OK, this is obviously some wild speculation. Australia's Smarthouse reports that Apple is in talks with LG Display to supply 55" OLED TV panels for an Apple OLED TV. There are indeed some rumors that Apple wants to introduce their own TV, and of course they are looking for ways to differentiate this. And if any company can get away with the premium cost these panels will carry, it's probably Apple.

While we know that LG Display plans to start making 55" OLED TV panels in 2012, we are still quite skeptical here. LG's capacity will be very low at first (probably thousands of units a month, at best) - and this will not be enough for Apple. But we can hope, can we?

Earlier today we learned that LG Display decided to stop investing in small and medium sized OLEDs. Now we hear that LG Display's CEO commented that Samsung is misleading the market - because OLED displays are not suitable for smartphones and tablets - "OLED displays are not suitable in terms of picture quality, response time, energy consumption and contrast ratios".

Samsung Super-AMOLED display

That is a very strange comments by LG - as we know that people love OLED displays. In fact recent reviews of Samsung's Super AMOLED Plus displays were raving - Engadget for example says that the Super AMOLED Plus is spectacular, and is on-par with Apple's Retina display. If the recent reports about Samsung's Super AMOLED HD displays are true - then this display will beat an IPS-LCD display hands down.

Apple filed a new patent for a glasses-free 3D device that uses multiple transparent display layers. The different layers would actually allow for visual depth to be seen by the users.

Apple's patent specifically mentions OLED panels as the technology used to make the transparent displays: "The use of OLED panels may provide an advantage over traditional display devices, since OLED panels do not require a backlight to function, and may therefore be much thinner and lighter than backlit display panels. OLED panels are further capable of displaying deep black levels and can naturally achieve a high contrast ratio."

LG Display's CEO (Kwon Young-soo) says that the company decided to stop investing in small/medium sized OLED panels. The company will focus on their AH-IPS (Advanced High Performance In-Plane Switching) LCDs instead - which are more profitable and also has less flows then LGD's OLEDs (update: Kwon Young-soon thinks that Samsung are misleading the public because their OLEDs aren't good enough).

LGD will probably still produce AMOLEDs in the recently opened Gen-4.5 plant (they are already supplying panels to Nokia) - but it seems that LGD will not expand the monthly capacity to 12,000 as planned (currently they make 4,000 substrates a month).

MBraun released three nice videos showing their OLED processing equipment. The first one shows the UV-03 Cleaner - for the cleaning and activation of glass substrates or other optical surfaces using a simultaneous application of UV light and oxygen. This tool is used in both the coating and the encapsulation processes:

The second video shows the Vacuum Hotplate - used for both basic research and manufacturing. The combination of vacuum and heat transfer allows curing at modest conditions, addressing the sensitivity of organic materials to elevated temperatures:

Samsung Electronics says that they expects to start selling the Galaxy S II in the US in August. The S II is Samsung's quickest selling phone - selling 3 million units just 55 days after its release.

Samsung's Galaxy S2 is the successor to the popular Galaxy S. It has a 4.3" WVGA Super AMOLED plus display, 1.2Ghz dual-core processor, NFC, Bluetooth 3 and HSPA+. It's only 8.49mm thick at its thinnest point.

eMagin says that they expect revenues of about $7.4 million in 2Q 2011 - as the company's production output still did not meet the target level. The Company continues to take the necessary steps to increase production output (adding extra shifts, preventive maintenance and new equipment). They say that production should show improvement in the second half of the year. In addition, capacity and yields are projected to improve further in 2012 - when the next generation OLED deposition machine will be on-line.

Due to the lower than planned production output coupled with the delay into 2012 of two military programs totaling approximately $6.0 million in revenue, eMagin is now projecting revenue between $29.0 million and $33.0 million for fiscal 2011. That's lower than the $35 to $40 million guidance issued in March 2011.

Remember Toshiba's portable OLED lamp? Universal Display donated OLED materials and technology for those lamps. It seems that Toshiba made the actual panels (which was a surprise to us because we didn't know they had an OLED lighting program) as UDC provided only knowhow and materials. This is the first time we hear of a collaboration between UDC and Toshiba, but we don't know whether it extends beyond this specific project.

Toshiba will make 100 units of this lamp, and donate these to quake-hit areas (50 units were already donated to the evacuation center in Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture). Toshiba has no plans to sell these to consumers.

Olympus' PEN E-P3 interchangeable lens type digital camera is now shipping for $899. That's actually earlier than expected (the official release date was August 2011). The E-P3 has the world's fastestauto-focus, a new 12.3mp Live MOS Sensor, Full-HD movie encoding and a 3" VGA OLED touch display.

The Organic Electronics Association (OEA) recently released their latest OE brochure, to which they attached a very cool demonstrator - an organic solar cell (PV) powered flashlight:

What feels like a bit of cardboard actually contains a a roll-to-roll printed organic solar cell, a flexible lithium-ion battery and a printed electronic circuitry. And of course a small white LED. The association says that this can "give you the feeling" of the next generation of electronics: thin, lightweight, flexible and produced at a low cost.