Flat, potentially flexible organic LEDs are still too expensive to use as a lighting source, but they won't be for too much longer. A new report by flat panel research firm DisplaySearch predicts that the OLED lighting market will "take off" in 2011.

It certainly hasn't taken off, yet. The report's author, Jennifer Colegrove, told the Industry Standard in a phone interview that there are currently "only about 20 OLED lamps in the whole world." The lights are already reliable, energy-efficient, and mercury-free, but no one has yet developed a way to mass-produce them cheaply enough for commercial purposes.