OLED

Lux Research posted an interesting grid that shows how different display developers rate on technical value and business execution. It includes mature technologies like OLED and electrophoretic and emerging technologies such as electrochromic and electrofluidic displays.

E Ink comes up on top in both technical value and business execution is E Ink - with high score in technology and IP and strong partnerships and management team. In face, E Ink is the only company that scores a "strong positive" - with their nearly 100% market share of the electrophoretic market - which is used in products such as Amazon's Kindle and B&N Nook e-readers.

Update: The giveaway rules have changed a bit - in addition to liking the OLED-Info page, you'll need to like the giveaway post on facebook as well... The random winner will be chosen from all the people who like the post and are an OLED-Info fan as well. Good luck!

Our sister-site OLED-Info is running an holiday giveaway - with a chance to win a free copy of The OLED Handbook, and two phosphor world-time E Ink watches (which were kindly provided by E Ink). These three cool prizes will be randomly given to three lucky fans of OLED-Info's facebook page on January 1st. To participate, click like on the OLED-Info page, and also like the giveaway post.

The Phosphor world-time E Ink watch has a SURF (segmented) E Ink display that offers 24 time zones and several displays modes. It's a large watch, and it takes some time to get used to, but it looks good and draws a lot of attention... Here's our hands review of this watch. This watch costs $125 at Amazon.com (although it's currently out-of-stock).

Our sister-site OLED-Info launched a new book today - The OLED Handbook. This is a comprehensive guide to OLED technology, market and industry. There is a growing interest in OLEDs - from all over the world, and this guide can help introduce the subject quickly and throughly.

Reading this book, you'll learn all about:

• OLED technology and materials
• What kind of OLED displays are available today
• What is a Super AMOLED and a Clear Black display
• All about OLED lighting technology
• OLED lighting panels and lamps available today
• The future of OLED displays and lighting
• And lot's more!

Apple filed a new patent application describing a new hybrid display that can dynamically switch between a full-color LCD (or OLED) to a low power monochrome e-paper. Actually, the screen can be operate in the two modes together - where some parts of the image is seen via the LCD/OLED and the rest via the e-paper. It seems that Apple recognizes the advantages of an e-paper display for actual reading...

The idea is to make a display that has "multiple composite display regions", each made from a transparent e-paper panel on top of an LCD/OLED. The display has several independently activated backlight units, illuminating the LCD panels when necessary (this won't be necessary in an OLED, obviously, as it does not require backlighting at all). On top of the whole device there's a touch layet, too.

There's a new concept mobile phone called 'second-life' that uses a 'double-display' which is an OLED display on top of an E Ink display, and both are transparent. You can switch between the displays: so when power is low, you can use the E Ink to conserve battery. A nice touch is that if you're using the E Ink display, the degree of transparency of the display shows how much battery is remaining. The more transparent the display, the less battery remaining.

We're not sure if it's possible to create a transparent E Ink... but this concept design is nice in any case...

There are reports that Nemoptic declared bankruptcy. That's a shame, they seemed to have very interesting technology. Hopefully someone will pick it up and continue development...

Nemoptic has developed the world's first display that combines a color OLED with a monochrome Bistable Nematic LCD (Binem). The idea is that you can choose whether you want to have an OLED displays, or a e-paper like display, depending on the application and lighting condition (this somewhat reminds us of Pixel-Qi displays).

A Binem display, which is patented by Nemoptic offers the optical performance of a normal Nematic display but is still retains the image even without any power (i.e. it is bistable, like e-paper). Nemoptic displays are suitable for e-readers and other applications. Nemoptic claims that their displays offer a very high reflectance, a good contrast and good colors. They can also be made on flexible substrates - which means that the OLED/Binem display can probably be made flexible, too.

A while back we reviewed the Phosphor E Ink watch, and today we posted a review of a watch that uses an OLED display. It was interesting to compare the two displays outside. Not surprisingly, the OLED is almost useless outside, but the E Ink looks great in direct sunlight: