Nokia Showcases Two-Fold, Three-Fold Flexible 5.9-Inch OLED Displays

Nokia seems to be progressing with the idea of foldable displays, as it demoed two such OLED displays last week in an exhibition at San Diego.

Nokia Corp, along with Semiconductor Energy Laboratory or SEL, gave a glimpse of what the firm holds for future as it displayed two 5.9-inch foldable OLED screens during the Society of Display Information or SID's exhibition.

The Nikkei Technology report notes that while one of the two screens is a two-fold display, the other one is a three-fold display. Both flexible screens come with 720p HD resolution and 249ppi pixel density.

It is worth noting that Nokia and SEL used the "WTC" structure to make these foldable displays. The WTC (white tandem+top emission+colour filter) structure combines white light omitting OLEDs and colour filter. The display is said to be created by fusing two different sets of layers. The first set includes the release layer, sealing layer and colour filter layer on a glass substrate, while the other set includes a release layer, sealing later, TFT layer and an OLED layer on another glass substrate.

Then, the colour filter layer and the OLED layer are attached and the glass substrates are replaced by flexible substrates. This brings the colour filter, OLED and TFT layer fixed together between the sealing layer and the flexible substrate. It has been further reported that the book-type two-fold and the three-fold displays can bend up to 2mm and 4mm curvature radii respectively. It has been added that these displays can be bent more than 100,000 times.

We first saw such flexible OLED displays, dubbed as Youm displays, at the CES 2013 event by Samsung. The firm is yet to make such display screens available in its devices. Samsung however came out with a curved display handset, Galaxy Round as a Galaxy Note 3 variant. Challenging Samsung, LG last year unveiled its LG G Flex handset, which sports a curved, flexible display.

Samsung And Oculus Will Partner Up For Further VR Development With Mutual Benefits

Recently Samsung was looking to branch out a
little bit and that they were going to
begin developing a VR headset for use
with their smartphones for games and
such. Their reported goal was that they
wanted to come out ahead of now
Facebook owned Oculus and their Rift
headset, and Sony with their Project
Morpheus VR headset slated for use with
the PS4. By come out ahead we mean
that it seemed their intentions were to
release their headset ahead of Sony and
Oculus, and bring it in under their price
points to beat them on cost. Seems like a
good idea from a business standpoint.
You have two companies who logically
seem like they might be able to produce
a better VR product simply because
one’s sole existence is based off the
creation of a new VR headset, and one
has been heavily invested in the video
game industry for decades.

Naturally it would be Samsung’s best
option if they wanted to reach better
sales and become the more popular of
the three VR headsets once they all hit
market. Release first, charge less. We’re
finding out now though that Samsung
apparently isn’t planning to work
against Oculus and their Rift VR
headset, but with them to create
something thought to be specifically for
Samsung’s products. This is a little bit of
a shock since the Oculus Rift would most
likely be a direct competitor to whatever
Samsung would produce, but according
to sources of engadget both Samsung
and Oculus stand to gain something out
of this partnership.

Samsung reportedly will be providing
Oculus with high grade OLED displays for
the Rift headset while Oculus will
apparently handle the software side of
things for Samsung. In fact, Samsung’s
VR device isn’t going to have a display
at all like the Rift, so they’ll be
targeting different groups of
consumers. Samsung’s VR device
reportedly connects to your smartphone
and uses it’s display for the VR
functions. It’s unclear how exactly that
would look, but it all sounds very
interesting. What’s more, is that
Samsung is said to be putting focus of
the headsets functionality to be used
with media playback more than games.
Gamepad support is said to have
compatibility but since games aren’t
meant to be its main function, voice and
touch navigation are the main ways one
might control the device. As we reported
before, the VR from Sammy will
probably only end up as Galaxy device
compatible, so if you wanted to play VR
games or media on a non-Samsung
device, that isn’t likely to happen.

Samsung launches 55-inch 'flawless'curved OLED TV in Korea HD

Just as the rumors foretold, Samsung has announced Korean availability of a 55-inch curved OLED HDTV. Priced at 15 million Korean won (around $ 13,000) Samsung claims its "Timeless Arena" design eliminates potential for defective OLED pixels. 

It also reiterates the claim LG made when it launched its own curved OLED model earlier this year that keeping all parts of the screen an equal distance from the viewer makes for a better viewing experience. 

It also supports features found in other Samsung TVs like multi-view that lets two people watch different things at the same time thanks to 3D glasses, and the Evolution Kit CPU upgrade. There's no word on US availability for its flat OLED HDTVs , but the company also launched its new 65- and 55-inch 4K TVs at the same event.