Samsung’s transparent OLED laptop could hit retail, IceTouch PMP will get the ball rolling

So um, remember this crazy 14-inch transparent OLED display Samsung was showing off perched atop a laptop at CES? Yea, that might be in the shops within the next 12 months. If that doesn’t get you tingling with excitement, we don’t know what will. Samsung will start its big push toward translucency with the IceTouch PMP, which we found to have a gorgeous 2-inch display in our earlier hands-on, but it’s already working away in the labs on turning the prototype above into a concrete retail product. The IceTouch is slated to make its US arrival early in the first half of this year, priced at around $332. European availability is as yet unconfirmed, but the Korean’s company is being very ambitious about its technology, suggesting that windscreen-mounted SatNav units could be next on the agenda and ruling nothing out as it strives to bring its transparent AMOLED displays into the mainstream.

Samsung’s transparent OLED laptop could hit retail, IceTouch PMP will get the ball rolling originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android display battle: In the end, there can be only One

It’s not everyday you get to see six (6!) Android devices pitted against each other in a display-quality grudge match. No, not that sensor sensitivity nonsense again, rather, just a plain ol’ video playback comparison for your subjective observations. Fortunately, the Android-loving kids over at HDBlog shot a video of the MyTouch 3G, HTC Hero, Motorola Milestone / Droid, Acer Liquid, Nexus One, and Samsung Galaxy (laid out clockwise in the image above). In our opinion, the Nexus One with its 3.7-inch AMOLED display packing a 800 x 480 pixel resolution comes out on top with the best overall image (though slightly on the red end of the color spectrum) — good thing the video wasn’t shot outdoors where that AMOLED is all but unreadable. But hey, that’s our opinion, form your own in the video after the break.

Continue reading Android display battle: In the end, there can be only One

Android display battle: In the end, there can be only One originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung GT-S8500 is first with Bluetooth 3.0

And here we have it: what’s likely to be the world’s first Bluetooth 3.0 phone courtesy of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG). According to the filing’s description, the “compact and slim” Samsung GT-S8500 is a touchscreen slate phone with a “high resolution” 3.1-inch OLED sporting a TouchWIZ UI and quad-band GSM/EDGE radios. The advantages of the 3.0 Bluetooth spec approved in April are faster throughput (up to 24Mbps) and more frugal power usage — both welcome advances in modern media-playing handsets. Although it’s not stated we can assume an official launch in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress.

Samsung GT-S8500 is first with Bluetooth 3.0 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung to mass produce 3.3-inch touch-embedded AMOLED panels

Need a mystery to keep you bewildered? Here’s one: that layer of nothingness between the touch-sensing glass and the display on your phone. Whatever that is, Samsung‘s about to blow it away with a new 3.3-inch WVGA AMOLED touchscreen coming in March. The magic lies in the on-cell touch technology — 0.001mm-thick capacitive touch sensors are deposited between the panel’s substrate and the bottom polarizer film, thus removing the usual touchscreen glass cover and the gap that follows. If all goes well, Samsung should be delivering thinner and lighter phones with slightly brighter touchscreens in a few months’ time, or possibly phones in the current package but with bigger batteries. Sorry, LCD, but we’ve got a new crush to focus on.

Samsung to mass produce 3.3-inch touch-embedded AMOLED panels originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mitsubishi to introduce preposterously large 149-inch OLED TV at ISE 2010

Yeah, you can snag a TV larger than this, but good luck finding a 150-inch set with an OLED panel. In a presumed effort to quietly exert superiority over those “other guys,” Mitsubishi is purportedly planning to unveil a 149-inch OLED TV at ISE 2010, which kicks off in earnest next week — though, we have to say, we sure hope it’s not one of those modular units that we saw at CEATEC. Unfortunately, the native resolution of just 1,088 x 640 is downright boring, but we’re forcing ourselves to focus on the positives here. Essentially, something like this wouldn’t have much use outside the world of digital signage, but man, talk about making an impact on to-be customers. So, Mitsu — when’s the 1080p 4K version coming out?

Update: Ugh — looks as if this will be based around the modular technology we spotted at CEATEC. So much for our hopes and dreams.

Mitsubishi to introduce preposterously large 149-inch OLED TV at ISE 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hexagonal interactive OLED gaming tiles likely to cost a bundle, would sure spice up our Wednesday nights

We’ve seen plenty of ways for board games to be revitalized with large touchscreens, but a new concept from the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University in Ontario puts the screens and interactivity onto the gaming pieces themselves. The idea would be to use slim, networked touchscreen hexagonal tiles with edge-to-edge OLED displays. The proximity of the tiles to one another, along with gestures performed with the tiles, provides the interactivity, and the occasional branching touchscreen menu selection keeps play humming. Unfortunately, that enabling tech isn’t all there yet (at least in university-affordable forms), but the video demo after the break is pretty convincing in its presentation of these ideas in a top-down-projection simulation. Certainly promising, but we’re sure not expecting to see this sort of gaming priced within reach of your average Sorry! board anytime soon.

