July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

What time is it — about five months before fall 2013? Then it must be time for testing the iWatch.

A month ago CEO Tim Cook disappointed Wall Street and crushed Apple fans by saying that Apple had amazing new products coming out “this fall and throughout 2014.” Which means that none were coming out this summer, and which also means that if some new products are coming out in fall, they need to be in testing now.

Cue iWatch testing rumors.

Taiwan’s Economic Times says that Apple is currently testing 1.5-inch OLED screens from Ritek’s RiTdisplay after first building prototypes with a 1.8-inch display, which Apple rejected as being too large for a wrist-based computing accessory. The OLED screens use OGS touch sensors (“one glass solution”), which will theoretically help Apple keep the iWatch thin and light.

But Apple has presumably not ordered in volume, as Ritek recorded a first-quarter loss. Apple production partner Foxconn has also reportedly received a small-scale trial production order of 1,000 devices.

Testing the new, smaller size right now — and getting into preproduction — could help Apple get product ready for delivery to consumers in late summer or early fall.

But don’t hold your breath.

The iWatch has been rumored since late 2012, including in some almost-certainly-Apple-initiated NYT, Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg leaks. According to at least one study, a full 20 percent of U.S. consumers want an Apple iWatch, sight unseen, and an Apple patent published in March of this year reveals that Apple is thinking about flexible wrap-around displays built into a transparent housing.

Oh, and perhaps one of the reasons for the rumors?

Samsung is supposed to be working on a smart watch, too. Perhaps Galaxy Watch? Meanwhile, Google’s entrant into the wearable computing sweepstakes is already being hacked on, developed for, and ogled.

Or would that be oogled?

Image credits: iWatch mockup by VeneStudio; Hat tip: C|Net

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

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

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Apple has hired a senior OLED engineer, Jueng–jil (James) Lee, who was recently a research fellow at LG’s OLED Development Center in San Francisco and previously worked at a Samsung division, according to a report from the OLED Association.

The OLED Association says that Lee played a senior role in LG’s project to create a printed AMOLED TV. Printed products are created using a 3D printing process that essentially builds the entire product, layer by layer, simultaneously, as opposed to conventional products that are fabricated with individual components that are then fitted together.

Rumor mill, start your engines: This obviously means that Apple is now working on an actual flat-screen Apple TV.

Source: LinkedIn

James Lee

Apart from presumably well-medicated analysts who have been predicting Apple’s imminent launch of an Apple TV for years now, we’ve seen no real sign of an actual hang-it-on-your-wall Apple living-room device. But it’s worth noting that Apple builds a lot of devices with a lot of screens — tens of millions of iPads, iPhones, laptops, iMacs, and monitors — all of which could benefit from improved screen technology.

Interestingly, Panasonic recently unveiled a ultrahigh-def 4K AMOLEd TV that was printed, not conventionally fabricated, at CES in Las Vegas.

AMOLED stands for Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode, and it is an advanced version of OLED with higher screen refresh rates, lower power consumption, and higher contrast ratios. 4K televisions have four times the resolution of standard high-def TVs, with a resolution of 3,840 pixels by 2,160 pixels. Apple’s existing 15-inch retina MacBook Pros have a resolution of 2,880-by-1,800 pixels.

I’ve contacted Apple PR, but the company has not yet responded.

photo credit: jcoterhals via photopin cc, Hat tip: C|Net

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Samsung owns 99 percent of the world’s OLED market. This is one reason why, the company claims, Korean rival LG has been hiring its engineers and stealing its intellectual property.

So Samsung is suing LG in a Seoul court.

It might appear to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black, considering Samsung’s recent loss in the iPhone patent case. However, this is a very different scenario.

According to the complaint, LG has been systematically recruiting key Samsung engineers, who are breaking noncompete employment contracts by signing on. As a Korean news agency states, Samsung claims that ”LG Display has consistently acquired our OLED technologies and other business secrets by inducing our researchers to transfer.”

Eleven people were indicted for stealing or improperly sharing Samsung’s corporate secrets in July, including a key engineer in Samsung’s development of AMOLED technology (Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode).

With sales of OLED and AMOLED displays predicted to hit $44 billion in 2016, the battle is really about the future and who will own the bulk of that market. If Samsung can maintain its technology lead, it can effectively shut competitors — including LG — out of that business.

