Technologies

Samsung’s QD-OLED TV might be here very soon. Here’s everything we know

Samsung’s rumored OLED TV with quantum dots could be coming as soon as 2022, and the new technology is set to challenge the best from rival LG.

Most people have two options when it comes to TV technology: LCD and OLED. Sure, some people also have the choice of a MicroLED TV, but those can be pricey. Samsung, the biggest TV-maker in the world, has been planted in the LCD camp for many years, while its rival LG is the biggest name in OLED. Despite advancements like QLED, mini-LED and dual panels, LCD has always lagged behind OLED in overall picture quality.

Now Samsung is working on a new kind of TV that aims to combine two display technologies into something greater. It’s a hybrid between OLED and quantum dots called QD Display. Samsung Display will end production of LCD panels by the end of 2021, moving to QD Display next year, according to a February report from Korea IT News. At the same time, Samsung Electronics could start selling these new TVs as early as 2022.

Here’s what we’ve heard about Samsung’s new display technology so far. If you’re looking to spruce up your current TV in the meantime, check out how to get rid of your TV’s muffled dialogue, nine picture settings you should change and the best picture mode for your TV. And believe it or not, your TV’s sharpness controls should be turned down, not up.

Samsung’s $11 billion bet on quantum dots

Samsung has been selling LCD TVs enhanced by quantum dots for the last few years under its QLED brand, but its last (and only) OLED TV was a one-off that it stopped selling almost a decade ago. In October 2019, Samsung Display announced it was building a factory to make TVs that combined these technologies:

Samsung Display will invest 13.1 trillion won by 2025 to build «Q1 Line,» the world’s first QD display mass production line at Asan Campus. The new line is scheduled to start production in 2021 with an initial 30,000 sheets (8.5 generations) and will produce a huge QD display of 65 inches or larger.

That’s an investment of around $11.1 billion. While the company calls this «QD display,» it isn’t electroluminescent, aka «direct view» quantum dots. That technology is still several years away. This is going to be a QD-OLED hybrid.

At the announcement, South Korean President Moon Jae-in also referenced Samsung’s rival LG in regards to Korea’s place in world TV production: «It is important to maintain the top spot of the global display market with game-changing technologies,» Moon said. «Following LG Display’s 3 trillion-won investment in large OLED panel production in July, Samsung Display’s latest investment plan brightens prospects further.»

One thing you might have noticed is that Samsung is calling this «QD display,» which can be confusing since this isn’t direct-view quantum dots (more on these later). Since LG has spent years being the only name in town (figuratively and literally) for OLED, it’s unlikely Samsung will call any version of this technology OLED. We’ll probably have to wait until CES 2022 to find out how it brands the new TV.

What is QD-OLED and how will it work?

So how will it work? Nanosys, a company that makes quantum dots, has shared some details. Its CEO, Jason Hartlove, is understandably bullish on the technology, which relies on converting light from an OLED panel:

«Quantum Dot Color Conversion is a completely new way of rendering color in displays,» he told CNET. «The result is pure quantum dot color with much higher efficiency as no light is lost in a color filter.»

Combining quantum dots and OLED plays to the strengths of both technologies. The idea with any TV is to create red, green and blue light. LED LCDs with quantum dots, like Samsung’s current QLED TVs, use blue LEDs and a layer of quantum dots to convert some of that blue into red and green. With the current version of OLED, yellow and blue OLED materials create «white» light. In both cases, color filters let pass only what color is needed for that specific subpixel.

The idea with a QD-OLED is to simplify these designs into one, by using OLED to create blue light, and then a quantum dot layer to convert some of the blue into red and green.

There are many advantages to this method, in theory. By using only one color or material of OLED, the manufacturing costs go way down since it’s easier to build. LG, for instance, uses only two OLED materials, blue and yellow, for every pixel across the entire display. Light-blockingcolor filters create the green and red. QDs have nearly 100% efficiency, significantly better than filters, so in theory the hybrid TVs will be much brighter. Plus, there’s the possibility of even wider color gamuts at all brightness levels.

Because each pixel can be shut off, these hybrid TVs will also have the incredible contrast ratios that OLED is known for.

Since blue OLED materials still age faster than red and green, having the entire panel one color means the TV ages more evenly with no color shift. Keeping that aging to a minimum, and thereby having a TV that doesn’t seem dim after a few years, is one of the key manufacturing issues. This is especially true in this HDR era of extreme brightness levels.

While this new Samsung plant is focusing on TV-size displays, the technology could work in phone-sized displays as well. Since Samsung doesn’t seem to have any issue making excellent small OLEDs, I’d be surprised if it’s in any rush to upset that market with something as advanced as this. Also, Samsung’s phone-sized OLEDs use red, green and blue OLEDs compared to LG’s blue-yellow. Samsung tried to make RGB OLED TVs and just couldn’t make them profitable. What’s more likely, and mentioned in the latest rumors, is they’ll use this tech to build ultra-high resolution 8K computer monitors along with larger TV screens.

