LED technology enables a wider range of lighting applications, including various types of luminaires. A German company, LUCEM, created a material of light-emitting concrete which is made of layers of transmitting optical fibers. The material allows designers to break the limitation of luminaires for more flexible and creative architecture and interior design. (Image: LUCEM) The products are mixture of fine concrete and optical fibers. The company used thousands of fine optical fibers that are only 0.5 mm diameter, put them layers by layers with the specially designed...

UV LEDs cover a wide range of applications including light curing, medical treatment and disinfection. And now, UV LEDs are put on drones to spew UV light in subway stations and trains for sanitization. An online magazine, Yanko Design, reported that Korean designers at Off Garage Studio created a UV LED integrated drone as a “space care system,” providing autonomous sterilization service. Equipped with sensors and UVC LEDs, the drone is designed to flies smoothly around the station and emits UV LED light in the subways to efficiently and e...

Casambi, the expert in wireless lighting controls based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), has teamed up with Seoul Semiconductor to provide lighting designers with precision control of LED lights that match the spectrum of sunlight. The development puts true human centric lighting in the hands of designers for the first time. Casambi’s wireless control technology can now be used with Seoul Semiconductor’s innovative SunLike Series LEDs, whose spectra match to real sunlight, to realize human centric lighting. “Human-centric lighting” describes...

The City of Wilmington in Delaware, US and Ontario Airport in Canada, have switched to smart LED lighting system. The City of Wilmington collaborated with Delmarva Power on a new citywide smart lighting system. The project begins in July 2019 with the installation of 215 LED street lights and 50 smart sensors in West Center City, North Market Street, and Baynard Boulevard. The final goal is to convert all 7,050 streetlights to LEDs. With the project, the city aims to save up to US$150,000 per year by converting all the streetlights into sensor-equipped...

Last week LEDinside reported that more and more vertical farming startups have received funds from worldwide investors, marking the great potential of the high-tech farming business. Within a week, another US-based vertical farming company, AeroFarms, announced that it has raised US$ 100 million in the Series E funding round. According to the report by the Financial Times, the funding round was led by IKEA’s parent company, Ingka Group, bringing the total funding to US$ 238 million. Other investors include Wheatsheaf, ADM Capital, Mission Point Cap...

The expanding horticulture LED lighting business marks the development of high-tech farming including vertical farming which has attracted increasing investment recently. Vertical farming companies from Europe and the US have reported funds from worldwide investors. Berlin-based vertical farming startup InFarm has raised a US$100 billion fund in its Series B investment led by Atomico with other existing investors including Balderton Capital, Astanor Ventures, Cherry Ventures and TriplePoint Capital joining. Founded in 2013, the Germany company has developed the ...

Connected lighting system integrating smart control and tunable light opens a room for health care applications. Hospitals in Berlin, Germany and Barcelona, Spain, showed the benefits of implementing connected LED lighting systems. At Barcelona’s Vall d’Hebron hospital, a human centric lighting system which can tune the lighting spectrum to match natural daylight was installed in the intensive care unit. With seven LED engines and the combination of single-peak LEDs phosphor-converted LEDs, the system enables light emission to match the visible range spa...

Congratulations Macroblock on 20th anniversary! Our 20th anniversary is an opportunity to honor to celebrate and look ahead to what's next. We celebrated our 20th anniversary with a grand event addressing the future of micro-LED technology development and highlighting its contribution as a key to the next five years. This event is held on 27th of June at Shangri-La's Far Eastern Plaza Hotel in Taipei and offering full-day sessions. "In honor of celebrating Macroblock 20th anniversary, we hold this forum for ‘Next Five Years of LED Display Techn...

Horticultural applications of LED lighting are the current trend in the lighting industry. Leading companies around the world have been developing different products to meet the increasing demands. As worldwide need for healthy, fresh food continues to grow, greenhouse growers require efficient, effective lighting to enable year-round growing. Current, powered by GE announced the release of the Arize Element Top Light, the industry’s first one-for-one LED replacement for 1000W High Pressure Sodium (HPS) products. The Arize Element features multiple light...

Using LED as a light source, researchers at Osaka University have now developed a convenient light-driven process for oxidizing polypropylene (PP) without harmful waste. The research team used radicals to make the plastic react. Scholars chose an LED lamp as the light source photo-chemically activate radicals for breaking down the chemical bonds which make plastic unreactive and hard to decompose. "In applications like printing and medical materials, plastics must be surface-modified," explained Tsuyoshi Inoue, co-author of the study. "Oxidizing C-H bo...

