Fossil's 5-Gen Wear-OS smartwatch lineup (called Carlyle HR and Julianna HR) sport a round 1.28" 328PPI AMOLED display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 3100 chipset, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, NFC, heart rate sensor and a swim-proof speaker.
Fossil's new smartwatches are already shipping for $295.
Samsung's Galaxy Note 10 is the company's 2019 flagship phablet device, featuring a 6.3" 2280x1080, 401 PPI, Dynamic Infinity-O AMOLED AMOLED display (6.8" 3040x1440, 498 PPI, on the Note 10+) with an under-the-display fingerprint sensor, a Snapdragon 855 processor, 8GB (10GB on the Note 10+) of RAM, 256GB of storage and a triple-camera setup. The Note 10+ has a 5G model.
For the Note 10 and 10+, Samsung upgraded the S Pen with a new design and capabilities and worked with Microsoft to enable Windows Live mirroring support for the Note 10.
China-based OLED producer Visionox announced plans to establish a flexible and foldable OLED module factory in Guangzhou, China. Together with the local government, Visionox plans to invest 11.2 billion Yuan (around $1.6 billion USD) in this new factory.
Visionox did not provide any time frame for this new fab. The company is currently operating a 6-Gen AMOLED production line in Hebei (with a monthly capacity of 30,000 substrates) and has announced plans to establish a similar flexible OLED line in Hefei in a $6.3 billion investment.
According to a report from Korea, LG Display is discussing the sale of open-cell OLED panels with TV makers, including China-based Skyworth. The Korean's Elec suggests that LG Display will start offering open-cell OLEDs from its Guangzhou fab which is expected to start producing OLED TV panels by the end of the month.
An open-cell panel can lower the costs for TV makers as each can decide on the assembly process and driver ICs. It could also lead to more innovation and differentiation. Many LCD TV panels are sold in that fashion - but for LG's OLED this will be the first time.
Samsung's Galaxy Watch Active 2 is a Tizen OS based smartwatch that features either a 1.2" 360x360 or 1.4" 360x360 round Super AMOLED displays, covered with Corning Gorilla Glass DX+.
The Watch Active 2 is based on a 1.15Ghz Exynos 9110 dual-core chipset with 768Mb of RAM (1.5Gb in the LTE models) and 4GB of internal storage.
Researchers from Japan's Kyushu University developed new OLED devices made by integrating OLED emitters with thick layers of hybrid perovskite materials. The researchers say that such a device structure to enable lower-cost production and better viewing angles in OLED displays.
OLED devices usually use a very thin layer of organic materials, as these are poor conductors, which makes production more difficult and also leads to cavity effects which distorts the emission color. The thick perovskite-OLED hybrid layer (which is around 2,000 nm thick) are more easily processed compared to thin film layers while still being highly conductive.
The South Korean government says it will spend around $6.5 billion in the next five years to help the local materials, components and equipment sectors and lower its dependence on Japanese imports. This follows Japan's government decision to restrict some material exports, including fluorinated polyimide, to South Korea, following a diplomatic tension between the two countries.
Korea hopes to ensure a stable supply of 100 strategic items (selected from a list of 1,100 industrial items that are imported mostly from Japan) and will assist local R&D activities, lower import barriers and reach out to suppliers in other countries. Korea mostly aims to protect its chips, displays, cars, electronics, equipment and chemicals industries.