As mentioned earlier, it’s clear Samsung believes strongly in this technology, since it’s ending production of LCDs at its factories in Korea. This doesn’t mean that starting next year it won’t sell any LCDs. Samsung is a massive company, and the part of the company that makes LCDs, Samsung Display, is stopping production. The part of the company that sells TVs, Samsung Electronics, has made no such announcement. In fact, part of the most recent delay was Samsung Electronics needing LCD panels before they were ready to start selling QD-OLED panels. They’ve worked that out for 2021, and most likely going forward they’ll source their LCD panels from a third party.

Into the future: Direct-view quantum dots, ELQD and more

QD-OLED seems to be right around the corner. But what about even farther-future display tech? Well, the quantum dot folks seem to think direct-view quantum dot displays are just a few years off. These electroluminescent quantum dots, or ELQD, would have all the benefits of OLED, all the benefits of QD and none of the issues of LCD or the wear and longevity concerns of OLED. A very promising tech indeed.

The other new TV tech that’s already arriving on the market, the extreme high-end of the market anyway, is MicroLED. It has many of the same benefits as the QD-OLED hybrid, but doesn’t muck around with those pesky organics. Affordable versions of that are still some distance off. Oh, and MicroLEDs use quantum dots too. They’re a fascinating technology with uses far beyond TV screens.

In the meantime, we’ve got mini-LED, which is pretty cool too and far less expensive than any of these.

As well as covering TV and other display tech, Geoff does photo tours of cool museums and locations around the world, including nuclear submarines, massive aircraft carriers, medieval castles, airplane graveyards and more.

You can follow his exploits on Instagram and YouTube, and on his travel blog, BaldNomad. He also wrote a bestselling sci-fi novel about city-sized submarines, along with a sequel.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Monday, May 19

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for May 19.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword is pretty easy. 5-Across, «one for whom every day is Boxing Day,» stumped me because I really wanted the answer to have something to do with cats. (Spoiler: It did not.) Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times’ games collection. If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get at those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Network satirized on «30 Rock,» for short
Answer: NBC

4A clue: Sport played on horseback
Answer: POLO

5A clue: One for whom every day is Boxing Day?
Answer: MOVED

6A clue: Like correct letters in Wordle
Answer: GREEN

7A clue: Blend together
Answer: MELD

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: «Invisible Man» or «Little Women»
Answer: NOVEL

2D clue: Run in the wash
Answer: BLEED

3D clue: What bourbon whiskey is primarily made from
Answer: CORN

4D clue: Tiny hole in the skin
Answer: PORE

5D clue: Longtime movie studio acquired by Amazon in 2022
Answer: MGM

How to play more Mini Crosswords

The New York Times Games section offers a large number of online games, but only some of them are free for all to play. You can play the current day’s Mini Crossword for free, but you’ll need a subscription to the Times Games section to play older puzzles from the archives.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for May 19, #238

Hints and answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 238, for May 19.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Connections: Sports Edition might be tough today if, like me, you don’t know what «loge» means. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Brag.

Green group hint: Where’s my seat?

Blue group hint: City that never sleeps.

Purple group hint: Opposite of go.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Boast

Green group: Stadium seating sections

Blue group: New York Knicks

Purple group: ____ stop

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is boast. The four answers are crow, gloat, grandstand and showboat.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is stadium seating sections. The four answers are bleacher, loge, suites and upper deck.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is New York Knicks. The four answers are Bridges, Hart, McBride and Towns.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ____ stop. The four answers are back, jump, pit and short.

Technologies

Blade Runner: 18-Rotor «Volocopter» Moving from Concept to Prototype

It may look "nutty" and like a "blender," but the designers say the craft could challenge helicopters

Inventor and physicist Thomas Senkel created an Internet sensation with the October 2011 video of his maiden—and only—test flight of a spidery proof-of-concept 16-rotor helicopter dubbed Multicopter 1. Now the maker of the experimental personal aviation craft, the European start-up e-volo, is back with a revised «volocopter» design that adds two more rotors, a serial hybrid drive and long-term plans for going to 100 percent battery power.

The new design calls for 1.8-meter, 0.5-kilogram carbon-fiber blades, each paired with a motor. They are arrayed around a hub in two concentric circles over a boxy one- or two-person cockpit.

After awarding the volocopter concept a Lindbergh Prize for Innovation in April, Yolanka Wulff, executive director of The Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation, admitted the idea of the multi-blade chopper at first seems «nutty.» Looking beyond the novel appearance, however, she says, e-volo’s concept excels in safety, energy efficiency and simplicity, which were the bases of the prize.

