Samsung’s latest strategy? Nabbing tiny stakes in companies it relies heavily on.

After grabbing a 5 percent stake in Wacom earlier this year, Samsung has now invested around $112 million in Sharp for a 3.08 percent stake.

Samsung relies heavily on Sharp for the displays in its big-screen televisions and mobile devices, so the deal will strengthen their relationship even further. Sharp also sorely needs the cash, after laying off 10,000 workers and selling three of its plants to Foxconn last year. It could also make Sharp less reliant on Apple, which uses its displays for iPhones and iPads, the Wall Street Journal points out.

The deal is scheduled to be completed on March 28, 2013. About two-thirds of the investment is slated to go towards “introduction of new technology for LCDs with high-definition features,” which likely means the development of higher-resolution LCDs for mobile devices. One third of the investment will go towards “rationalization of manufacturing facilities used in mobile devices,” including displays for tablets and notebooks.

Photo: Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

Beyond LCD, there’s OLED. The new display technology boasts brighter colors, thinner panels, and allows for longer battery life than LCDs — benefits that LG Display clearly has in mind as it ramps up its OLED HDTV panel investment.

LG Display announced today that it’s investing $655 million (706 billion won) on a new eight-generation OLED manufacturing line in a South Korean factory. The investment will kick off in the first quarter of this year, and LG Display expects mass production to begin in the first half of 2014, building 26,000 input sheets every month.

OLED display technology has been around for years, but so far difficulties in building the panels have relegated it mostly to mobile device screens. Being able to mass-produce large OLED panels would be a pretty big win for LG Display, as the OLED display market is expected to reach $19 billion by 2019, according to research firm DisplaySearch.

LG already offers a 55-inch OLED HDTV for around $12,000, but more steady production should drop the price of future OLED TVs. At CES over the past few years, we’ve seen OLED TV prototypes from competitors like Sony and Samsung.

LG Display will be using WRGB OLED technology in the new plant, which has a longer lifespan than other OLED tech.

LG Electronics owns 38 percent of its LG Display subsidiary, which was originally part of a joint venture with Philips Electronics.

Via Engadget

Not to mention dorky glasses.

The first prototype shows an image of a dollar sign — apparently the researchers are already thinking about commercialization. While it currently can display only simple images (similar in complexity to a cheap dollar-store calculator), Imec says future versions should be able to control light transmission to the retina, create different colored irises, and function as a heads-up display, which could superimpose almost any image right onto your field of vision.

You can see the new contact lenses in this movie from Imec … with appropriately James Bond-ish music:

The LCD display technology that Imec created allows the use of almost all of the contact lens surface, unlike LED-based applications that only enable a few pixels. In fact, Imec says, the technology will work for a range of pixel sizes and numbers.

The main challenge, of course, beside the thinness, has been the shape:

“Normally, flexible displays using liquid crystal cells are not designed to be formed into a new shape, especially not a spherical one,” Jelle De Smet, the project’s primary researcher, said in a statement. ”Thus, the main challenge was to create a very thin, spherically curved substrate with active layers that could withstand the extreme molding processes.”

Imec, which claims to be three to ten years ahead of the industry, created the new contact lens at the Center for Microsystems Technology.

It’s almost too bad that Apple has already patented its term for very high-density, high-quality screens. Because this truly has the potential to be a real retina display.

photo credit: jonycunha via photopin cc

Samsung has finished the spin-off of its display company to create Samsung Display, the world’s single-largest maker of LCD displays, the company announced today.

The company announced its intention to spin-off its unprofitable LCD display business in mid-February. Despite $20.1 billion in LCD display sales in 2011, Samsung still took a $665 million loss last year, a move that forced it to spin the company off. By moving its LCD business to the side, Samsung can improve its overall balance sheet and eventually make the move to OLED screens.

Samsung reportedly said it intends to merge Samsung Display and Samsung Mobile Display, the company’s OLED-making arm, on July 1st. While the company will continue to make both LCD and OLED screens, it will shift to OLED as its main focus after the merger of the two businesses.

“We will make Samsung Display a well-respected company through continuous efforts to supply a wide variety of customized products that provide great value to our customers,” said Donggun Park, former head of the Samsung’s LCD business and now CEO of Samsung Display. “By continually staying one step ahead of our competitors, we can make our company the very best in the display market.”

Samsung TV photo: Jenn Deering Davis/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Those glorious geeks at iFixit have gotten their hands on Apple’s new iPad, and are currently in the midst of tearing it apart to reveal its lovely innards.

So far, the site has confirmed that the new iPad is rocking a Samsung LCD, judging by its model number (a sign that we could see similarly high-res screens in Samsung’s devices soon).

Don’t be surprised if you have trouble accessing iFixit right now though, as the site’s live teardown is also tearing apart its servers. On Twitter, iFixit said: “We have never received anywhere close to this much traffic before; we’re adding servers like crazy.”

Thus far, the site has managed to take off the iPad’s screen and has found its way into the tablet’s logic board, revealing the Apple A5X processor above. Just like its predecessors, the A5X was manufactured by Samsung. The site also found that the chip was manufactured in the first week of 2012.

This is where teardowns get really interesting, because we may learn something new from one of the many chips on the logic board.

