Skip to main content

DuPont Takes a Crack at Large-Scale OLEDs

Sony, Samsung and LG may be at the forefront of the race to develop viable consumer OLED televisions, but more companies are piling on, and the last entrants may come as a surprise. DuPont and Dainippon Screen Manufacturing Co., a Japanese semiconductor manufacturer, announced on Wednesday that they have teamed up to mass produce OLED screens with a new process they’ve pioneered together.

Both companies have been working over the last three years to refine a process for printing OLED using molecule-sized OLED solution from DuPont and nozzle printing technologies from Dainippon Screen. They hope the new manufacturing technique will allow them to build larger and cheaper OLED screens, to the point that they can actually compete with LCDs on price.

“We believe that this alliance could be the key for manufacturers to be able to produce affordable, high-quality larger sized OLEDs using our unique nozzle printer technology, ”said Yoshinari Yaoi, corporate senior executive officer and president of Dainippon Screen’s , FPD Equipment Company, in a statement.

Although the first production-scale printer is already being constructed, the companies did not sketch out a timeline for delivery of the first displays.

Nick Mokey
As Digital Trends’ Managing Editor, Nick Mokey oversees an editorial team delivering definitive reviews, enlightening…
The Beats Pill is back, baby!
A pair of Beats Pill speakers.

In what's been one of the worst-kept secrets of the year -- mostly because subtly putting a product into the hands of some of the biggest stars on the planet is no way to keep a secret -- the Beats Pill has returned. Just a couple of years after Apple and Beats unceremoniously killed off the stylish Bluetooth speaker, a new one has arrived.

Available for preorder today in either black, red, or gold, the $150 speaker (and speakerphone, for that matter) rounds out a 2024 release cycle for beats that includes the Solo Buds and Solo 4 headphones, and comes nearly a year after the Beats Studio Pro.

Read more
Ifi’s latest DAC is the first to add lossless Bluetooth audio
Ifi Audio Zen Blue 3 DAC (front).

Ifi Audio's new Zen Blue 3 wireless digital-to-analog converter (DAC) will officially be available to buy for $299 on July 9. When it is, it will be the first device of its kind to support a wide variety of Bluetooth codecs, including Qualcomm's aptX Lossless, the only codec that claims to deliver bit-perfect CD quality audio over a Bluetooth connection.

Admittedly, there are very few devices on the market that can receive aptX Lossless (and fewer that can transmit it), so it's a good thing that the Zen Blue 3 also works with the more widely supported aptX Adaptive, LDAC, and LDHC/HWA codecs (all of which are hi-res audio-capable), plus the three most common codecs: AAC, SBC, and aptX.

Read more
The new Beats Pill might replace Sonos on my back porch
The 2024 Beats Pill and an aging Sonos Play:1.

If I were to build an outdoor stereo in 2024, I'd do it with a pair of portable Beats Pills instead of Sonos speakers. Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends

In 2017, after more than a decade in our home, my wife and I added a pool. With it came a covered deck, making what basically was a new outdoor room. Not uncommon at all in Florida, but new to us.

Read more