With Thursday’s announcement that LG Display developed the world’s first 77-inch flexible and transparent Ultra HD OLED display, the panel maker exceeded its own 2014 forecast when it said it was “confident” it would fashion a flexible, transparent OLED panel with 4K resolution bigger than 60 inches by 2017. The new display has 40 percent transparency, LG Display said in the Thursday announcement. It also has a curvature of 80R, said the panel maker. That means the panel can be rolled up to a radius of 80 millimeters (3.1 inches) without damaging its functionality, the company said. The 2014 announcement predicted the flexible transparent large-screen OLED display of 2017 would have a curvature of 100R. LG Display representatives didn’t comment Thursday on why the company waited until now to unveil the innovation rather than announcing it at last month’s Display Week conference, where it showcased a 77-inch wallpaper TV and a smaller transparent OLED display prototype that wasn't flexible (see 1705240047).

​The FTC is launching a “regulatory review” of the “picture tube rule” it has had on the books for five decades to prevent deceptive practices in advertising TV screen sizes and promote uniformity in screen measurement, the agency said in a Thursday notice soon to be published in the Federal Register. Though tube TVs to which the rule originally applied are virtually extinct in the U.S., the rule has remained intact and largely unchanged since its birth in 1966. The FTC last sought comment in an April 2005 notice on whether to change or update the rule to account for the industry’s migration to widescreen flat-panel TVs, but decided in a follow-up notice eight months later to keep the rule “in its current form.” In its new review, the agency seeks comments by Aug. 31 on whether there's a “continuing need” for the rule, and if so, which of its provisions should be changed or eliminated. The agency also wants to know if there are “unfair or deceptive practices” not covered by the rule “relating to the advertising and promotion of the viewable picture size” of TV screens, it said. It also seeks comments on whether it should “broaden” the rule to include products “not currently covered,” it said.

The FCC Media Bureau is seeking comment on a Fiat Chrysler petition for waivers of accessibility rules for the rear seat entertainment systems in 7,176 Dodge Journeys, said a public notice issued Tuesday in docket 12-108. Comments are due July 7, replies July 18. The vehicles were given to dealers without the audio files necessary for the accessibility functions required by FCC user interface rules, the PN said. “The issue inadvertently resulted from supplier error.” Chrysler instructed dealers to update the 2,736 unsold Journeys with the proper files, and will install the required files on the 4,440 sold Journeys when they return to the dealership in response to notifications Chrysler is sending. The automaker wants a retroactive waiver for the unsold vehicles, and a permanent one for the sold ones, the PN said.

Lack of “channel access,” more so than the high cost of quantum-dot enhancement films, is likely why TCL North America says it won’t support quantum-dot TVs anytime soon, Jason Hartlove, CEO of quantum-dot materials supplier Nanosys, told us. Though TCL markets quantum-dot TVs “in most countries,” it doesn’t do so in the U.S., where $500 is the price point at which most TVs are sold, and TCL needs to “worry about scale,” said TCL North America Senior Vice President Chris Larson at the Display Week conference (see 1705220029). “I don’t want to contradict what he said,” Hartlove said of Larson. “But I think a big part of their issue is actually channel access in the North American market on those Black Friday sales,” he said. “Even having something that’s super-cheap and putting it up doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to get the kind of volume that someone else is going to, given the different level of channel access that they have.” TCL North America representatives didn't comment Monday. Nanosys has “always been seeking to sell more materials” for use in quantum-dot TVs for the mass market, Hartlove said. “Our primary business model is sale of materials, and so more area means more tonnage, more tonnage means more revenue for us. It’s the only way we really grow. So as we look into where we want to go, we want to see 10 million units, we want to see 50 million units, using this technology, and we know those figures very well. We know that that’s not going to be possible just playing at the high end. So we have architectures that will continue to bring down the cost of q-dot, and at the same time, we’ll continue to improve other implementations at the high end.”

Silicon Valley startup PixelDisplay is using the Display Week 2017 conference in Los Angeles to showcase its “Vivid Color” technology with the bold claim it can render wide color gamut performance that exceeds that of OLED or quantum dots. The technology is applicable to a wide range of consumer displays and retains “the key benefits” of inorganic LEDs, it said in a Thursday announcement. "Portable consumer display devices face a challenge” in that the “dynamic, colorful experience” of Ultra HD content “is very compelling," the company said. "But makers of these products find it difficult to swallow the TV display solutions for achieving better brightness, dynamic range and color gamut.” Quantum-dot films and light bars “add thickness, can lower efficiency, increase bezel-size or leak blue-light,” while OLED remains expensive to manufacture and “exhibits shorter lifetime,” it said. PixelDisplay said it's offering "an option that can go beyond OLED and heavy metal QDs, could match lasers in display color gamut and more, without the laser-speckle-artifacts, or eye-damage warning label."

