JAPANESE TV MANUFACTURERS ABANDON OLED

Hard-hit Japanese TV manufacturers Sony and Panasonic said on Wednesday that they will abandon joint efforts to develop the super-bright, super-HDTV — and super-expensive — OLED screens, thereby tossing in the towel to Korean rivals Samsung and LG. The two Japanese companies, who formed an OLED alliance 18 months ago with plans to begin mass producing the screens by the end of this year, were reportedly unable to develop the technology to produce large OLED screens at a reasonable cost. They did unveil prototype 56-inch OLED sets last January at the CES show in Las Vegas. They said that they will instead focus their attention on rolling out 4K LCD TVs.