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]

January 6 - 8:40pm EST   Ending doubts that the products would be released in the US, Sony began its CES time by announcing US versions of the XEL-1 and the Rolly. The former is the Americanized version of the world's first production organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV and uses the technology to produce an exceptionally high 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio from a panel just 0.1 inches thick. Switching to OLED also reduces power by about 40 percent from a 20-inch LCD, according to Sony. [full story]