Yeah, it is amazing what marketing-speak can do. Heck, I read some of the literature on Nanosys and while it becomes clear that it's not a backlight itself, I could see how a layman could be misled.
Examples of, IMO, misleading information:
From
http://www.nanosysinc.com/what-we-do/display-backlighting/qdef/:
"They enable deep color and high efficiency by providing displays with an ideal light source." Oh really, sounds like maybe it provides the light source itself. It doesn't!
Or, how about from here
http://www.nanosysinc.com/what-we-do/quantum-dots/:
"Quantum dots are actually very powerful devices." Devices? Really? I think device is a stretch....
Or, "Each quantum dot is actually a tiny semiconductor -- which means it can convert incoming energy. The electronic characteristics of quantum dots are determined by their size and shape." Electronic characteristics? It all sounds like I can supply it with power and change its properties on demand, you know, like an "electronic" device. Of course, that's not true...they do hint at that themselves, on the first page, by saying "The dots we produce are tuned to create better color by changing their size during fabrication to emit light at just the right wavelengths." So, OK, once fabricated the color "emitted" by the "device" is fixed. But, there's that word "create" again.... They don't really "create" anything......of course, I guess matter is never created, so, lol....
And here's the best, in big bold letters, "World’s best light emitter" from,
http://www.nanosysinc.com/s/Nanosys-QDEF.pdf. COME ON, it emits light? It lets it pass through.... Define emit, "produce and discharge"! Oh yeah, it produces jack $hit!
Even in their quasi-white-paper,
http://www.nanosysinc.com/s/QDEF-InformationDisplay-8z4n.pdf they say things like, "Quantum dots comprise a new class of material that can be tuned to emit light very efficiently at precise red, green, and blue wavelengths, thus creating an ideal light spectrum for LCDs." Yep, emit and create again....
All-in-all, I think the literature is misleading if taken out-of-context by non-technical folks. And there is a lot of marketeering and bull$hit in most of it for what seems like ultimately another form of light filter. Plus, I felt like someone told them, "better stick OLED in your documents so people find this crap when they are searching for OLED" because there are some very pointless references to it throughout the material. Like, "Similar to OLED materials, quantum dots are sensitive to oxygen and moisture." Oh, who gives a crap?! But, they make sure to have this gem, "by adding QDEF, the display maker can immediately begin producing LCD panels with color and efficiency performance beyond OLEDs, without making changes to established processes." Yay, how about contrast and black-level performance? Yep, not even a contest.
Ugh...but, hey, someone bought into their crap and I suppose they'll make some money. Good for them!
edit: I suppose to be fair, the AT&T documentation here,
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.pc.41.100190.002401?journalCode=physchem, does say "excited electronic states", but that reads better to me than "electronic characteristics".... Either way, it's a lot of marketing crud for something that's been around since 1990 and really is unlikely to do much to improve LED...though it will make some people at Nanosys rich, so....