Ushio America, Inc. Announces the Acquisition of Zylight LLC

Ushio America, Inc. announced the acquisition of Zylight LLC, a manufacturer of innovative lighting products for the entertainment production industry. Zylight LLC was founded in 2003 by James and Charles Collias with a simple mission to build the best and most innovative lighting solutions for the entertainment production industry. Zylight’s products are designed to merge form and function to deliver rugged, reliable, and integrated lighting solutions worldwide. Numerous domestic and international industry awards have kept the Zylight name in the forefront of LED innovation, along with unique wireless integration, and other patented technologies.

Hong Kong’s iconic neon lights are slowly fading away

Hong Kong was once filled with mesmerizing sights full of neon signs on its streets.   Bright signs were everywhere and even if you found yourself standing outside standard places like banks, they were hard to miss. To be fair, nights in Hong Kong are still filled with lights – of a different kind. Its once ubiquitous neon stars are dimming thanks to technological advancement and safety concerns.  LEDs have taken over and while they’re easier to install and keep, they lack the unique beauty of thousands of neon lights on the darkest of nights.

GE Smart Bulbs Get Alexa, Google Assistant Support

General Electric, more commonly recognized as simply GE, has been making accessible and affordable smart light bulbs in the past couple of years, and for the most part, they've been decent and straightforward products. When unveiling the C by GE light bulbs, GE focused on affordability — as they communicated with the smartphone via Bluetooth, there was no need for a bridge peripheral. But while that kept costs down, it also disabled the bulbs from supporting any kind of voice assistants, and it meant that users who wanted voice commands had to switch to models that supported hands-free control.

Samsung to unveil Micro LED TV at CES: Report

Samsung Electronics is reportedly planning to unveil a Micro LED TV at the Consumer Electronics Show next year. According to ZDNet Korea, the top of the line TV will be 150 inches. It will be commercialised sometime next year after the unveiling at Las Vegas, the report added. Making LED smaller is difficult. Micro LED displays have LEDs smaller than 100 micrometres, with each LED chip acting as a pixel. If realised, Micro LED displays will consume less power and won't have burn-in problems like OLED. If a plastic substrate is used, it can also be used for flexible displays.

GE hub connects its smart lights to Alexa and Google

When GE introduced its latest C-series smart light bulbs, the focus was on affordability -- as they talked directly to your phone through Bluetooth, you didn't need a bridge device. That kept them out of touch of voice assistants, however, which meant replacing the whole lot if you wanted hands-free control. Well, you won't have to rethink your investment from now on: GE has introduced a hub, the C-Reach, that puts its bulbs on WiFi to enable support for Amazon's Alexa and (by the end of 2017) Google Assistant.

Can Boron Increase The Efficiency Of LEDs?

Using predictive atomistic calculations and high-performance supercomputers at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), researchers Logan Williams and Emmanouil Kioupakis at the University of Michigan found that incorporating the element boron into the widely used InGaN material can keep electrons from becoming too crowded in LEDs, making the material more efficient at producing light. Their paper 'BInGaN alloys nearly lattice-matched to GaN for high-power high-efficiency visible LEDs' was published this month in Applied Physics Letters.

LEDs for 25,000 streetlights in Mumbai by March

Currently, 37,045 street lights are operated by the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking; 97,347 by Reliance and 12,000 by Maharashtra State Electricity Board. Despite a political controversy surrounding the installation of light emitting diodes (LEDs), the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has prepared a policy to convert all streetlights across the city to LED. The first phase includes conversion of 20% of streetlights, 25,000, to LED. The BJP-led government at the Centre has been aggressively promoting LEDs for streetlights as well as for households, claiming significant energy savings while the Shiv Sena has been objecting to the move.

Energy-saving LEDs boost light pollution worldwide

They were supposed to bring about an energy revolution—but the popularity of LED lights is driving an increase in light pollution worldwide, with dire consequences for human and animal health, researchers said Wednesday. The study in the journal Science Advances is based on satellite data showing that the Earth's night is getting brighter, and artificially lit outdoor surfaces grew at a pace of 2.2 percent per year from 2012 to 2016. Experts say that's a problem because nighttime lights are known to disrupt our body clocks and raise the risks of cancer, diabetes and depression.

