I'm trying out a new feature here at OLED-Info: Polls. The first one is about OLED in laptops. LG said they may start producing their 15" displays within 6 months, if they get customers. We know that Samsung has 14.1" AMOLED panels as well, probably close to production.

It still remains whether laptop makers will take the plunge and introduce an OLED laptop. It will bound to be more expensive... but how much more will people be willing to pay for an OLED laptop? It will be gorgeous looking and save batter life and enable thinner laptops... but the money is obviously a crucial factor.

It'll be interesting to see what OLED-Info readers have to say. So help and vote ;-)

You can see the poll in the right-side of our home page, or through this link.

There are reports that the new OQO Model 02+ UMPC OLED display is not as efficient as you'd expect. The PC is not available yet, but there are some pre-production models around, and someone tried to see how much power the display takes.

OQO Model 02+ photo

As far as I understand, they tested the  power-consumption of the entire PC - and it's not so good - but it may be the fault of other components and not just the display. 

There seems to be a new Sony Ericsson Slider Cyber-shot phone for the Japanese market. It includes a 3.3" AMOLED (fWVGA), and a 8Mp camera.

Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot OLED Phone photo

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...

Samsung Mobile Display will Focus On AMOLEDs (which is no big surprise, really, but always good to hear confirmations).

"With AM OLED business, Samsung Mobile Display will seize the worldwide
display market," said Ho-moon Kang, CEO of Samsung Mobile Display in
his inauguration speech on Thursday.

During the Photonics West 2009 the Fraunhofer IPMS will present the prototype of a bi-directional OLED microdisplay with an imaging CMOS photo diode matrix interlaced in a QVGA display (12 x 9 mm²), both are integrated and work at the CMOS chip.

Furthermore, an optical flux sensor will be presented, which includes the required light source on the CMOS-sensor chip. A CMOS photo diode line allows the detection of the speed of a particle flow and an embedded OLED light source in the form of stripes in parallel to the photo diode line provides the illumination of the medium.

Due to the achieved reduction of the expenditure regarding the construction and circuit technology numerous applications of those devices are enabled. Fields of application vary from chemistry, medicine to life science. Other applications of OLED-on-CMOS include light barriers, opto-couplers and optical communications.

Maxim Integrated Products has developed the MAX17065 highly integrated power-management IC (PMIC) with a step-up DC/DC converter, an inverting DC/DC converter, regulated positive and negative charge pumps, and a low-dropout linear regulator (LDO).

The MAX17065 is used to drive AMOLED displays, aimed for cellphones, camera, MP3 players and other products.

The MAX17065 is available in a space-efficient, 4mm x 4mm, 28-pin TQFN package and is fully specified over the -40°C to +85°C extended temperature range. Pricing starts at $1.20 (for 1000+ orders).

OSD, an OLED reseller says that they had a good year in 2008, and they hope to see a nice growth in sales for 2009.

OSD is not selling just OLEDs, but they do say that they won many new color OLED design wins - so we're expecting new devices soon.

They will also get new, larger AMOLED displays in 2009. The largest one they carry currently is the 7.6" one from CMEL.

Not sure if this should be posted as OLED news... but MIT Labs has introduced a new small Cute Robot that has OLED eyes. The robot is called TOFU, and it applies techniques of social expression long used by 2D animators
to explore the impact on robotics.

LG Display has posted a quarterly loss of around 500M$, the first loss in two years - due to falling prices and slow demand for TVs. It did however post a record in sales and operating profits for the entire of 2008.

The company will invest 425M$ to increase capacity of small-sized displays (including OLEDs probably). 

LG also said they will invest more in AMOLEDs or Solar Cells.