Chinese LCD panel makers will leave their mark on global supply and demand this year as they shift away from 32-inch panel to larger sizes, said an IHS Markit report. Chinese panel makers including BOE, CEC-Panda, HKC and CSOT had 33.2 percent of the worldwide LCD TV panel market in 2015 and 2016, behind Korean panel makers at 36.4 percent and ahead of Taiwan panel makers at 27.6 percent, said analyst Robin Wu. Chinese panel makers plan to scale back 32-inch LCD TV panel manufacturing to 44 million from 51 million last year, while increasing panel production above 32 inches to 32 million in 2017 compared with 24 million last year, said Wu. BOE, the world’s third-largest LCD panel supplier behind LG Display and Samsung, shipped 35.3 million LCD TV panels in 2015 and 43.9 million in 2016, but its panel shipments are forecast to drop 9 percent in 2017 to 40 million as it shifts to larger panel sizes at its new gen-8 fab in Fuqing, he said. BOE shipped 29.2 million 32-inch LCD TV panels in 2016, expected to drop to 23 million this year, while the number of 43-, 49- and 55-inch panels will increase to 5.3 million this year, Wu said. BOE and CSOT are each constructing a gen-10.5 fab, HKC is planning one and reports also cite a CEC-Panda plant in the works, said the analyst. With a potential four or five gen-10.5 fabs in the world by 2019, panel makers should “nurture the market” toward larger panel sizes to reduce the chance of oversupply, he said. By the end of 2018, China will be the largest region for TFT LCD capacity, Wu said.

Flexible OLEDs are commercially available today, and more and more are being incorporated into smartphones “with fixed curved features,” said Jeff Hawthorne, CEO of touch-screen components supplier UniPixel, on a Thursday earnings call. Design work is underway “to improve the flexibility of OLED devices that will permit them to fold and bend multiple times,” said Hawthorne. “The brittle nature of indium tin oxide touch-screen technology currently in broad use will not support flexible and foldable applications.” UniPixel’s metal-mesh touch sensors “are very well suited for this type of application,” he said. “We believe that the ability to conform to certain shapes will be an important feature of next generation applications such as wearable devices, smartphones, and automotive applications among others.”

Merck will use the Display Week 2017 conference to demonstrate new technologies for displays and “visionary future projects,” the company said in a Monday announcement. They include the new self-aligned vertical alignment (SA-VA) liquid crystal technology that’s expected to be launched in commercial products this year, Merck said. Similar to the more established polymer-stabilized vertical alignment (PS-VA) liquid crystal technology, SA-VA is targeted mainly to large displays, such as in big-screen, high-end TVs, it said. “The new technology is very eco-friendly and resource-saving because it requires less energy, uses less solvent and has fewer process steps in display production.” SA-VA also requires no polyimide layer, as PS-VA does, it said: “Because the SA-VA technology can be used at lower temperatures, it is suitable for sensitive materials, for example in premium products or future applications such as flexible displays.” Merck also will demo work done in collaboration with Flexenable of the U.K. to speed development of “free-form” displays fashioned from organic LCDs on plastic, the company said. Organic LCDs have an extremely tolerant “bend radius” that “can satisfy the market needs for new use cases,” such as in automotive applications, “where thin, conformable and shapeable displays are required,” it said. Organic LCDs can be manufactured on conventional production lines, it said. Display Week 2017 opens May 21 at the Los Angeles Convention Center for a six-day run.

Corning will use the Display Week 2017 conference in Los Angeles to showcase for the first time a “dashboard prototype" featuring three displays "under curved, cold-formed” Gorilla Glass for automotive interiors, the company said in a media advisory. Journalists “will have the opportunity to touch and feel this sleek and durable display-rich dashboard console of the future,” Corning said. Gorilla Glass for automotive interiors enables “unique surface technologies and outstanding touch sensitivity” that are “superior to conventional plastics,” it said. Display Week opens May 21 at the Los Angeles Convention Center for a six-day run.

Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou's visit to the White House last week is giving “new momentum” to speculation that the firm, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, will build a flat-panel display factory in the U.S., Display Supply Chain Consultants said in a Monday blog post. “While there has been no public statement from Foxconn on the status of their plans for a US plant, there is great interest in the project from people within the industry and at least one US state hoping to host the large investment,” DSCC said. JobsOhio, an economic development agency, signed on as a sponsor of the Display Week 2017 business conference that DSCC is producing May 22 in Los Angeles, said the consulting firm. It quoted a JobsOhio statement that “interest in display industry manufacturing in the United States continues to grow, and we believe there is no better destination for this industry to thrive than Ohio.” White House and Foxconn representatives didn’t comment Monday.