Fohse, a horticulture lighting supplier based in Nevada, USA, announced that it has closed a deal with Curative Cannabis, a Canadian cannabis grower, to supply cannabis grow lights to its growing facility in Ontario. Curative Cannabis has a production capacity that is scheduled to produce up to 3,000 kg (approx. 6,600 lbs) of cannabis per year both for large-scale cultivation. With the supply partnership, Fohse will be deploying its A3i and F1V LED lighting models in Curative Cannabis' 30,000 square foot growing facility. Curative Cannabis expects that its yield...

Plessey, the UK-based semiconductor technology provider, has successfully developed GaN-on-Si monolithic Micro LED. According to the company, the innovative development will support next generation applications such as AR headsets, head-up displays (HUD) and other smart wearables to enter the mass market. Given their high contrast, high speed, wide viewing angle, high brightness and more efficient and longer-lasting operation, Micro LEDs are perfect for display applications on wearables such as smart watches, HUDs and AR headsets. (Image: Plessey) Howeve...

LiDAR sensors not only improve road safety for self-driving cars, they can also help in monitoring and care of elderly. IBM began a trial home care service adopting LiDAR sensors with a UK startup company Cera Care. The pilot project will combine IBM’s machine learning software with LiDAR sensors, reported Reuters. IBM Research UK teamed up with Cera Care to develop an elderly home care system to monitor clients’ activity. They will install LiDAR sensors in the houses of 10 to 15 volunteers in the UK since June to track activities of t...

CIMCON Lighting, who focuses on smart city solutions and outdoor lighting management systems, launched the next generation of its smart city platform, NearSky. The updated platform includes smart city solutions consisting of sensors, devices and developer tools to simplify digital cities development. CIMCON's NearSky platform is able to transform a city's existing streetlight infrastructure into a city-wide network of connected outdoor digital assets with a streetlight-mounted edge data processor and cloud-based data management software that collect, distribute a...

LED lighting installed on supermarket shelves is killing the reducing key nutrients in milk and shortening its shelf life, according to a new report by researchers from Newcastle University. The report, titled “Milk: Light exposure and depletion of key nutrients,” shows that high-intensity lighting, such as that found in supermarket dairy cabinets, damages nutrition value of milk by degrading essential nutrients such as Vitamin A, Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) and Vitamin D. Researchers found that milk begins to lose vitamin A after two hours of exposure to LED...

In 2017, MIT researchers developed light-emitting plants by infusing nanoparticles into plants. With the technology, scientists hope to create a greener solution for lighting which electricity will no longer be necessary. The idea then led to an interdisciplinary collaboration between an MIT architecture professor and a professor of chemical engineering. Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, and his team implanted an enzyme that turns the plants’ stored energy into light, making plants glow like how fireflies do. Based on ...

Integrated with sensors, IoT technology and data management system, smart lighting applications are believed to improve convenience of life and efficiency of energy usage. Worldwide lighting companies have also been expanding smart lighting product and system development. GE lighting recently announced the launch of its C by GE smart lighting series products while Silicon Labs and Signify announced partnership on the Friends of Hue program. GE Lighting launched the new C by GE series including Full Color Lights, Tunable White bulbs, Smart Switches, and a Smart ...

Promoting IoT applications in commercial, industrial and retail industries has been a major focus of Osram. The German company recently announced its partnership with Facility Solutions Group (FSG), a building technology system specialist design, integration, installation, for advanced smart building IoT solutions. Moreover, it also launched intelligent LED lighting fixtures for industrial IoT applications. The collaboration with FSG will enable Osram to combine its fixture-integrated sensors, controls and components with FSG’s Encelium® Light Mana...

Rumors about when Apple will start adopting Micro LED in its products have been going on since it acquired Micro LED startup LuxVue in 2014. Many believed that Apple Watch would be the first Apple product using Micro LED display featuring its high brightness and low power consumption. However, it is also likely that the technology will be seen in augmented reality (AR) devices based on Apple’s recent plans. Reuters reported that Apple has teamed up with German software developer SAP to help business develop applications based on Apple’s machine-l...

Smart glasses and AR technology provider Vuzix and optoelectronic technologies developer Plessey announced an exclusive display device design and long-term supply agreement. With the agreement, the two companies will work together on AR products development and productions combining Micro LED light source from Plessey and smart glasses expertise of Vuzix. Vuzix has developed a Smart Glasses portfolio including Vuzix Blade, which won the CES 2019 Innovation Award. The glasses are equipped with a smart display, offering a see-through viewing experience via its waveg...

