New Technology makes it to the store

So I was in Walmart's today, looking around while they filled my prescriptions.  Wandered over the the television display.  They are all flat screen, and this year, is the year of no bezel.  The fronts of the TV's are all screen, no ring of plastic around the edge (the bezel).  And they are bigger.  55 inch for $800.  And the labels all say LED (light emitting diode) rather than LCD (liquid crystal display).  This is a forward step technology wise.  The LED screens are a little brighter and a little more vivid than my LCD Sony (state of the art a few years ago).  LED's emit light by them selves, and are very efficient, say 80% of the juice in comes out as light.  An LCD doesn't make it's own light, it acts as a shutter, blocking or passing a light source behind it, (the backlight).  I'm not sure just how backlights worked, but I expect LED's to use less juice than the backlight uses. 
   The surprise to me, was this major technological step forward got all the way to retail shelves before I heard of it.  No mention of this appeared in any websites, trade rags, or blogs that I read.  Or if it did I missed it.