Magbulb Magnetic Lightbulb Socket Hits Kickstarter

Magbulb has created a new lightbulb adapter which converts the screw thread or bayonet on E26\27 into a magnetic connection. Allowing you to easily and quickly replace broken bulbs or swap out a bulb to a different style or version depending on your needs. Magbulb takes the form of a unique plastic adapter consisting of two parts one that is screwed onto the lamp holder and the other that is attached to the lightbulb providing a magnetic connection. Watch the demonstration video below to learn more about the Magbulb.

This $10 Clamp Lamp Is a Lifesaver for Small-Space Dwellers

Traditionally used to illuminate construction sites, a clamp lamp (or a "clamp light") is designed to direct light to where you need it and stay put once positioned, a no-frills fixture that aims to deliver maximum utility at the lowest possible cost. You’ve no doubt seen them in your local hardware store. But clamp lamps are just as useful around the house when you need a light but there's no place to put one, or when you simply don't want to get into hardwiring: Attach them to shelves, surfaces, ladders, headboards—anything the clamp can fit around securely. Prices vary based on size, but a basic model will run you between $6 and $18.

Now glam up your smartphone for a party with Lightup+ mod

Alcatel's newest offering has, quite literally, a party trick in the form of a bundled LED cover (they call it Lightup +) that houses 35 RGB LEDs. This is a snap-on back cover that replaces the standard plastic back. It does add a little bit of thickness to the phone but its not overbearing or very noticable. The LEDs can light up in different patterns, react to music, be set to inform you about notifications/calls and you can even set individual light shows for important contacts (or groups of contacts). The LEDs are bright without being too distracting but they're also quite visible from across the room. In particular, we liked the flames effect — if you place the phone with the LEDs facing a wall, it actually does look like firelight.

The global high-brightness LED market size to reach USD 27.28 billion by 2024

The global high-brightness LED market size to reach USD 27.28 billion by 2024 and is driven by the rise in the consumer need for resource efficient and low energy lighting solutions. The market was dominated by North America and Asia Pacific together accounting for 62% of the revenue share in 2016.

High-brightness LEDs are semiconductor-based devices which exhibit superior luminosity as compared to traditional LEDs due to the higher current levels and power dissipation. Increasing trend of providing more brightness to improve clarity is expected to augment the growth of the market over the projected period.

Increasing demand for HB LEDs in numerous application segments including automotive, television, smartphones, general lighting, and signs owing to their lower energy consumption and superior brightness is expected to drive the demand. Rising consumer awareness regarding the benefits of using HB LED such as lower power consumption and superior brightness for residential as well as commercial applications are expected to bolster growth.

Demand for these lighting solutions was highest in consumer electronics including laptops, TV backlight and smartphones to provide superior luminescence even in dark lighting conditions. The segment accounted for 56.3% of the market share in 2016 and is expected to continue its dominant trend over the projected period. Increasing consumption of HB LEDs in 4K TVs coupled with the growing sales of these products is anticipated to drive the market over the next few years.

Automotive is expected to exhibit the fastest growth over the forecast period at a 10.2% CAGR from 2017 to 2024. Although LEDs have penetrated the automotive market, HB LEDs are increasingly used as a safety measure for visibility along with reducing the power consumption. Increasing production of automobiles is expected to propel the sales of these lighting solutions over the next few years.

Apple Patent Found in Europe Details work on Future Product Displays using micro-LEDs with Quantum Dot Technology

Patently Apple discovered a patent filing in the World Intellectual Property Organizations (WIPO) database from Apple. This is an acquired invention from LuxVue, a leader in micro-LED technology. The patent reveals new micro-LEDs using Quantum Dot technology. This is an area of great interest to Apple who recently acquired InVisage, a leader in Quantum Dot technology with over 100 patents related to photography and video under QuantumFilm along with technology for Quantum Dot Image Sensors that could be used in future iDevice cameras. 

