Toshiba OLED Master Plan hits a snag

CNet: Toshiba shelves plan to sell OLED TVs in 2009-10

Japan's Toshiba said on Tuesday it had shelved plans to sell ultra-thin TVs with organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays in 2009-10 because of the cost of mass production. Toshiba will stick to its plans to commercialize smaller OLED displays for cell phones next year, and will watch markets and technological developments to see whether making OLED TVs is commercially viable later, Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Ohmori said.

OLED has been hailed as the Next Big Thing in video technology as far back as the year 2000, yet so far it hasn't really made it past the category of "Nifty Science Project" as opposed to "Major Consumer Technology." It's reminiscent of LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) technology, which has yet to overcome manufacturing challenges to really be a player.

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Today on Gadget Talk: The Size of things to come

Marketnews Gadget Talk: Big Changes come in Small Packages

While the sizes may be unexciting, the leaps that are being made in LCD and OLED are going to be earthshaking, and will have a huge impact on devices with displays, from phones and pocket computers (will there even be two different categories in three year’s time?) to kitchen appliances, onwards to obvious things like laptop monitors and, of course, televisions.

Besides, today it’s a 12-inch display that’s less than an inch thick. Tomorrow it might be a 70-inch television hanging on your wall that’s no thicker. Now are you excited?

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