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" Published in the August 2012 issue At this point, nearly three years after the first 3-D-capable television sets were introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show, there&amp;#039;s one thing we should all be able to admit: 3-D is not something to get excited about. It&amp;#039;s like Google+, the washing instructions for underwear, or the pluperfect tense. It&amp;#039;s there, and you know it&amp;#039;s there, but you&amp;#039;re rarely going to need it.  OLED (organic light-emitting diode), on the other hand, will change how you feel about watching television. It&amp;#039;s the most important thing to happen to TV since the introduction of HD. Like plasma or LCD, OLED is a display technology. OLED is self-illuminated, so there&amp;#039;s no need for a light source, which means sets can be microscopically thin. (So thin, in fact, that there are already plans to put OLEDs on sheets of plastic, creating electronic displays that you can fold or roll up when not in use.) They&amp;#039;re light, too \u2014 as little as half the weight of current TV sets. And refresh rates are much higher than those of LCD TVs, making motion blur virtually nonexistent. But most important, each pixel can be completely \u2014 and independently \u2014 shut off, leading to true blacks and contrast ratios that you might as well call infinite. Colors are more accurate, producing a clarity you can&amp;#039;t even get by looking outside. Basically, an OLED TV will make your HDTV look like a cathode-ray tube.  But only if people make them. As a technology, OLED has been around for a while, used mostly in cell-phone and camera displays. But that&amp;#039;s it. In 2007, Sony did try to make OLED TVs. The result was beautiful but insanely expensive \u2014 and teeny: An 11-inch TV went for $2,500. When those of us who&amp;#039;ve never owned an ascot or used the word summer as a verb paid little attention, the TV industry moved on. Luckily, that&amp;#039;s all about to change. By the end of the year, both Samsung and LG will introduce 55-inch OLED options. The LG EM9600 (top left) uses passive 3-D glasses and is 16.5 pounds and only 4 millimeters thick. Samsung&amp;#039;s more cagey on the details of the ES9000, but we do know that the company plans to use active 3-D and, assuming it wants to sell anything, will offer specs similar to the LG&amp;#039;s. They&amp;#039;ll both be expensive, probably around $8,000. But the first 3-D sets were expensive, too. And now with Sony and Panasonic rumored to be teaming up on a shared OLED line, there&amp;#039;s even more pressure on the industry to create an affordable option. And one more reason never to go outside. HOW TO TALK TO YOUR TV  So as not to underestimate our laziness, over the last couple of years companies have been incorporating voice and gesture recognition into TVs. LG&amp;#039;s new Google TV [1] lets you perform Web searches by saying the search terms into your remote. On Samsung&amp;#039;s top-of-the-line sets [2], you don&amp;#039;t even need the remote: Just speak to the TV to change the channel, conduct Web searches, and adjust the volume. And then there&amp;#039;s the constant rumor of Apple launching a Siri-controlled TV, which could let you voice-search for content or easily program a recording of an upcoming show. If you aren&amp;#039;t in the market for a new TV, Xbox offers its own voice-controlled interface, which lets you pause, rewind, and do other rudimentary tasks. For most things, like adjusting the volume or pausing, the whole concept is silly \u2014 an invitation to add yet another X to the size of America&amp;#039;s sweatshirt. But when it avoids drilling down Netflix menus or letter-by-letter entry of search terms on your remote, it could actually be somewhat useful. Embarrassing to use in front of company, but useful. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a14742/oled-tv-0812/?click=main_sr>