Applied Nanotech filed a suit with Canon back in 2005, alleging that while their SED tech was legally licensed to Canon, that license did not cover a Canon/Toshiba partnership. Canon lost the suit, won the appeal and eventually bought Toshiba's stake in SED.

While not happy with the outcome, Applied Nanotech is done with legal fighting. Feeling that they cannot win a Supreme Court decision on the sublicensing of their technology, they've given up...leaving Canon in the clear to move forward with SED.

Meanwhile, Canon has already begun investing in their own non-SED alternative. Their president stated that now is a bad time to introduce new (expensive) technologies (like SED) as "people would laugh at them." [Financial Times via OLED Display]

First it was CRT. Then we got LCD and PDP and DLP and LCoS. After that, the never-growing OLED and the ever-delayed SED appeared. Today, it's all about WTF because FED has arrived and Sony wants it to stay.

But you are probably asking yourself: What in the name of all that is sacred, good and wears latex pants is FED? And would it require me to use one of those cool silver anti-radiation jackets? FED stands for Field Emission Display, a technology that is similar to SED but that uses a grid of carbon nanotubes to emit the electrons that excite phosphor dots in order to create the image.

Sony has just presented a new 19.2-inch 1280 × 960 pixel, 400cd/m2 panel demonstrating the technology, with an impressive 20,000:1 contrast. They want to release it in 2009, with models up to 30 inches with Full HDTV support. More details and photos after the jump.

In a way, FED it's like coming full circle to Sony's good old Trinitron, but with less power consumption, and in a super-thin frame. There's also a very wide angle of vision and a total lack of death pixels (apparently, even if 20% of the emitters fail, you won't see any dead pixels).

Looking at the pictures, however, it looks like FED will also have at least one of the issues of old CRT technologies: screen flicker. However, looking at the specs this doesn't seem to be the case: FED supports 24 to 240 frames per second refresh and the artifacts are likely due to the lack of sync between the ambient fluorescent lights and screen frequencies.

There's no word on prices yet, but apparently they are going to be cheaper to make than LCDs because it uses fewer components.

And answering your second question: the jacket, we can only hope, is optional. – Jesus Diaz

Technology announcing the new display "FED" which is succeeded from SONY (japanese) [AV Watch]

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Judge Rules Against Canon in Nanotube TV Case [News.com]

Canon to Buy Toshiba's Stake in Display Unit [Yahoo News]

Atsutoshi Nishida says SED is planned for a fall 2007 release, but only in small numbers and focused at "professional users". This means it's going to be a "limited, pricey, high-end product", which isn't "competitive against the LCD TV". To us, that says it's going to be a couple years before SED drops to be competitive in a price to performance ratio to match LCDs and plasmas. Time to put our SED dreams in the same place we put our dreams of canoodling with Catherine Zeta Jones. – Jason Chen

Tech On [via SED TV Reviews - Thanks mvab10!]

Toshiba's SED TV a No-show at Electronics Show [News.com]

This is by no means official, but according to my hours of Internet browsing, SED technology is not at CEDIA 2006. You may remember SED from our posts during CES this year. It's built upon the foundations of phosphorus televisions, but Canon and Toshiba basically packed all that technology into each pixel of a flat-panel. The result is supposed to be the best thing ever and we were supposed to have it by now. Dinner is getting cold and I've finished the wine. No, the flowers aren't helping and don't even think about kissing me. – Mark Wilson

SED TECHNOLOGY DISPLAY BLOWOUT-SEE THE FUTURE! [DL:Mag]
[Thanks for the tip Vincent Nguyen!]

Right SED Fred [Red Ferret]

Just figured out the difference between LCD and plasma? We in the tech journo field have spent the last couple of years trying to give you the tools you need to buy the best flat panel TV set as well as figure out all their differences, pros and cons. But it looks like all our jobs are going to get just a little bit harder next year with the launch of a new flat panel technology called SED. A partnership between Canon and Toshiba, SED is being touted as "the holy grail" of flat screen TVs, mixing all the best traits of what's out there now. Images are sharp and clear, like LCD, while power consumption is low and viewing angle is wide. And the images on the screen are being compared to what you'd get from a CRT TV (which is still the best, though bulky and old-fashioned looking). The technology itself, which stands for surface-conduction electron-emitter display, consists of electrons fired from the back of the set colliding with a phosphor-coated screen to emit light, almost like CTVs. And instead of just three electron guns, it uses one for each pixel on the display (which comes to hundreds of thousands electron emitters). What makes it flat is the ability to place these emitters nearer to the front of the TV. Look for the first 55-inch SED TV to be on the market by spring (hopefully here in the US as well as in Japan), though whether the companies will see profits is anyone's guess, especially since plasma TVs are finally coming down in price and LCDs are sure to follow substantially in the next year.

Here comes another flat-screen TV [Reuters]