Samsung is demanding a billion won for each case of infringement, which is equivalent to about $900,000 U.S.

photo credit: khrawlings via photo pin 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

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

Now that we’ve returned from Vegas, pounded enough Emergen-C cocktails to get us back into a semblance of health, and compared notes, we’ve settled on this list of the show’s top products.

Read on to see the most promising hardware that will be hitting store shelves in the coming months.

10. Samsung Galaxy Note

Samsung Galaxy Note

Less a technological breakthrough than a form-factor experiment, the Galaxy Note is notable primarily because, well, it actually works.

Up to now, phone and tablet manufacturers have been careful to separate their lines: Phones have 4-inch screens or smaller, while tablets have 7-inch screens or larger. The embarrassing failure of Dell’s 5-inch Streak confirmed the wisdom of that approach.

But in truth, there’s little difference between a tablet and a smartphone, other than size, and for those of us who habitually use 3×5 cards or similar-sized pocket notebooks, a 5-inch diagonal screen is actually just about perfect for holding in one hand while jotting notes with the other. By adding a stylus and some note-taking and handwriting recognition software to the Android OS, that’s exactly the use that Samsung has in mind for the Galaxy Note.

And yes, it’s too big for a pants pocket. It might be more attractive to female customers, who can stash it in a purse, or to more stylishly dressed men, who could put it in a jacket pocket. We spent some time with the Note on the CES show floor and came away favorably impressed.

One downside: It’s running a sadly outdated version of Android (2.3, aka Gingerbread).

It will be coming to AT&T Wireless later this year, and should be a strong contender of AT&T and Samsung give it a decent price and find the right audience for their marketing message, which is basically that writing and drawing are still fun. –Dylan Tweney

9. Gear4 Sleep Clock

Gear4 Sleep Clock

If you sometimes wake up feeling drained, the Gear4 Sleep Clock may help you. The clock uses an iPhone app, a dock and Doppler radar to sense your sleep pattern and wake you up at the lightest point in your sleep cycle.

The radar senses your movements and determines exactly when you fall asleep. It also senses if you wake up during the night and detects your breathing so that it can figure out if you are in a deep sleep or not. When you wake up the next day, you can see the results on your iPhone app. It will tell you exactly how many hours and minutes you slept. And it will say how long it took to fall asleep and how many times you woke up. After you use it for a while, it will come up with averages and recommendations so you can get better sleep. You don’t have to wear anything on your wrist, as you do with rival solutions from Basis Science or Jawbone. The Gear4 device will go on sale soon for $199. –Dean Takahashi

8. HP Envy 14 Spectre Ultrabook

HP Envy 14

The distinctive feature of this Ultrabook is its cover. It is made out of black Gorilla Glass, a damage-resistant glass from Corning that is normally used for screens. It certainly makes this laptop design stand out amid a sea of Ultrabooks at CES. The machine carries the Envy brand established by Voodoo PC, which HP acquired. It has a high-definition HP Radiance display (1600 x 900) with 300 Nits of brightness. It has nine hours of battery life and a row of connection slots. It also has an HD webcam and HP’s Beats Audio technology. The Spectre also has an analogy roller control for changing the sound volume and it has a mute button on the side for when you have to stop the music fast. It comes with 128 gigabytes of flash memory and Intel’s Rapid Start technology. The height is 20 millimeters and it weighs 3.79 pounds. It will cost $1,399 and will start selling on Feb. 8. –Dean Takahashi

7. OLPC XO 3.0 tablet

OLPC XO 3.0

This tablet has been in the works for a long time and its true cost remains to be seen. But One Laptop per Child has done a good job of researching what children in developing countries need and then tailoring it for them. It’s not just an iPad with a different label slapped on it. It has a dust and waterproof cover. It has its own Linux operating system (and it can also run Android) and its Sugar user interface has been adapted for touchscreen use. You can charge it with a wall outlet, a solar panel, or a hand crank. And the screws for the cover line up as power pins when you are getting power from the solar panel. And it has an eight-inch display that works inside or outside in bright sunlight. That’s a lot of innovation in a small tablet whose target cost is around the $100 mark. Overall, the OLPC XO 3.0 has an appealing design that promises to reach a wider market than previous OLPC XO laptops. –Dean Takahashi

Click here to see products 6 through 4.

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