GE is breaking up with the light bulb, its most iconic accomplishment

General Electric is getting rid of the light bulb, the most iconic product of GE's 125-year existence. Unveiling GE's roadmap, new CEO John Flannery said that the company would focus on its health, power and aviation businesses. Lighting didn't make the cut to be part of GE's future. The news itself isn't a shock: The company said in July that it was looking to sell its lighting business. Lighting is by far GE's smallest division, making up just under 2% of the company's overall revenue. And light bulb sales have fallen 66% so far this year.

BlinkWheel's tuneful sequence is controlled by flashing LEDs

Hackspace tinkerer Koka Nikoladze has built an impressive electromechanical monophonic step sequencer called the BlinkWheel. The looped sounds are triggered when a rotating arm comes into contact with LEDs spaced out around the upper disc. A sound can be added to the sequence by popping a new LED into an available slot, or removed by simply lifting it out again.

Making More Sustainable LEDs With Reusable Materials

The rise of LED lightbulbs has been driven in large part by their environmental credentials, and rightly so. LEDs consume a fraction of the power used by traditional incandescent bulbs and have exceptional longevity, lasting up to 25,000 hours. Most of an LED’s environmental impact (around 98 percent) is incurred during its use. Factors such as longevity and efficiency present the greatest opportunity for LED manufacturers to improve the environmental impact of their products. After that, the biggest influencing factor -- the "greenness" of the power source itself -- is out of manufacturers’ hands.

Koogeek LB1 Wi-Fi Smart LED Bulb

Koogeek has introduced its new HomeKit enabled Wi-Fi Smart LED Light Bulb that can be easily connected to a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network without a hub or bridge. It works with Apple HomeKit technology and provides an easy, secure way to turn your connected light on or off, set light colors, or adjust light brightness and saturation through Siri voice control on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Apple Watch.

Schneider Electric Helps Quitman County School District Reduce Annual Energy Costs by 20 Percent

The Quitman County School District, located along the banks of the picturesque Walter F. George Lake in southwest Georgia, today announced it is embarking on an energy efficiency project that will demonstrate the district’s commitment to creating 21st century schools. The district will partner with energy and sustainability expert Schneider Electric on an energy savings performance contract (ESPC) project that will enhance the district’s buildings and save nearly $500,000 over the life of the project.

The project also includes interior LED lighting upgrades that will enhance learning and athletic environments and exterior LED lighting to improve campus safety.

Schneider Electric’s unique approach to ESPCs enables school districts such as Quitman County to take money that would have normally been spent on utilities and reinvest it back into its schools to achieve a variety of important goals it might not otherwise be able to afford. In this case, the partnership will allow Quitman County Schools to take these first important steps to modernize its school buildings without increasing taxes in the community.

“In my first year as Superintendent of Quitman County Schools, I quickly realized we needed to set new goals for creating a 21st century learning environment for our students,” said Victoria L. Harris, Ed.S., Superintendent, Quitman County School District. “Our partnership with Schneider Electric will allow us to move forward with a number of deferred maintenance projects, all without raising taxes for residents. We are proud to be able to offer our students the high-quality classrooms they deserve.”

For years, the Quitman County School District has struggled to maintain temperatures in the server room at its elementary school, with antiquated cooling systems unable to keep up with increasingly hot and humid Georgia summers. As a result, the schools’ IT servers needed to be replaced. Schneider Electric worked with the district to install a dedicated cooling unit in the server room, increasing consistency and reliability of its IT systems.

Larson Electronics LLC Releases 112W Wash Down LED Light

Larson Electronics LLC, leader in industrial lighting and equipment, has released 112 watt wash down LED fixture that offers 16,287 lumens of crisp white light in an 100º by 100º open frame, with a CRI of 80 and a color temperature of 5000K. This CSA rated unit contains impact and shock resistant, no-glass polycarbonate LED bulbs, and sealed and corrosion resistant aluminum hardware, providing reliable, stable lighting under even the harshest of conditions in food processing and preparation applications.

The WDL-48-320W-LED-TRN-WCM linear wash down light from Larson Electronics is an NSF rated, food safe fixture, and an ideal replacement for 320 watt metal halide or pressure sodium lights. This 112 watt LED light produces 16,287 lumens, drawing just 126 watts. This non-metallic LED includes a special heat dissipating design and advanced LED driver technology which gives this unit a great lifespan rating with excellent lumen retention. The beam is a stable and no-flicker beam, providing a solid-state lighting source.

