Nano Lighting is a technology developed by Nanosys, in which a coat of nanomaterial semiconductors is applied to a surface that layers over efficient blue LED lights. Typically, an LED TV is actually an LCD that is just backlit using LEDs instead of a CCFL. In a television using Nano lighting, the color comes from the nanoparticles in the coating interacting with the LED backlight. The nanomaterials are supposed to produce a greater range of light wavelengths than typical a LCD, allowing for warmer, more vivid colors.
The LG LEX8 with Nano Lighting will go on sale in Germany and Korea before it comes to the US. No price has been announced for this new technology, so it's difficult to say how it will fit into the current television market. It's also possible that OLED and Nano Lighting will split display markets: OLED in the smaller screens of laptops and mobile devices with Nano Lighting LED used in televisions. That is, so long as some third competitor doesn't come in a sweep them both.
None of this comes cheaply, of course. Newly released technologies will always be more expensive than their progenitors, even with the promise of reduced costs in the future. While the future of all these new displays is unclear, one thing is for certain: display manufacturers are vying to engineer vivid, lighter, and more power efficient displays.
Image credits: LG, Nanosys