Continue reading Hexagonal interactive OLED gaming tiles likely to cost a bundle, would sure spice up our Wednesday nights

Hexagonal interactive OLED gaming tiles likely to cost a bundle, would sure spice up our Wednesday nights originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple rumor roundup: future of media edition

Now that Apple’s officially announced an event to show off its “latest creation” on the 27th, the rumors and gossip are about to get even more out of hand — eventually we expect them to take flight and start raiding small towns for soda water and appetizers. In the meantime, however, we’ve got the latest batch of somewhat-sober whispers to tide us over, so let’s run through ’em, shall we?

The rumor: The iPhone Blog points us to a China Times piece setting the tablet’s screen size at 9.7 inches. (We covered the 22-inch touchscreen iMac rumor separately.)
Our take: At this point we’ve heard pretty much every screen size from eight inches to 11, so we’re not making a call either way on this one. We will say that the only other product with a 9.7-inch screen we can think of off-hand is the Kindle DX — a relatively simple device that’s still so large and heavy we generally hold it with two hands. Just something to think about.

The rumor: Ars Technica talks to the director of the OLED Association, who rules out a 10.1-inch AMOLED screen by saying “there’s no real production of 10.1-inch panels.” Oh, and the only place to buy those would be Samsung, really, and Sammy doesn’t have the capacity.
Our take: We never thought a 10.1 OLED screen was likely: not only are prices insane, but OLED still has terrible daylight viewing issues. The Ars piece is well worth a read, though — it’s a nice look at the state of OLED.

Continue reading Apple rumor roundup: future of media edition

Apple rumor roundup: future of media edition originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS DR-570 color e-book reader gets detailed

Ready for it? We’ve got more (and possibly less) on the color ASUS DR-570 e-book reader that stormed through our site over the weekend riding a wave of OLED anticipation. We now know that in addition to WiFi, 3G, and 122-hour real world battery life, we can expect lightning quick 0.03 second page turns (that’s about 23 times faster than the Kindle and its peers as you’d expect from a non E Ink display), 124 x 170 x 8.8-mm / 200-g footprint, 4GB of onboard storage with SDHC expansion, 512MB of SDRAM, and 1,530mAh battery. It also brings a built-in RSS reader, audio/video/Flash player, text to speech engine (presumably the Svox like the DR-950), and built-in web browser when it hits before the end of the year. There’s also a hint of online video streaming support via Amazon video on demand, 3D gaming and navigation (picture Blio page turning emulation), “One stop shopping for books, video, music,” and explicit support for ePub, PDF, txt, MP3, MP4, and AVI content formats.

The one thing we can’t confirm is the 6-inch OLED display originally reported; our data simply calls it the “world’s first 5.7-inch colorful eBook Reader” and we’ve heard rumors that Sipix (the panel of choice for the DR-950) is expected to ship a color electronic ink display in 2010. Doubt they’ll achieve 0.03 second refreshes with that though. Stay tuned as we dig deeper.

ASUS DR-570 color e-book reader gets detailed originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 08:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony’s COO says no new OLED TVs in 2010, BRAVIA Internet Video Link is coming to PS3

Want to blast some BRAVIA Internet Video Link content from your PS3 to your million-inch Sony-built 3D OLED TV this year? Well, you’re half in luck. Sony’s bringing the Internet Video Link service to the PS3 (which seems to us to provide little that isn’t already possible on the PS3, but who are we to judge?) but won’t do any new OLED TVs this year. The problem is, naturally, cost, but hopefully 2011 will bring better things in sizes larger than 11-inches — LG won’t have a 30-incher until 2012 at least, and that seems too long to wait. Sony COO Stan Glasgow, in his interview with Sony Insider that turned up these nuggets, also is refreshingly non-bombastic about 3D. He points out that Sony’s doing 3D-capable TVs for essentially zero price differentiation, with separate glasses and emitters that can be bought after the fact, and calls the 3D channel rollout “complex.” But who knows, perhaps he’s just never seen enough of Taylor Swift in 3D to know what he’s missing?

Sony’s COO says no new OLED TVs in 2010, BRAVIA Internet Video Link is coming to PS3 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nanobrick Miyoul OLED media frames are for your luxurious inner-self

Remember those elegant mantelpieces with OLED infusion launched at CES? Turns out they’re from a company called Nanobrick that dubs this product range Miyoul. Most of the 11 models sport multiple screens — either 3.3-inch or 4.1-inch — but such indulgence seems to be out of touch with current OLED prices, not to mention the cost of craftsmanship on top of that. Until the day we can afford a Miyoul in each room, just keep trying your lucky lottery numbers.

Nanobrick Miyoul OLED media frames are for your luxurious inner-self originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 08:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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