. There are cheaper options - like the 3-keyed Optimus-Mini, or UnitedKeys' new 260$ board (only has 9 OLED keys, though).

During 2008 the first OLED photo frames arrived. The top of the bunch is Kodak's 999$ wireless frame, which has a beautiful 7.6" panel. Digital Foci also sells smaller frames (up to 2.8") - which are much more reasonable priced.

OLED MP3 players, mobile phones or digital cameras?

Audio/Video players have sported OLED displays for years now. There are a few new players that have large AMOLED displays. We like Cowon's S9 Curve - with its 3.3" touchscreen AMOLED. The iRiver SPINN was recently released as well - this one has a 3.2" display (also touchscreen, by the way). If you want smaller players, there are literally dozens of models with OLEDs.

Mobile phones are the second largest OLED market. If you live in the US, the best option is Nokia's N85 with a 2.6" display. In korea and Japan there are many more phones from LG, KDDI, Samsung and others that has beautiful large OLEDs, most of them announced in the past few months.

Interestingly, if you want a digital camera with an OLED, you don't have many choices - even though It has been years since Kodak introduced the world's first camera with an OLED. There's Samsung NV24HD pocket camera, and some very high-end cameras with OLEDs, and that's that. Perhaps the fact that OLED displays currently are not too great in sunlight makes camera makers a bit hasitant to use them.

An OLED Lamp?

Finally, if you really want to impress your friends, you can get one of Ingo Maurer's OLED lamps. They will only make 25 of them, and we heard the price is 25,000euro...

Which OLED gadget would you like?

So, what will it be? We'd love to get your comments - tell us what is your favorite OLED gadget, and which one you'll be most happy to have these holidays.

We recently had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Steven Van Slyke (R&D directory) and Dr. Yuan-Sheng Tyan, a Research Fellow from Kodak's OLED systems. We talked about OLED lighting, what is Kodak's plan for this market, and how they see OLED lighting in the future. We also got a nice new prototype image from them (to the right).

Kodak also has some updates on their white light research - just 6 months after reporting 55lm/W efficiency, Kodak are now saying they have fabricated new devices that exceed 60lm/W. It seems like OLED lighting is really advancing quickly now.

Read the full interview

Back in June I interviewed Mr. Corey Hewitt and Dr. James Buntaine from Kodak OLED Systems. Now the nice guys at Kodak agreed to another interview - this one is focused on OLED for lighting, and I talked to Mr. Steven Van Slyke (R&D directory) and Dr. Yuan-Sheng Tyan, a Research Fellow. So first of all, let's introduce them properly:

Mr. Steven Van Slyke, R&D Director, Kodak OLED Systems 

Steven Van Slyke received his Bachelors degree in Chemistry from Ithaca College and Masters degree in Materials Science from Rochester Institute of Technology.  He joined Eastman Kodak Research Laboratories in 1979 where his work has centered on OLEDs. He has been active in all phases of OLED technology, from basic research on organic materials to development of manufacturing technologies for high volume OLED display production. Mr. Van Slyke is recognized as a co-inventor of small-molecule organic light emitting diodes and is a leading authority on OLED technology. He has published and presented over 40 papers and holds 36 patents in the areas of OLED materials and device architecture.