XEL-1

Sony says that they have stopped production of the XEL-1 OLED TV in Japan, and will stop selling it when they run out of inventory. They will continue to sell and produce the OLED TV for the US, EU and other markets though (which is a bit confusing, because they say they stopped producing it). Sony will also continue their OLED R&D. Still no news on any upcoming larger OLED TVs...

Sony XEL-1 OLED TV

Via Reuters

Here's a nice offer: you can get a fully paid-for house in Sydney if you volunteer to experience an eco-friendly smart home. This smart home includes solar panels, a fuel-cell, an electric car, and an OLED TV (probably Sony's XEL-1). One lucky family (it's gotta be a family with kids) will get this house for about a year, during which they'll try out the different technologies and blog about it, of course. The aim is to save between 20% to 50% of the energy required for such a house using the new technologies. 

More info here, but hurry up - registration closes on February 22nd...

Sony has installed 20 XEL-1 OLED TVs in the press gallery of the Amsterdam ArenA stadium. It seems that the responses has been great, and people are very impressed with the performance of the OLED TV displays. .

Via HDTV Nieuws

Intel is showing a new home-automation system concept, that is based on their Atom processor, and has a large (11") touch OLED display. The whole system is designed to be efficient, hence the Atom processor and OLED display. Intel's site is not consistent about the display size, in one place they say it's 11.25", and in another 11.56". In any case we're not sure who's making the actual OLED but it's probably based on a Sony panel as used in the XEL-1 OLED TV.

In any case, the concept is very nice, and looks great. It uses Zigbee wireless connection to connect to appliances around the home and provide "intelligent home energy management". Each appliance needs to be connected to a low-cost Zigbee transmitted socket in order for this to work. The OLED-based display provides a central control panel with information such as temperature, utility cost, personal messages, home security, a clock, weather, internet access, etc.

More information over at Intel's site.

LG has announced a new LED LCD TV, that's only 2.6mm thick. That's even thinner than Sony's XEL-1 OLED TV! The new TV is 42", weights only 4Kg (!) and has a 120Hz refresh rate. A few years ago, one of the advantages of OLEDs were being thin and light, but LCD has advanced very quickly in that respect - although OLEDs can be made much thinner, it doesn't seem to really matter any more, at least for TVs. Unless of course they'll start making rollable, flexible OLED TVs...

LG 2.6mm thick LED LCD

Via Gizmodo

We got word from a senior manager from LG Electronics that says that while the 15" OLED TV's price hasn't been decided yet, it will be in the range of 2,500$-3,000$ in Korea (due to launch in November). 

LG 15-inch OLED TV

Obviously this is a lot of money for a 15" TV. But it's about the same as Sony's 11" XEL-1 (which still costs 2,500$ in the US), so you get almost 40% more screen for the same money. Also this is the price for Korea, hopefully it will be lower when it launches worldwide in 2010.

The 15" OLED TV will have a 1366x768 resolution, 100,000:1 contrast ratio and it'll be only 1.7mm thick.

Sony has posted an interesting interview with Tetsuo Urabe (Senior Vice President, Display Device Development Group, Sony), together with 3 other Sony engineers received the 55th Okochi Memorial Award.

Tutsuo tells us how they started with a 13-inch prototype in 2001, the challenges in establishing mass-production of OLED displays, and the difficult work they had to do in order to meet the December 2007 shipment deadline.