This low profile, IP66 rated wash down light is constructed of heavy-duty and corrosion resistant die cast aluminum with a chromate conversion coating, finished with an additional powder coating for extreme durability. The shatter resistant LEDs are protected with an unbreakable polycarbonate lens, allowing this light to be used safely in food preparation applications. The unit is trunnion mounted and able to withstand powerful high-pressure jets and can operate in extreme temperatures between -40°C to +50°C.

“This wash down LED fixture is a very durable and compact light source that can be used safely and effectively in food industries,” said Rob Bresnahan, CEO of Larson Electronics LLC. “The main concern with lights in food production and preparation is the potential to combust and contaminate the food, but this fixture is made of durable, non-explosive aluminum, shatter-resistant LEDs and an unbreakable lens that can withstand harsh power washes.”

About Larson Electronics LLC: Larson Electronics LLC is a manufacturer of industrial lighting equipment and accessories. The company offers an extensive catalog of industry-grade lighting and power distribution products for the following sectors: manufacturing, construction, food processing, oil and gas, military, marine and automobile. Customers can benefit from the company’s hands-on, customized approach to lighting solutions. Larson Electronics provides expedited service for quotes, customer support and shipments.

Newport council considers LED lighting

(Foto: Doug Kerr)

Newport (Penstate) borough council is considering switching 26 decorative lights along Market and Second streets to LED illumination. The matter was discussed during council's Oct. 17 meeting. Council President Gerry Robinson reported the borough has received several options and quotes. He suggested changing two of the lights -- by the Perry County Council of the Arts building and in front of Steckley's Pets -- as a test and then full implementation if successful. He recommended corn-cob style, 65-watt bulbs. The change should shave electricity costs and eliminate replacing ballasts, which typically cost several hundred dollars when needed.

LEDs light the way for better drug therapies

Radioactivity may have a bad rap, but it plays a critical role in medical research. A revolutionary new technique to create radioactive molecules, pioneered in the lab of Princeton chemistry professor David MacMillan, has the potential to bring new medicines to patients much faster than before.

“Your average drug takes 12 to 14 years to come to market,” said MacMillan, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry. “So everything that we can do to take that 14- or 12-year time frame and compress it is going to advantage society, because it gets medicines to people — to society — so much faster.”

Every potential new medication has to go through testing to confirm that it affects the part of the body it is intended to affect. “Is it going to the right place? The wrong place? The right place and the wrong place?” MacMillan asked.

Tracing the path of a chemical that dissolves into the bloodstream presented a serious challenge, but one that radiochemists solved years ago by swapping out individual atoms with radioactive substitutes. Once that is done, “the properties of the molecule — of the drug — are exactly the same except that they’re radioactive, and that means that you can trace them really, really well,” MacMillan said.

But that introduced a new problem.
“Getting these radioactive atoms into the drug is not a trivial thing to do,” he said. “People have developed long, sometimes month-long, two-month, three-month long sequences just to get a tiny amount of a substance with a few radioactive atoms.”

But now he and his colleagues have found a better way, drawing on their work using blue LED lights and catalysts that respond to light, known as photocatalysts. Their research was published online in the journal Science on Nov. 9.

“It was a wacky idea! Fortunately, it worked,” MacMillan said. “What we came up with was, if you shine light on them, and you have a photocatalyst, could these photocatalysts actually remove the non-radioactive atom and then install the radioactive atom?”

They could.

MacMillan’s technique uses “heavy water,” which replaces the hydrogen (H) in H₂O with tritium, a radioactive version of hydrogen that has an extra two neutrons per atom. “If you just let your drug sit in the radioactive water and shine light on it with a catalyst, the catalyst will remove the atom which is not radioactive — in this case it’s hydrogen — and replace it with tritium,” he said.

