December 29 - 4:15pm EST   The world's biggest cellphone maker, Finland's Nokia, has applied for a patent that could eventually result in a phone or other portable electronic device that folds in four. According to the concept illustrations, two of the folding panels might be dedicated to the screen, while the other pair might form a large QWERTY keyboard, allowing for a notebook-like interface. It is not known whether the device will indeed be a smartphone, a UMPC or something in-between. [full story]

December 2 - 4:55pm EST   In a speech made last week at a seminar in Tokyo, Woo Jong Lee, the Vice President of the Mobile Display Marketing Team of Samsung SDI, said the joint venture between Samsung Electronics and Samsung SDI will bring active matrix organic LED (OLED) displays to market in notebooks by 2010. Lee pointed out advantages of the new display technology, saying by 2010, burn-in for active-matrix OLED panels won't happen for more than 2,000 hours of use. The OLED panels will be used in notebooks first because of their demanding requirements. [full story]

November 24 - 4:25pm EST   South Korean scientists say they have developed a new material they call "true blue" that should speed up the development of organic light-emitting displays (OLEDs), according to a weekend report. The announcement comes from a chemistry professor at Pusan National University, Jin Sung-Ho, who led the state-funded project, which was performed in conjunction with engineers at Seoul National University. Up until now, scientists had trouble developing efficient blue lights for the application. OLEDs require green, red and blue lights in their screens for proper color reproduction. [full story]

November 24 - 10:30am EST   Samsung concept phone features folding OLED screen At the FPD International show recently held in Japan, Samsung showed off a cellphone with a flexible folding OLED screen that, when opened, is larger than displays from any competitor. The handset features a vertical hinge and opens like a book. Once opened, the OLED display is about 5 inches in size. The unnamed handset also has a more conventional LED display on the front panel. That front panel also sports basic phone buttons, but there is no physical keypad, suggesting the smaller display is touch-sensitive. [full story]

October 10 - 4:30pm EDT   At the Plastic Electronic 2008 show, the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems showed the first touch-controlled flat light source. Because Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) are cold to the touch, they could act as ideal touch controls. The innovation lies in the lack of any additional foils traditionally required to operate the light, which is both a switch and a source. Therefore, no additional hardware is required as the OLED is used to read the touch signal. [full story]

September 11 - 9:10am EDT   At its dealer convention held in Japan on Wednesday, Sony introduced a new Organic LED (OLED) TV prototype that uses batteries for installation or mounting flexibility along with a wireless connection to its tuner. While speakers are built-in and must therefore be powered by the battery as well, Sony executives say the lower power consumption of an OLED panel make batteries a viable solution to powering the TV, though they did not reveal battery life or more details on the wireless HD video and audio signal transmission. [full story]

August 21 - 4:30pm EDT   Kodak has placed an order with Chi Mei EL (CMEL) for 7.6-inch OLED displays for use in the company's digital photo frames, according to today's report. CMEL specializes in manufacturing OLED panels and is owned by LCD maker Chi Mei Optoelectronics. The supplier is expected to start production of the 7.6-inch panels in September and ship them to Kodak in time for sale during the holiday shopping season. [full story]

August 21 - 1:00pm EDT   Toshiba Matsushita Display (TMD) and Idemitsu Kosan say they have devised a new form of screen, one which could substantially improve the performance of cellphone displays. The technology is based on an OLED variant called SMOLED -- Small-Molecule Organic LED -- and in a sample, 2.2-inch QVGA screen, consumes an average of just 100mW of power. Its luminosity half-life is meanwhile rated at 60,000 hours, close to seven years of continuous operation, or 30 times longer than previous TMD designs. [full story]

June 27 - 4:05pm EDT   Panasonic will not bring a 37-inch OLED TV to market by 2011 as reported on Tuesday, according to the company. Panasonic executives are instead hinting its OLED TVs will be sold to consumers closer to 2015, although they are officially keeping tight-lipped about specific timelines, saying only that research and development is ongoing in Japan. [full story]

June 24 - 10:35am EDT   Panasonic under its current Matsushita parent name said on Tuesday that the company is in the last stages of drafting plans for a 37-inch, OLED-based HDTV. Actual designs and development are still in the future but should see a screen available within three years that should be priced below $1,400, putting the new display technology within competition of today's existing LCD screens. [full story]

May 22 - 9:55am EDT   Sony executive Yoshito Shiraishi has revealed at the SID display expo that his company is confident enough in the development of OLED technology that it plans to make a major investment in the technology for the second half of this year. The TV producer will invest the equivalent of $210 million to help it produce larger OLED displays and expects medium-sized and larger versions of the ultra-thin screens to enter production in the same second-half 2008 timeframe. The company expects a larger-still range of OLED panels between 2009 and 2010, Shiraishi says. [full story]

April 24 - 9:25pm EDT   LG will be rolling out its 8G television line at least half a year ahead of other Taiwanese rivals, including S-LCD, AU Optronics, and Chi Mei Optoelectronics. According to DIGITIMES, the Korean electronics manufacturer already completed its fabrication shells, and has scheduled production to begin by March 2009, and full-scale production of 32 inch OLED TVs to commence in 2011. LG's competitors will start production in late 2008. [full story]

April 22 - 12:30pm EDT   Production of AMOLED panels should finally reach mainstream levels in 2009, according to Woo-Jong Lee, the VP of Samsung's mobile display marketing group. AMOLED is one of several display technologies that may replace stalwarts like plasma or LCD; in particular, AMOLED is said to provide higher contrast and response, as well as wider viewing angles and longer battery life. The difficulty so far, according to Lee, has been production costs -- at present, AMOLED is only economical for smaller products such as cellphones, and continues to be rare regardless. [full story]

April 2 - 2:50pm EDT   The technology and costs are in place that Apple may still introduce an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screen with an upcoming generation of the iPhone, according to an interview Electronista has conducted with Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney. While making it clear that claims of mass production of a 3G iPhone last week were not predictions but rather just "credible" numbers based on expectations, the researcher maintains that OLED is a realistic possibility for the iPhone's display due to power requirements for 3G radios, which almost always consume more energy than 2G radios. [full story]

February 19 - 12:15pm EST   Sony will spend roughly $203.5 million on developing technology to build medium to large Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) panels for use in TVs and monitors, the company announced today. While Sony already has an OLED TV on the market that exemplifies the ultra-thin design of OLEDs at 3mm (0.12in) thick, the XEL-1, its display measures just 11 inches across and is priced out of most hands at about $2,500 in the US. [full story]