LG and Bang & Olufsen, which partnered recently on a headphone and smartphone matchup, unveiled at IFA Wednesday their first joint effort in the home entertainment space. The BeoVision Eclipse TV, which engineers from both companies began working on last year in separate locations -- LG’s Seoul design labs and B&O's Struer, Denmark, facility -- is the first OLED TV from Bang & Olufsen. The collaboration with LG is the beginning of Bang & Olufsen's strategy to strengthen its technology offerings through partnerships, allowing the Danish company to focus on acoustics, design and craftsmanship, it said. B&O will optimize its supply chain, development, production and service to improve prospects for long-term profitability, it said. Technical specifications weren't given.

The global market for OLED encapsulation materials is expected to expand at a 16 percent compound annual growth rate the next four years, reaching $232.5 million in 2021, said an IHS Markit report. Chinese and South Korean panel makers “have aggressively invested in new OLED fabs, resulting in the increase in OLED shipments in terms of area,” and hence the growing demand for encapsulation materials, said IHS. Metal-based encapsulation materials are expected to lead the market in revenue because they're mainly used for OLED TVs, where the growth in OLED panels is fastest, it said. “However, with Chinese smartphone brands releasing a wide range of new products with OLED panels, demand for frit glass encapsulation materials, which are currently applied to smartphones with rigid-OLED displays, will remain steady, though losing its market share.”

3M introduced what it calls a “high clarity privacy filter” that’s said to provide a vivid viewing experience on a monitor, laptop or tablet, while helping to protect the privacy of sensitive information displayed on it. The filter provides 30 percent more clarity than the company’s Black Privacy filters, 3M said. Target use cases are spreadsheets, graphic designs and computer-aided design projects on high-end display devices such as Apple computers and Retina displays, it said. The filter provides effective blackout privacy from side views outside a 60-degree viewing angle, 3M said, and it reduces blue-light transmissions from screens by 35 percent. It also protects against dust and scratches, said the company. The filters are available for 14 monitors and laptops with screen sizes 13-27 inches.

QLED should be used generically as a term for the entire display industry, suggested Touch Display Research analyst Jennifer Colegrove in a Monday release. Samsung applied for the trademark "Samsung QLED TV" with the Patent and Trademark Office in 2016, but it indicated it wanted QLED to be seen as a generic term like OLED or LED when used with any TVs using quantum dots, Colegrove said. Quantum dot (including quantum rod and tetrapod-shaped quantum dot) is capable of improving liquid crystal display (LCD) dramatically in color gamut, color accuracy and power consumption, Colegrove said, calling quantum dot “one of the biggest breakthrough technologies for LCD” in recent years and one that could challenge AMOLED. In a timeline of quantum dot advances, Colegrove noted QD Vision and Sony brought quantum dot TVs to the market in 2013; Nanosys, 3M and Amazon brought the technology to tablets in 2013; and Samsung announced SUHD TV with quantum dot at CES 2015, commercializing it since. LG announced quantum dot TVs at CES 2015, but later scaled back those efforts as it ramped up OLED. In general, quantum dot has been a “hot topic” at CES from 2015-2017; at SID DisplayWeek from 2013-2017; and at IFA from 2014-2017, she said. In the early years, "QLED," "QDEL" and "QD-LED" were used in academic papers referencing electro-luminescent (EL) types of quantum dot, wherein an electric current applied to quantum dot material generates light. That approach is in the R&D phase, Colegrove said. Touch Display Research believes QLED should be an umbrella term for any quantum dot display. When the EL type quantum dot technology enters the market, which Touch Display Research forecasts for beyond 2019, the analyst suggests calling it "QLED EL type."

The Society for Information Display is creating an “industrial achievement prize” for 2018 named after the late RCA Chairman David Sarnoff “to honor individuals for long-term and significant leadership and/or exceptional contributions to the advancement of the information display industry,” SID said in a Wednesday announcement. The award gives SID the opportunity “to recognize outstanding recipients who would not qualify for one of SID's technical achievement awards but who nonetheless have had a profound, positive effect on the display industry,” it said. Nominations for the prize, which will command a $2,000 cash award donated by panel maker BOE, are due Oct. 15, SID said. The first Sarnoff prize will be given at the Display Week 2018 conference May 20-25 in Los Angeles, it said.