Suddenly, attaching one of these atomic labels takes hours instead of months, and the technique works on many kinds of frequently used compounds. The researchers have already tested it on 18 commercially available medicines, as well as candidates in the Merck drug discovery pipeline.
For compounds that don’t need radioactive tags, the same one-step process can swap in deuterium, a version of hydrogen with only one extra neutron. These “stable labels” (with deuterium) and “radio labels” (with tritium) have countless applications, in academia as well as drug discovery.
The simplicity of this new approach has another implication, said Jennifer Lafontaine, the senior director of synthesis and analytical chemistry for Pfizer in La Jolla, California, who was not involved in the research.

Because the previous process was so resource intensive, deuterium- or tritium-labeled molecules were often only created for chemicals that were “quite advanced in the drug discovery process,” she said. “This methodology could therefore open the door to earlier and expanded use of isotopic labeling in drug discovery, significantly enhancing our ability to study drug candidates on a deeper level, and across a range of applications.”

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01 GM103558-04 to D.W.C.M., Y.Y.L. and K.N.), a graduate fellowship from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (Y.Y.L.), and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for a postdoctoral fellowship (K.N.).

The Evolution of LED Home Lighting

As LEDs continue to evolve; different colour tones, wider lighting arcs, wireless app operational and dimmer compatible, so will their use. With their low wattage consumption, they are as happy rigged to solar power as they are the national grid. Already people are experimenting with new options for lighting their homes. The central lighting rose is giving way to recessed LED ceiling lights. The average three-bed semi will have around 10 rooms including separate bathroom and loo, hallway and landing. If each room is illuminated by one 60 watt incandescent bulb, that’s 600 watts of energy use. Okay, maybe not all the time, but compare that with 10 LEDs. The equivalent LED wattage is 10 watts, giving you a total energy use of 100 watts.

Goa urges Centre to ban use of LEDs in fishing

The India state government has urged the centre to enforce a ban on use of LED lights while fishing, citing threat to the marine ecology of Goa as the reason. Fisheries minister Vinod Palyekar and fisheries secretary Govind Jaiswal, who is holding additional charge as fisheries director, along with deputy director Chandrakant Velip met with the central government in Delhi on Thursday to discuss the same.

Is A Subsidy On LED Lighting Economically Viable?

The switch to LED is not going to be easy, at least in poor and developing countries. Despite the dramatic fall in prices of LED bulbs over the past several years, they are still five to ten times more expensive than incandescent bulbs. That is not to say that LED bulbs are not a better alternative. Studies show that LED bulbs can have a lifespan of over 50,000 hours. To give this some perspective, the corresponding figure for an incandescent bulb is just 1,200 hours. In other words, if you were to run a bulb for twelve hours every day, an incandescent bulb would last for just 100 days. In comparison, the LED bulb could last well over 11 years.

Wireless LED Lighting and Display System From Happinet

Happinet Corporation launches X-base (pronounced "Cross Base") - a display stand that wirelessly powers specially designed LED lights, on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter beginning November 3rd, 2017.

X-base allows modelers, collectors and artists to add stunning lighting effects to plastic models, figures, installations, or even inside aquariums.

The Power Station wirelessly illuminates LED lights through an exclusive magnetic field resonance system. When the X-base Power Station is turned on, the LEDs automatically light up when placed within the magnetic field.

Wireless power technology is now used to charge devices like smartphones and electric toothbrushes, but the X-base Power Station extends power delivery farther out to include the 11.8" x 11.8" x 11.8" area of the display stand.

The light bulb that can’t go out

Ever needed a bulb that you needed to stay turned on 24 hours a day, even if the power went out? Neither have I, but I can envision some scenarios where that might be important. A dark corridor connecting subway platforms, perhaps? The good news: Feit’s latest LED bulb offers a potential solution. The name really says it all: The Feit IntelliBulb Battery Backup is outfit with a built-in lithium-ion battery that powers the bulb, kicking in automatically if the power goes out. The bulb can still be turned on and off at the switch, but in the event of a sudden power cut (or a tripped circuit breaker), the light briefly shuts off, then springs back into life within a few seconds

76% LED bulbs in India risky to use: Survey

Three-fourths of light emitting diode (LED) bulbs sold in India's $1 billion market were found non-compliant with government's consumer safety standards, market research firm Nielsen said in a survey on Monday. The report, based on a study of 200 electrical retail outlets across major cities like Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and New Delhi in July, found the products to be spurious and riskier, with the highest number of violations in the national capital.

