OLED wallpaper could be the future of lighting

It's the Star Trek-inspired future we were promised — walls that glow and change colour, perhaps with just a gentle voice command. And it's finally (almost) possible thanks to a series of advances in OLED sheets. It also uses half as much energy than existing fluorescent lights.

New OLED technology that lets you laminate light to surfaces like walls or ceilings is starting to hit the market. These OLEDs run cooler than existing LEDs, so there's no need for bulky heat sinks, making big sheets of light a reality.

OLED technology is expensive across the board, but companies like Konica-Minolta and Philips plan to scale up production and bring prices down.

While an OLED lamp costs about $9,000 (Rs 5.5 lakh approx), Philips aims to sell them at $600 (Rs 36,863) a piece by 2017.