MIT researchers have unveiled a study in 2016 that exposure to LED flickering light with a specific frequency could reduce the amyloid plaques seen in mice with Alzheimer’s disease. The team recently published a new study which explains the effect of the light therapy at cell level. The new study, published in Neuron on May 7, found that this light treatment has widespread effects at the cellular level, helping not just neurons but also immune cells called microglia. Overall, these effects reduce inflammation, enhance synaptic function, and protect against cell death, in ...

Advancement of IoT technology enables integration of lighting and other application to improve efficiency of energy usage and save electricity cost. Commercial real estate owners are therefore actively seeking the benefits of data-driven, real-time applications that will modernize a business or learning space. Osram continues to deepen its involvement in smart application development with several strategic partners. The company has recently completed a pilot program with a Canadian university for space optimization. Osram Digital Systems and its growing ecosystem of partners are...

EDM International, a US-based sustainable solutions provider for the utility industry, created a system which can prevent birds from crashing into power lines by using UV lights. The system can cut crane collisions with power lines by 98%. James Dwyer and his colleagues from EDM International created what they dubbed the Avian Collision Avoidance System, or ACAS, by mounting UV lights on power lines' supporting structures and shining them on the lines at night. They tested its effectiveness in 2018 at Nebraska's Iain Nicolson Audubon Center, where a ...

Researchers at West Virginia University found that exposure to white light at night could impact recovery of cardiac patients and dimming the light can reduce the damages. With the results published in Experimental Neurology, the research team, led by Randy Nelson, who chairs the Department of Neuroscience in the WVU School of Medicine, linked white light at night to inflammation, brain-cell death and higher mortality risk in cardiac patients. (Image: Pixaby) The researchers re-created cardiac arrest in animal models and divided the models into three groups that w...

The development of agricultural innovation has become more and more urgent than ever given the factors of increasing world population and global warming. As a result, vertical farming, which serves as a feasible solution to mass produce healthy and safe food, is getting increasingly popular across the world. Samsung Electronics has launched full-spectrum white-based horticulture LEDs to keep up with the trend of agriculture innovation and underline the advantages of applying LEDs for smart farming approaches such as vertical farm. (Image: Samsung) Smart farming refers t...

With a wide range of applications, UV LED is considered a new rising opportunity for the LED industry. LEDinside noted in the latest report, titled “2019 Deep UV LED Application Market- Sterilization, Purification, and Water Treatment Markets,” that UV LED market continues to increase with the curing market steadily grow and rising applications in sterilization for surface, air, static and flowing water. With these driving momentums, LEDinside forecasts that the UV LED market value will reach US$ 991 million in 2023. Based on the wavel...

Signify presented its cutting-edge technologies in lighting and optical communication in “Signify innovation Day” in Taipei, Taiwan. The lighting company showcased its latest developments in connected lighting, Interact IoT platform, horticulture lighting and LiFi at the event, demonstrating the current trends in the global lighting industry. The world’s largest lighting company changed its name from Philips Lighting to Signify in May 2018, marking a transforming milestone for the Dutch company. John Wang, Senior Vice President of Signify and Pres...

Pioneer and Canon announced that the two companies have agreed to co-develop a 3D LiDAR sensor with the goal of mass production by Pioneer in 2020. 3D-LiDAR sensors use laser light to accurately measure the distance of objects as well as ascertain three-dimensional information relating to distance and the surrounding environment in real time, and are regarded as an indispensable key device for the realization of level-three and above autonomous vehicles. Pioneer has been working on the development of low cost Micro Electric Memory Systems (MEMS) as well as object rec...

The impacts of artificial light on wildlife have been a study focus for biodiversity researchers. On Earth Day, let’s look into how different street lights affect bats activities. A team at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) has conducted a study to find out how UV emitting and non-UV emitting street lamps influence the activity of bats in the Berlin metropolitan area and whether tree cover might mitigate any effect of light pollution. The study is published in the scientific journal “Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.&rdq...

Switching to energy efficient and longer lifetime LED bulbs from conventional lighting source can save energy cost. However, installing new LED bulbs in old lighting fixtures might be dangerous. A report of The Japan Times noted that the Consumer Affairs Agency in Japan has issued a public warning for LED bulbs changing. LED lighting penetration rate in Japan has reached 77 percent in 2017 with the public awareness of power shortage after Fukushima disaster in 2011 and halogen bulbs ban in 2012. But the popularity of LED lighting also caused some hazards. Th...