Study shows 76% of LED bulbs flout consumer safety standards in India

In a Nielsen study conducted across four major Indian cities — New Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and Hyderabad — 76 per cent of light-emitting diode (LED) bulb brands and 71 per cent of LED downlighter brands across 200 electrical retail outlets were found to be non-compliant with consumer safety standards as prescribed and mandated for lighting products by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. According to the Electric Lamp and Component Manufacturers’ Association (ELCOMA), the study shows Delhi leads the all India list with the highest number of violations.

Reeven Launches Twila RGB Lighting Strips

Reeven, a company best known for its coolers, cases and components, announced the launch of its Twila RGB lighting strips. Compatible with motherboards sporting industry-standard RGB 4-pin headers, these polyurethane lighting strips feature a total of 21 LEDs that can be controlled by your motherboard’s RGB lighting software. The Twila RGB lighting strips are certified for use with Asrock RGB LED, MSI Mystic Light Sync, and Asus Aura Sync RGB lighting software. 

Smart light switch w. built-in OLED panel is an interesting alternative to smart bulbs

Davidpompa pairs pink volcanic rock and copper for Ambra lamp range

Design studio Davidpompa has carved rose-hued cantera stone mined in Mexico, and teamed it with copper to create this pair of wall and table lights. Launched at this year's Design Week Mexico, the Ambra wall and table lamp employ cantera rosa – a pink rock formed of volcanic ashes and lava. The stone was historically used in Mexican architecture because it can be easily carved into different, precise shapes, and is also durable.

Horticulture LEDs extend color choices

Lumileds has added three new color options to its Luxeon SunPlus 35 line of LEDs, enabling wavelength tuning in both greenhouse and vertical farming applications. SunPlus 35 LEDs are binned and tested based on photosynthetic photon flux and come in 3.5×3.5-mm packages. The new deep red (650 nm to 670 nm) and far red (720 nm to 740 nm) wavelengths combine with the existing royal blue (445 nm to 455 nm) to enable spectrum customization for the crop being grown.

Two-wire LEDs is a Game-Changer

LEDs have become the new norm for boat lighting. Beyond significantly lowering heat output and power draw, the latest generation of LEDs also come with a wide range of designer fixtures and color combinations. Boat builders include LEDs as standard equipment, and a growing number of do-it-yourselfers are retrofitting older halogen or incandescent fixtures with the latest generation LED fixtures.

Imtra has been at the forefront of LED development since its inception. Its range of four-wire LED lights and fixtures are the systems of choice for many boaters and boat builders. And the new two-wire LED series represents another significant advance for both the professional boat builder and do-it-yourselfer. The company will soon offer 10, two-wire models, with four completely new trim ring designs.

Brighten your home in 64,000 shades of white through Wiz Connected Lights

There is no shortage of companies designing ways to light your home for your every need. Wiz Connected Lights is hoping its voice-controlled lighting system will be the last one you ever need to buy. The system was rolled out in North America in late August and features smart LED light bulbs, recessed lighting, and sensors, among other things, to keep your home well-lit. No smart home hub is required to turn on the system, which lights up through an app that allows you to “pair and share” in 30 seconds.

PureLiFi's dongle replacement is … a dongle

The Scottish Li-Fi pioneer inches closer to putting miniaturized LED lightwave receivers inside phones, tablets, and laptops. The company revealed a technological breakthrough on the road to dumping dongles (USB sticks). And while the size of the circuitry has indeed shrunk, what pureLiFi showed as a dongle replacement was, um, a dongle. It's part of a system that pureLiFi has branded LiFi-XC.

For a quick refresher: Li-Fi, or light fidelity, transmits the Internet wirelessly via the lightwaves emitted by LED light sources. It is in prolonged early development days, yet some proponents believe it will eventually complement and offload crowded Wi-Fi services (which use radiowaves) by opening up a vast amount of spectrum.

