In 4Q10, the LED-backlit shipment which were applied LCD TVs, monitors and notebooks, had a 40% share in the Chimei Innolux's(CMI) total panel shipments, and it’s expected to reach 50% in 1Q11. In the CMI’s LED-backlit applications, TV panel shipments had a 15%, and monitor panels accounted for 30%, with 100% of notebook panels in 4Q10.

Taiwan monocrystalline sapphire ingots’ manufactory USI Optronics reportedly expected its global market share to increase to 13-15% in 2011, with its orders beyond its production capacity in 1Q of 2011. The sources pointed out, in the end of 2010, USI Optronics produced monocrystalline sapphire ingots to increase 220,000mm every month, and planed to increase to 550,000mm at the end of 2011, which was decided by the perfect quality and competitive price. Also, the company’ global market share would rise in 2011.

Toshiba is reported to start offering 40 types of LED tube lamps by March that it will market to offices and factories.   Toshiba will offer standard 40-watt lamps as well as 20-watt tubes. Besides, it plans to have 80 types on the market by June.

The Central Railway (CR) in Mumbai has planed to replace the remaining 1,700 signals on its suburban network and has sought approval from the Railway Board to help reduce costs and maintenance of signals and eliminates instances of signal failure. Each signal post usually consists of four colored lamps, one each of green and red and two amber ones.

According to Times of Oman, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has announced that the Australia-based Solar-Gem would use solar energy to supply electricity to the Elephanta Caves in India. According to Singh , this project was launched last month and would provide three villages with electricity for the first time on 24/7 basis. The company would use LED lamps from panels that store sun rays as electricity in battery units.

According to an official from optoelectronic components manufacturer, RONA Electricals (Pvt) Ltd, the firm will build a factory to manufacture solid-state lighting or LED bulbs in the Gampaha district to introduce more energy saving lighting among Sri Lankan consumers and reduce electricity bill. As their first project, the company is retro-fitting the existing energy consuming bulbs at all 22 places of Buddhist worship which receive free electricity from the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) .

Ural State University’s scientists have combined a LED and a computer fan to create a new lamp, which can work for 50 000 hours, expecting to provide more efficient than a general street light.

Opto Diode Corporation, a division of ITW, has designed customized LEDs for a variety of applications including airfield lighting, curing, fluorescence, machine vision, visual inspection (NDT) and microscopy. Opto Diode can adjust the output, the angle of emission, wavelength (from 365 nm all the way out to 940 nm) packaging, and the way the LEDs are tested, depending on customer requirements.

Opcom Group, the global supplier in professional development and production of digital imaging products for almost 20 years, releases a full range of "OPCOM LED light bulbs" with a three-year product warranty for home and commercial environment needs. Opcom group provides the total solutions in LED bulbs selection.

Recently, Everlight has presented the "plant factory innovation conference" held in the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, from the Finance Office, Ministry of Science, the Ministry of Agriculture.

There is a test run in the Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco. Dubbed Sanya, this hybrid streetlight combines  Urban Green Energy’s 600-watt vertical-axis wind turbine with an 80-watt solar panel, all feeding LED light, targeting to reduce energy use for the Civic Center Sustainability District by about 35 percent.

In 2010-2011, Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI)  enters a new decade of energy efficiency, celebrating its 11th anniversary as the official Lighting Partner to the world-famous Times Square Ball, a beacon of LED innovation.

Great Wall Technology’s subsidiary, Shenzhen Kaifa Technology, has been aligned with Epistar JV Holding, Evertop (Fujian) Optoelectronics and Country Lighting to jointly set up a joint venture (JV) KFES Lighting Co., Ltd., which will engaged in the research, manufacture and sale of LED wafer, chips, source modules, light source and lighting with a registered capital of $120 million and total investment amount of $160 million.

Karnataka State Pharmacy Council , India has invested Rs.1.3 lakh to install a LED  display in Bangalore city which flashes tips on healthcare and medication usage and storage methods, which was considered as the first-of-its-kind in the pharmacy space in Asia. According to D.A. Gundu Rao, president, Karnataka State Pharmacy Council, "This LED display has evoked excellent response among the general public and patients. It has also attracted the corporators and MLAs in Bangalore and they are keen to have more such displays across the city. "

Truckee Donner Public Utility has supplied free LED holiday lights to almost 700 customers who turned in their old incandescent light strands in December. According to TDPUD General Manager Michael Holley, it’s the fourth year that they offered this program. The light strands given to customers equate to more than five percent of TDPUD's total customer base. Since the inception of the holiday light exchange program, the TDPUD has given away energy efficient LED holiday light strands to more than 2,000 customers.