All three attributes arrive thanks largely to evolo’s removal of classic helicopter elements. First, the energy-robbing high-mass main rotor, transmission, tail boom and tail rotor are gone. The enormous blades over a normal chopper’s cabin create lift, but their mass creates a high degree of stress and wear on the craft. And the small tail rotor, perched vertically out on a boom behind the cabin, keeps the helicopter’s body from spinning in the opposite direction as the main blades, but it also eats up about 30 percent of a helicopter’s power.

The volocopter’s multiple rotor blades individually would not create the torque that a single large rotor produces, and they offer redundancy for safety. Hypothetically, the volocopter could fly with a few as 12 functioning rotors, as long as those rotors were not all clustered together on one side, says Senkel, the aircraft’s co-inventor and e-volo’s lead construction engineer.

Without the iconic two-prop configuration, the craft would be lighter, making it more fuel efficient and reducing the physical complexity of delivering power to the top and rear blades from a single engine. Nor would the volocopter need an energy-hungry transmission. In fact, «there will be no mechanical connection between the gas engine and the blades,» Senkel says. That means fewer points of energy loss and more redundancy for safety.

E-volo’s design eliminates the dependence on a single source of power to the blades. As a serial-hybrid vehicle, the volocopter would have a gas-fueled engine, in this case an engine capable of generating 50- to 75 kilowatts, typical of ultralight aircraft. Rather than mechanically drive the rotors, the engine would generate power for electric motors as well as charge onboard lithium batteries. Should it fail, the batteries are expected to provide enough backup power so the craft could make a controlled landing.

Whereas helicopters navigate by changing the pitch of the main and tail rotor blades, the volocopter’s maneuverability will depend on changing the speed of individual rotors. Although more complex, it is more precise in principle to control a craft using three to six redundant microcontrollers (in case one or more fails) interpreting instructions from a pilot using a game console–like joystick—instead of rudder pedals, a control stick and a throttle.

Wulff’s first impression about the volocopter’s design is not uncommon. E-volo’s computer-animated promotional videos of a gleaming white, carbon-fiber and fiberglass craft beneath a thatch of blades recall the many-winged would-be flying machines of the late 19th century. This point is not lost on Senkel.

«I understand these skeptical opinions,» he says. «The design concept looks like a blender. But we really are making a safe flying machine.»

That would be progress in itself. Multicopter 1 looked like something from an especially iffy episode of MacGyver, complete with landing gear that involved a silver yoga ball. Senkel rode seated amid all those rotors powered only by lithium batteries. Multicopter 1 generated an average of 20 kilowatts for hovering and was aloft for just a few minutes.

There’s a reason why the experimental craft flew briefly and only once.Senkel describes that first craft as «glued and screwed together.» Seated on the same platform as the spinning blades, he says, «I was aware of the fact that I will be dead, maybe. Besides, we showed that the concept works. What do we win if we fly it twice?» he asks rhetorically.

Other than putting the pilot safely below the blades, the revised volocopter design would operate largely the same as the initial prototype. The design calls for three to six redundant accelerometers and gyroscopes to measure the volocopter’s position and orientation, creating a feedback loop that gives the craft stability and makes it easier to fly, Senkel says.

The volocopter’s revised prototype under construction could debut as soon as next spring. The first production models, available in perhaps three years, are expected to fly for at least an hour at speeds exceeding 100 kilometers per hour and a minimum altitude of about 2,000 meters, still far shy of standard helicopter’s normal operating altitude of about 3,000 meters. «This could change our lives, but I don’t expect anything like that for 10 years,» Senkel adds.

Given that most of the technology needed to build the volocopter is already available, «this idea is fairly easy to realize,» says Carl Kühn, managing director of e-volo partner Smoto GmbH, a company that integrates electric drive systems and related components.

Like Senkel, Kühn has modest short-term expectations despite his repeated emphasis on the standard nature of the technology involved. «I guess that e-volo will have [a prototype] aircraft in three years that can do the job—that it will lift one or two persons from one point to another,» he says.

The biggest immediate limitations appear to be regulatory. For instance, European aviation regulators consider any electrical system greater than 60 volts to be high voltage and regulate such systems more aggressively, Kühn says. As a result, the volocopter will operate below that threshold. The craft will also need to weigh no more than 450 kilograms to remain in the ultralight category, which is likewise subject to fewer government aviation regulations, according to Senkel.

The Lindbergh Foundation’s Wulff says the organization’s judges felt e-volo had «a greater than 50 percent chance of succeeding, or they wouldn’t have given them the innovation award.» Asked if she would line up to fly one someday, she says, «I sure would. It looks very compelling to me.»