Heelight smart light bulbs listen and react to their environment

Heelight smart bulbs don’t need the internet to communicate with an owner. Instead, it listens for digital sound commands coming from a companion app. Every color, mode, or brightness setting corresponds to a specific sound. Some might see this as a disadvantage, but a few chirps from a smartphone are enough to adjust between 16 million color options. Heelight comes with 30 different modes meant to fit certain scenarios. Playing music with friends? This smart light bulb listens to the music to create the right mood. Brightness and color don’t just reflect the beat of the music — they change with the mood as well. During birthday celebrations, another mode turns Heelight into a candle. After blowing on the bulb for a second, the bulb will switch off.

Government should wake up to scourge of illegal LEDs

The Indian LED lighting industry is going through a boom phase. According to some estimates, the market has grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.5 per cent between 2009 and 2016 and is now worth around $3.7 billion (with LEDs at around 40 per cent of the market share). This makes the industry worth much more than the total GDP of over two dozen countries around the world. The Modi government’s Unnat Jeevan by Affordable LEDs and Appliances for All (UJALA) programme, the world’s largest non-subsidised LED bulb distribution scheme, has given the industry an added push.

Lumos LED bike helmet makes for safer night riding

As the days grow shorter, and darkness comes earlier, the sharp-looking Lumos Smart Bike Helmet is both beautiful and practical. It won the 2016 Beazley Design of the Year award (in the transport category), and also increases your cycling safety by making you extremely visible on dark roads. That’s due to its 48 integrated super-bright LEDs arranged in stand-out triangles (the helmet back has 38 red LEDs, and the front has 10 white LEDs). A detachable wireless remote on the handlebar allows you to easily activate turn signals on the helmet to reinforce hand signals.

Are San Francisco's new LED streetlights too bright?

Some San Franciscans think the city's new LED-powered streetlights aren't such a bright idea. In June, city officials announced a major push to replace 12,500 outdated streetlights with brighter, more energy-efficient light-emitting diode fixtures, also known as LEDs. The lights are intended to increase visibility and curb electricity and maintenance costs. But some people, blinded by the bright white glow of the new LED lights, can't get behind the city's new nighttime hue.

New LED lights don't melt snow, so city crews out clearing traffic signals

A blast of winter meant a busy day for city crews Thursday, as they sanded and salted huge swaths of Winnipeg including icy bridges. But there's a new item on the winter storm to-do list that's still being completed, thanks to a change in the city's traffic lights. "Traffic signal lights at some intersections throughout the city ... have become partially obscured by snow frozen to the lens," Winnipeg manager of corporate communications David Driedger wrote in an email Saturday. "Over the years, the city has replaced traffic signal bulbs with LED bulbs which are not as hot and do not melt the snow as the previous bulbs did."

Tweezers for Testing Your LEDs

Zhengyu (Toney) Tang is an electronics engineer with a passion for making, and a desire to build tools for making. After two successful product launches of his Zero Ruler tool for developing project footprints, he's back on Kickstarter with the LEDTwee - Tweezers for LED projects. Two 1000 Ohm resistors are connected in parallel and powered by a disc battery inside the tweezers to let the user test LEDs anywhere in a project's progression. LEDs can be tested as a single unit, while bulk packed in a case, on a reel, or while installed on a project board.

Atlantic City to upgrade 9,000 streetlights to LEDs

The city will upgrade nearly 9,000 of its streetlights to LED bulbs. Mayor Don Guardian signed an agreement with Atlantic City Electric to upgrade 5,683 streetlights at no cost to the city, according to an announcement Friday. The conversion will cost $750,000, which is part of a $2 million grant the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities awarded the city to fund the design and implementation of LED technology citywide, the statement said.

Your Dining Table Needs a Floor Lamp, Not a Pendant

You've finally graduated to a home that has room for a real-deal dining table. Said home has not a single overhead light fixture. There go your dreams of a fancy pendant light dangling overhead. oes this mean you'll never have a (somewhat) elegant destination for all those (trying hard to be) grown-up dinner parties you plan to throw? No way. There's a fixture our there that offers the everyone-looks-so-good-tonight glow you're looking for, no rewiring or hole-drilling required. That fixture is the humble arc floor lamp.