The state Department of Transportation of Ohio intended to install flashing green LED lights which had better visibility in wintry conditions than the current installed yellow flashing lights on state snow removal equipment. It’s said that officials made this decision based on the request as the number of drivers crashing into state snowplows has already topped in 2009 winter’s total. Furthermore, compared to 57 all last winter, there have been 63 crashes statewide so far this season.

The municipal offices of St. Cloud, Minnesota has become the first in the country that installed a visible light communication system to replace Wi-Fi.

Last week, the City of Baytown, the Texas Department of Transportation and lighting manufacturer BetaLED have jointly made a pilot program on adding LED street lighting to the city. Six conventional 400-watt high pressure sodium fixtures were installed on three light poles located on Highway 146 at the Garth Road overpass. The lights were retrofit with BetaLED’s THE EDGE luminaries.

It’s reported that Alpha Plus Epi Inc., the epi-wafer subsidiary of Tyntek Corp. will spend US$30 million to add 10 to 15 MOCVD chambers in 2011. At present, Alpha Plus is testing seven MOCVD chambers which were recently tooled at its factory in Taichung Industrial Park.

Oklahoma City is likely to install LED lighting in all of the new downtown pedestrian street lamps. It’s said that the local officials who initially reluctant to include LED lighting with Project 180, have reversed course and are looking to put the fixtures in all of the new downtown pedestrian street lamps.

In order to seize the upcoming New Year and Lunar New Year holidays’ market share, it’s reported that first-tier vendors such as Sony、Sharp etc would cut price to promote LED-backlit TVs in the China market. The market estimated the average price drop of foreign brand TVs was about 22% in 2010, while price drops of local brand TVs was about 16%.

Philips Lumileds has played an all-white interactive LED light show with 1,208 custom LED fixtures containing 6,040 high-power LUXEON Rebel LEDs on the curvy sunroof of the Bridge of Peace in Tbisli, Georgia in the former Soviet Union.

Recently, LED lighting systems manufacturer, Raytec has confirmed a major distribution agreement with Harco at the beginning of 2010 to improve the performance of CCTV systems in the Middle East. Since then, Harco Group have deployed Raytec illuminators at a number of high security sites including government and police facilities, industrial buildings, shopping centres as well as private security buildings and villas.

It’s reported that Japan-based Mitsui & Co, which had a huge business network with business involving in the monitor and automobile industries, would purchase 74.693 million to Taiwan LED chipmaker Formosa Epitaxy’s private placement, with having a 15% stake, while Unity Opto Technology would increase its investment and purchase 15.307 million of stake.

Recently, Chicony Electronics’ wholly owned subsidiary, Chicony Power Technology had shipped LED lighting device to Clevo's China retail subsidiary Buynow, which adopted into its shopping malls as well as Clevo's partially invested Chicony department stores. It’s said that Chicony Power’s LED lighting products would emphasized the consumer and enterprise market in china. The company was expected to be list on Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) within the next 1-2 years.

Benefit from stronger shipments for LED TV backlight applications, Taiwan LED chip packaging house Bright LED Electronics wanted to December revenues would be NT$400 million (US$13.5 million) and full year revenues would reach NT$5.1 billion in 2010, with up 20% compared to 2009.

Targeting to help revive an economy struggling with persistent deflation and a rising yen by creating jobs through green and other potential growth industries, Japan has injected $6.4 billion on 153 low-carbon projects across the country over the next 15 months, using government subsidies as seed money and ranging from production of low-emitting cars, lithium-ion batteries, LED lighting and solar panels to energy-saving electrical appliances.  

It’s reported that the Trinamool Congress-led Kolkata Municipal Corporation authorities want to install LED lights across the city after the success of a pilot project to light up the city's streets. The erstwhile Left Front board first decided to modernize streetlights on some major thoroughfares.

Taiwan barcode scanner manufacturer, Marson Technology, has announced the launch of MT7930T dual light source (Bi-color) CCD barcode scanner.

Lately, San Francisco-based Elemental LED has promoted two collections of LED , the Tess 7W and 9W LED Light Bulbs, to replace standard incandescent and CFL bulbs. These light bulbs are able to produce the same brightness as 40W and 60W standard light bulbs respectively, but use less than 20 percent as much electricity. The new LED bulbs screw into any standard E26/E27 base. That translates into major savings on electricity bills as well as a dramatically reduced carbon footprint.