OLED

A new decade is upon us, and to kick off the "tens" in perfect fashion, there's the International Consumer Electronics Show. CES is ground zero for TV announcements, so each year I use this space to predict the major trends in TV tech. As you may know, CNET also runs the Best of CES awards, and I'll be picking the three most compelling HDTVs again this year. Chances are, one or more of the following trends will play a big part in the winner's pedigree.

Over the last five shows worth of prognostication--CES 2005, … Read more

On the heels of announcing a 15-inch OLED display going on sale in Korea this December, LG predicts that prices for panels using the coveted technology will fall below those of LCD panels in seven years.

"Forty-inch and larger OLED panels will be fairly expensive in 2012, but they will be available in the market," said Won Kim, VP of OLED sales and marketing, at a trade show in Japan yesterday. "OLED panels will cost less than LCD panels in 2016."

Allow me to dissect that prediction for a moment. Calling the affordability of any technology so far in advance is pretty bold, but 7 years is a long time and a lot can happen between now and then. But I think the main message to be gleaned from Kim's words for customers watching the market and still waiting for OLED is: don't. … Read more

A rocking chair with an integrated OLED lamp would in and of itself be cool enough to feature here on Crave, but the Murakami Chair is different. The power to run the light, you see, comes from your own rocking motion.

As you rock, nano-dynamos built into the chair's skids (I love a job where I get paid to type things like "nano-dynamos") convert the kinetic energy of the motion into power, which is stored in internal batteries during the day or sent straight to the light when dark.

The concept chair was developed by American designer … Read more

With the introduction of a solar-powered e-book from LG Display, owners will soon be able to read for hours on end, so long as they're outside and the sun is up.

This is because the new offering boasts both an e-book and a thin-film, 10cm solar cell. Surprise!

Four to five hours of sun exposure yields an additional day's worth of reading time. You can read inside too, of course, thanks to the battery, but if you do that how will you show off the fact that you're on the cutting edge and hip with your e-book? … Read more

CHIBA, Japan--Perhaps to distract from the fact that it has no organic light-emitting diode TV on display here at Ceatec 2009, Sony is instead showing off conceptual uses for its flexible OLED technology.

Mind you, these are just prototypes, nothing even close to a real product, like the XEL-1 TV that Sony actually sells but is notably absent from its booth here. But the ways the company is thinking of perhaps using its flexible display tech are certainly cool.

Take the dual OLED screen Vaio notebook. It features the 0.2 mm OLED on both the screen and keyboard area. … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Though LG's eye-popping OLED (organic light-emitting diode) display wowed audiences in Berlin last month, it's best not to get too excited. There's not going to be more where that came from, at least for a while.

The industry is still at least three years away from churning out standard-size televisions of 32 inches or larger at something approaching acceptable prices. And though Sony grabbed all the attention in early 2008 with its $2,500 11-inch OLED, it's faded into the background when it comes to nudging the technology forward. Initially promising to follow up with 21-inch and 27-inch models, Sony's deferred those plans while battling bigger problems with its TV business.

With Sony on the sidelines, it seemed like we were witnessing yet another false start for a technology that's been intent on challenging existing TV standards like LCD and plasma for almost half a decade now.

Beset by the standard issues that come with bringing a new technology into the mainstream, like the exorbitantly high cost of development, OLED TVs might be on the verge of shifting out of neutral as new standard bearers for the technology emerge. The ones to watch now are Samsung and LG Electronics, which have each signaled that they're ready to make larger investments in OLED technology for TVs. … Read more

Energized by their widespread use in cell phones, worldwide sales of OLED displays hit a record high of $192 million for the second quarter of the year, according to a report released this week by DisplaySearch.

Second-quarter sales of OLED displays rose 22 percent over the same period last year, and 32 percent over the first quarter of 2009, noted DisplaySearch's latest "Quarterly OLED Shipment and Forecast Report," which came out Monday.

The report said that shipments of AMOLED displays were especially strong thanks to their use in mobile phones, with more than 15 different AMOLED cell phone models released in 2009.

AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) screens use less energy than PMOLED (passive-matrix) displays, making them better-suited for portable devices such as phones and MP3 players.

"AMOLED displays have become an important differentiating feature for high-end electronic products," said Jennifer Colegrove, DisplaySearch director of display technologies, in a statement. "This technology is not only used for mobile phone main displays, but has also penetrated the market for portable media players, digital still cameras, and other applications."

Making OLED TVs has been a costly, time-consuming challenge for most manufacturers. Despite demonstrations of flashy new products from several companies, Sony remains the only firm with an OLED TV on the shelves. … Read more

How do OLED TVs from Sony and LG work? MIT professor Vladimir Bulovic explains using a glowing pickle and an accent to die for. Essentially, electrons pass through the pickle (or any other active organic matter) and charge the substance. When positive and negative charges collide, they release a photon (light).

This pickle represents just one of millions of OLEDs in a potential display. It also means that Vlassic stock will skyrocket if they can only cut those Bread and Butter chips a little bit smaller.

This story originally appeared on Gizmodo.

Microsoft's Zune HD portable media player has been sitting in a sealed box on my desk for two weeks now. Don't worry, I haven't lost my professional fascination with portable media players. The only reason the box has stayed sealed is because the Zune HD is little more than a $219 paperweight if it doesn't have the Zune 4.0 software client to connect to.

The wait is finally over. As of this morning, Microsoft's free Zune 4.0 software is available for download. Perfect timing, too, since the Zune HD officially goes on sale … Read more