When Thomas Edison conducted the first public demonstration of the light bulb in 1879, he reportedly stated "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles."

Fast-forward to 2009 and current developments in OLED lighting, and it seems just the opposite: Despite more than 20 years of research, so far only the rich can afford them. Case in point is Ingo Maurer's OLED desk lamp (photo top right) which will run you $10,000. That seems a little absurd to me when Pearl Paint is selling drafting lamps for ten bucks and they both do essentially the same thing, unless Maurer's lamp is going to save me $9,990 in electricity usage over its lifetime.

In any case, OLEDs seem to be the go-to light source for any kind of student design concept or rendering that calls for futuristic or physically flexible light sources, but what do we really know about them?

The Times has an excellent article up called "Panels of Light Fascinate Designers" that sheds some light (sorry) on OLEDs, what they're really capable of, and what we may actually, within our lifetime, be using them for.

Something we found intersting in the article was the mention that OLEDs "will supplement, rather than replace, other energy-efficient technologies, like LED, compact fluorescent and advanced incandescent bulbs that create light from a single small point" due to the former's diffuse lighting, which is currently a bit too wan for proper task lighting.

And Maurer himself is critical of the technology: "OLED lighting is even and monotonous," he said. "It has no drama; it misses the spiritual side."

Read the full article here.