T-Mobile is now shipping HTC's One S phone for $199.99 (after a $50 rebate). The One S is an Android V4 (ICS) phone that features a 4.3" Super AMOLED display, dual-core 1.5Ghz CPU, a new version of the Sense UI (4.0), a 8mp camera and a uniformly thin alloy unibody that's only 7.9mm thick.
MIT's Media Lab unveiled a new project called the OLED Display Blocks that uses a six-sided "cube" to provide a 360-degree perspective. The current prototype uses six 1.25" 128x128 PMOLED panels, but in the future larger cubes can be made. MIT's envisions all sorts of applications for such cubes: visualizing data with different parameters shown in each side, collaborating, showing movies with interweaving stories simultaneously and more:
Universal Display announced it will supply phosphorescent OLED materials to the Fraunhofer Institute which will use them to make efficient white OLED lighting panels. The two companies signed a two-year agreement under which COMEDD will develop and produce OLED panels "for market development". The upcoming panels will use UDC's all-phosphorescent solution.
The Fraunhofer is already producing and shipping OLED lighting panels, including structured and transparent ones (we posted our on-hands review just yesterday). The Fraunhofer does not plan to mass produce their panels, they are just meant to help interested people experiment with this exciting new technology. Of course in the future the Fraunhofer may license or spin-off its production technology.
The Fraunhofer Institute first announced their Tabola OLED lighting panels back in October 2010, with plans to release them in Q1 2011. We haven't heard anything since (and I assumed the project was scrapped) - but last week I got a nice surprise in the mail: three sample panels (two transparent, one structured). The Fraunhofer are now producing sample panels and have actually started to ship these cool transparent Tabola OLEDs to customers now - which makes these the first transparent OLED lighting panels on the market. Read on for our hands-on review.
There are reports that Panasonic decided to establish a Gen-6 OLED TV pilot production line in their Himeji LCD plant. The investment will total around ¥20-30 billion ($245-370 million). In December 2011 it was reported that Panasonic is working on an 8.5-Gen Pilot R&D line at Himeji. After CES, Pansonic's president confirmed that they are working towards OLED TVs.
According to the new reports, Panasonic hasn't decided on their mass production plans yet, but it seems that in order to avoid the massive investment required they will collaborate with another manufacturer at that stage.
The Korea Herald reports that Sony is in talks with Samsung to purchase OLED TV panels. Sony wants to launch their OLED TVs in 2013 and officials from both companies have met last week to work out the pricing and supply volume.
Samsung's Super OLED TV technology uses direct emission OLEDs (as opposed to LG Display's white subpixels with color filters architecture) and an LTPS backplane. The first Samsung Super OLED TV will be 55" in size and feature Smart TV and Smart-Interaction technologies. Samsung still wouldn't reveal the model number officially, but it seems that it will be called KN55ES9000, price or release date, although they do promise it will ship by Q2 or Q3 2012.
AUO's mobile solution BU manager Dr. T.K. Wu says that OLED penetration in the smartphone sector will reach over 10% in 2012, and he expects OLED panel prices to drop in the next two years - to the point where small to medium sized panel prices will be comparable to LCDs.
Dr. Wu also predicts that OLED panels will be adopted for smartphones and TV applications, but they may not be used in notebook and monitors "due to factors in the IT industry and price competition".
LG Display announced today that they opened a new R&D center that will focus on next-generation display panels (including OLED and panels) in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. The center resides in a 15-story building and LGD hopes that bringing together researchers and developers from all over the country to one place will bring more synergy and accelerate development. Paju is also hosts LGD's 8.5-Gen OLED TV fab, and the company's flexible OLED R&D line.
The center will host around 2,500 workers - and relocation will complete by May 2012. The center will by a "mecca of high-tech display technologies such as OLED, e-paper and ultra-high resolution AH-IPS displays".
Samsung announced two new cameras today, and both of them has the same display: 3" VGA AMOLED (with PenTile). The NX20 is Samsung's flagship interchangeable lens camera. It has 20.3 mp APS-C CMOS sensor, has a built-in SVGA EVF, Wi-Fi, Full-HD video and the ISO range is up to 12,800.
The second camera, the NX210 is a minor upgrade to the NX200: it adds Wi-Fi and a tweaked image sensor. Other features stay the same - a 20.3 mp sensor, Full-HD videos and the same AMOLED display.
Huawei announced that it will start shipping the Ascend P1 S in May. The first country to offer it will be Japan, followed by other countries in Asia and then Latin America (in June) and finally Europe later in the summer. US availability wasn't announced.
The P1 S is the world's slimmest phone according to Huawei - only 6.68 mm thin. It has a 4.3" qHD (960x540) Super AMOLED display, Gorilla Glass, 8mp camera, a dual-core 1.5Ghz CPU, 1GB of RAM and Android v4.0.