Other notable chips include the Broadcom BCM4330, which handles Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, the Qualcomm RTR8600 for LTE, and the Broadcom BCM5973 I/O controller (which Apple has used previously in A4 and A5 devices).

We’ll be updating this post as iFixit’s teardown continues, check back for updates.

Via The Verge

In a meeting with investors this morning, Hirai detailed a four-point plan that calls for Sony to focus on its core business, further streamline its TV business, cut costs, and move forward with innovation.

Sure, those seem like common sense fixes for the struggling company, but it’s still nice to see that Hirai is coming on-board with an achievable game plan in mind.

“I thought turning around the PlayStation business was going to be the toughest challenge of my career, but I guess not,” Hirai told the Wall Street Journal in an interview today. “It’s one issue after another. I feel like ‘Holy s—, now what?’”

Here’s the skinny on Hirai’s plans:

Focusing on core business: Acknowledging that gaming and digital imaging are among Sony’s strong suits, Hirai said that he would leverage its expertise in those fields to give it an edge in mobile. He’s also interested in taking on the medical imaging market, with the hopes of it becoming a future core business.

Streamlining Sony’s TV business: Hirai wants Sony to use its Crystal LED and OLED technology for compelling next-generation TVs, but he also points out that the company needs to continue being lean with its TV business, especially when it comes to LCD TVs. (Sony recently split up its LCD venture with Samsung.)

Cut costs by transforming Sony’s business portfolio: Hirai says the company has its fingers in a wide variety of businesses, which can sometimes be a good thing, but Sony also needs to take a closer look at which products aren’t adding much value. The company will then need to either drop those products, or figure out ways to reduce costs through collaboration.

Speeding up innovation: Coming back to medical imaging, Hirai pointed out the company is well situated to become a dominant force in that field. The underlying message is that Sony isn’t afraid to step into new markets, especially if they gel with the company’s existing business. Hirai also said that he’s leading a movement to make Sony’s R&D and business groups work better together.

Via The Verge

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Two large manufacturers of liquid crystal displays (LCD), Toshiba and Sony, are in talks to combine their LCD operations into a new entity, according to Reuters.

The new entity would overtake Sharp as the largest maker of small and mid-sized LCD panels, which are commonly found in smartphones and tablet computers.

If created, the two companies may seek to sell off up to 80 percent of the new entity to Japanese government-backed investment fund Innovation Network Corp of Japan. Initially, the fund is reported to already be in discussions to invest about 100 billion yen ($1.24 billion).

Sources from Nikkei Business Daily stated that the new entity may focus on mass-producing OEL (organic electroluminescence) panels, which offer higher resolutions than LCD and require lower energy consumption, Reuters reports.

Both companies want to reach a basic agreement this month to form the new entity later this year.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Tablet screens are about to get a whole lot sharper. Samsung today announced a new 10.1-inch display for tablets with an incredibly high resolution. And LG — which builds the iPhone 4′s sharp Retina Display — has some new display technology in the works.

It’s about time. While current display technology works just fine in tablets, having a higher resolution display will certainly improve the tablet experience, especially as displays approach the sharpness of print media. For all of its improvements, the iPad 2′s low-res 1024 by 768 display is still a distraction to me.

Both companies will be showing off their new display tech at SID 2011, a symposium for display technologies, next week in Los Angeles.

Samsung partnered with Nouvoyance for its new 10.1-inch PenTile display, which sports a ridiculously high 2560 by 1600 pixel resolution — a resolution higher than most 24 and 27 inch computer monitors. With so many pixels in a tight amount of space, the display will be able to offer a pixel density of 300 dots per inch, which would make it equivalent with Apple’s “Retina Display” marketing. Better yet, the display will consume 40 percent less power than typical LCD displays, making it perfect for tablets.

LG, meanwhile, will be showing off new display technology for smartphones, tablets and big screen TVs, although it hasn’t listed the specific resolutions. LG hints that the technology in its new panels offers a greater number of pixels than the human eye can recognize, which Apple also touts for its Retina Display.

Via Engadget

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive mobile trends at our fourth annual MobileBeat 2011 conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the rise of 4G and how it delivers the promise of true mobile computing. MobileBeat is co-located with our GamesBeat 2011 conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Sharp is gearing up to spend around $1.2 billion on expanding its product lines for small and midsize LCD panels, most of which are meant for Apple’s iPhone, Reuters reports.

Apparently, Apple will cover a large portion of the $1.2 billion investment and is going to purchase much of Sharp’s LCD output for the iPhone. Apple is clearly securing more displays in anticipation of high demand of it’s next-generation iPhone. It’s also likely trying to avoid display supply issues like Samsung and other display manufacturers faced this year.

On Monday, Japan’s Nikkei business newspaper reported that Toshiba was making a similarly large investment in LCD production and that Apple would also be benefiting from it. Toshiba ended up denying that Apple would invest in the production of its new factory, but that still leaves the door open for Apple to be the primary buyer of its LCD panels from that plant.

Both Sharp and Toshiba’s plants will focus on midsize displays, in addition to smaller displays for the iPhone, meaning they could also be producing supply for Apple’s iPad. By diversifying its suppliers, Apple is ensuring that issues with one plant won’t kill its ability to make iPhones and iPads completely.

Via Reuters