Abstracts and summaries are due Dec. 1 for papers to be presented at the Display Week 2018 technical symposium May 20-25 in Los Angeles, said the Society for Information Display Tuesday in a call for papers. Though SID seeks contributions on a wide range of display issues and technologies, “special topics” to be emphasized at next year’s symposium will include virtual and augmented reality, artificial intelligence, quantum dots and micro-LEDs and wearable displays, sensors and devices, it said.

UniPixel is working with GIS, Foxconn’s touch-display subsidiary, on joint development of touch sensors for flexible displays, said Chief Operating Officer Jalil Shaikh on a Thursday earnings call. “GIS has decided to work with us after evaluating multiple metal mesh sensor technology” manufacturers, said Shaikh. “Qualification data” gleaned from the GIS joint development project “will be used with other flexible display manufacturers we're working with,” he said. “We have numerous ongoing discussions with additional potential partners for future technology development, especially for flexible affordable display applications.” There’s “considerable discussion” in the industry about “the potential for flexible OLED devices,” said Shaikh. The “brittle nature” of the indium tin oxide, touch-screen technology that’s in broad use “will not support flexible and foldable applications,” he said. “The ability of our sensors to flex, fold and conform to certain shapes will be a competitive advantage for UniPixel as next-generation applications, such as wearable technology, smartphones and other applications begin to hit the market.” Foldable and flexible sensors and displays need to be very thin, especially in smartphone applications, and UniPixel’s new DiamondTouch application with the “thinnest stack in the industry is a perfect solution” because it doesn’t require cover glass, he said. Flexible and foldable displays represent potentially a “very large new market for UniPixel,” he said The company thinks its “unique attributes could add another $2 billion to $3 billion to our addressable market,” he said.

Sony demoed its Xperia touch projector at its Holiday Showcase in New York Wednesday, showing how the technology turns a flat surface into a 10-point touch screen. The 720p Xperia Touch projects an image up to 80 inches but touch-screen mode is available only in the 23-inch projection size, a spokesman told us. The projector’s home screen showed an array of apps available in touch-screen mode, including Google Maps, Google Earth, Skype, Real Piano, Warm Oil Painting and Chess. The projector includes homegrown Sony voice control. The touch functionality enables “collaborative gaming” for families, he said. Sony is planning a promotion tied to Amazon Alexa devices, Joseph Sam, a Sony product marketing trainer, told us during an OLED TV demo at the event. The TV maker announced last week that its Android TVs can be controlled via Alexa after customers install a firmware update (see 1707130036). Sam said under the promotion, customers who buy a 4K Sony TV will get an offer for $15 off an Echo device purchase. Further details weren’t available.

Mainstream penetration of AMOLED displays in the global smartphone market will reach 50 percent by 2020, said a TrendForce report Monday. Confirmation of Samsung Display Co. (SDC) as an Apple AMOLED panel supplier for upcoming iPhones “has spurred other smartphone brands and panel makers to aggressively invest” in AMOLED, it said. SDC has been actively pursuing other sources of demand besides Samsung to expand its AMOLED presence, said TrendForce. “The reveal of the next iPhone’s specifications has accelerated the deployment of AMOLED displays for other smartphone brands,” including Chinese panel makers, said analyst Boyce Fan. BOE Technology and Tianma’s altered fab plans, “turning newly built facilities initially reserved for LTPS panel production into AMOLED panel fabs,” and the two are expected to begin trial production in the second half, Fan said. Other Chinese panel makers likely will build more AMOLED panel fabs in the near term, buoyed by government support and a well-capitalized domestic market, but AMOLED manufacturing has challenging technological barriers, said Fan. Suppliers must improve on complicated manufacturing processes such as deposition of the organic layer and encapsulation, he said. SDC has dominated the market for small-size AMOLED displays, but some smartphone makers have been wary of committing to a single supplier and are encouraging competing display makers to “catch up,” said Fan. LG Display will begin mass production of flexible AMOLED panels at a generation-six fab in second half 2017 for “non-Apple customers,” he said.

LG Display blames the South Korean government for not letting it showcase at last month’s Display Week in Los Angeles the 77-inch flexible, transparent OLED display that it bowed Thursday (see 1706220004), Jean Lee, spokeswoman for the panel maker, emailed us. The “cutting edge” 77-inch display “is the result of the Korean government's project which started from 2012,” said Lee. “In other words, we are bound to the government's timeline and schedule.” In its Thursday announcement, LG Display said it “has consistently advanced the fundamental technologies that enable large-sized flexible and transparent OLED displays in collaboration with the Korean government, which sees OLEDs as the future display technology.”