Texas Instruments introduced the industry's first floating switch architecture that simplifies the offline linear drive of LEDs in lamps, downlights and fixtures. The AC switched matrix technique features TI's TPS92411 floating MOSFET switch and is an innovative approach to producing low-ripple LED drive current without magnetic components. The architecture provides excellent compatibility with legacy wall dimmers and delivers high power factor and low total harmonic distortion (THD). For more information, samples and evaluation modules, visit www.ti.com/tps92411-pr.

Panasonic Corp. announced as an effort to restructure its business it will no longer be manufacturing plasma display panels (PDP) by Dec. 2013. Business operations in three Amagasaki factories will be eventually terminated. Amagasaki P3 Factory has already stopped production, while Amagasaki P5 factory has already suspended operations. The Amgasaki P4, which is still operating will be closed down by end of March 2014.

A U.S. manufacturer Dog-E-Glow has launched a series of LED dog leashes and collars to keep pets safe during walks at night. The company claims the leashes are visible at a range of 304.8 meters (1,000 feet), which could help prevent road accidents as drivers and motorists will be able to see the glowing animal from afar.In addition, the weather resistant leash uses LEDs with 100,000 hours lifetime, and a battery with 150 hour life. These dogs below party hard after a week of hard work in the office.

Dimplex's acclaimed OptiMyst® Electric Fireplace technology is the most realistic flame effect in the industry today and the first ever 3D fire. Previously launched with only one model, Dimplex plans to release 5 new models and designs for the 2013 holiday season available on ElectricFireplacesDirect.com, the largest online retailer of electric fireplaces.

ANTENNA REVEAL: As a special surprise and gift to New York City and the world, Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. has installed for the first time lights to the Empire State Building's antenna—the highest structure on the building.  These custom LED lights can be seen for miles in every direction. On Halloween night, the antenna LEDs will be unveiled for the first-time ever, and will become part of the Empire State Building's light shows and iconic tower lightings, further enhancing and redefining the New York City skyline. 

Royal Philips has developed a media enabled luminous ceiling to simulate energizing daylight to comfort critically ill patients. The LED based ceiling has been introduced into clinical use by the Charité Campus Virchow Clinic in Berlin as part of a unique stress-reducing concept called “Parametric Spatial Design”. Hospital staff can enter the desired parameters and the large, sky like area which creates visuals and light moods customized to the situation of individual patients, enabled by software from ART+COM. The Clinic has implemented the concept in two of its intensive care patient rooms to enhance the healing environment for patients who are severely ill.

Korean designer Lee Myung Su first released his SEIL Bag, a LED bag for bikers in 2010. The company is now trying to take the product into the mass production phase with its Kickstarter project. 

Silver Spring Networks, Inc., a leading networking platform and solutions provider for smart energy networks, announced today it has been selected to deliver the networking platform for a citywide intelligent street lights project in Copenhagen, Denmark. Under a new partnership with Citelum, the global leader in lighting, traffic management, and other urban electrical systems, Silver Spring is expected to begin networking 20,000 street lights in Copenhagen in 2014. 

Californian photographer Royce Hutain has come up with a very creative Halloween costume for his two year old daughter. The father has created a stick figure LED suit for his baby girl and is plans to reveal a DIY video later, according to his Facebook Interest. This is the second time the photographer has designed stick figure LED suits, the last project he worked on was LED snowboard suits. The video below shows the toddler dressed up in the suit:

XNOVA delivers world-class performance, quality and value Luminus Devices, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lightera Corporation, will be launching its XNOVA line of high performance LEDs for professional and general lighting at the Hong Kong Lighting Fair, October 27-30, 2013. XNOVA consists of a family of LED chip-on-board (COB) arrays and emitter products designed to provide best in class, solid-state light sources for applications including professional lighting fixtures, replacement lamps, portable illumination and camera flash. Exceptional efficacy,...

As we expand our product portfolio with new hardware and software offerings, I thought I’d tell you more about one in particular — LightRules Power. This new addition to the LightRules family allows our customers to monitor real-time energy usage and cost for other systems and circuits within their facilities.

Fotodiox (//www.fotodioxpro.com), a manufacturer and distributor of high-quality photography and videography accessories, has announced the availability of its next generation LED light panels; the Fotodiox LED-312D, LED-312DS, and LED-1024AL. The new LED lights are compact and powerful, while remaining lightweight – perfect for both studio and location shooting. Fotodiox's LED panels generate little heat, use little power, and now the reduced bulk of these newest lights maximize portability and mounting possibilities to capture the perfect shot.

A U.S. university has found an innovative way of using LED lights. With the flick of a light switch, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies can change the shape of a protein in the brain of a mouse, turning on the protein at the precise moment they want. This allows the scientists to observe the exact effect of the protein's activation. The new method, described in the Oct. 16, 2013, issue of the journal Neuron, relies on specially engineered amino acids—the molecules that make up proteins—and light from an LED.

Using LED light sources as a medium for light therapy devices can stimulate the human body’s metabolism rate and greatly reduce medical risks associated to conventional light therapy, such as laser and intense pulse light, said Simon Gau, President of Liverage Biomedical during LEDforum Taipei 2013. Gau was a guest speaker at the forum organized by LEDinside, which runs from Oct. 16-17 at Evergreen International Convention Center in Taipei, Taiwan.

Nokero International announced the release of one of the most technologically advanced solar light, phone charger combinations on the market. The company also unveiled a new affordable solar light N180 priced at US$ 6.00 that aims to replace kerosene lamps that millions of impoverished people in Asia and Africa depend on.

Lighting Science launched Definity Digital™, the world’s first line of biologically-corrected lighting with products specifically designed to improve sleep, support natural melatonin production, boost alertness, accelerate plant growth, and protect wildlife. Based on patented LED digital technology developed by Lighting Science for the International Space Station and the U.S. South Pole Station, the revolutionary line of bulbs is both a scientific and technological breakthrough. The light bulbs fit into conventional sockets and provide the same bright white light that consumers expect, but with added health benefits.

The Black Eyed Peas truly lit up the stage at the historic three night stand at the Stade de France that marked the start of their last World Tour. The shows took place in the three times sold out 80,000 capacity stadium, in the suitably named City of Light: Paris. Fergie’s leather catsuit has been artfully integrated with 175 OLED panels, which sparkle like mirrored glass when turned off. When illuminated, the panels are controlled remotely through a software program to orchestrate patterns and lighting sequences to the set-list, resulting in a truly innovative and integrated performance of music, lighting and technology.

Crash risks while driving at night are higher than during the daytime, but most roadways in the U.S. do not have roadway lighting. In fact, many state and local governments find it difficult to pay for installing, operating and maintaining roadway lighting. Despite these concerns, the proportion of nighttime driving is not likely to go down in today's round-the-clock economy, making car headlights increasingly important to nighttime driving safety. Through its Transportation Lighting and Safety program, the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is evaluating the potential for new lighting technologies and approaches to improve driving safety at night, including new car headlight systems.

The Okapi LED luminaire is the latest addition to GE Lighting's exterior range. This energy efficient luminaire is available in three mounting options, to offer a flexible LED outdoor lighting solution.

Soraa launched the first line of high color rendering LED MR16 GU10 120V line voltage lamps. Uniquely, the company has released a 10o spot version, not available in halogen or from other LED manufacturers, as well as a 25o version that has a center beam candle power higher than halogen and all other LED GU10 products in the market place worldwide. Now you can buy transformer-free, full visible spectrum Soraa LED lamps that render the widest range of colors in the objects that we see, without ultraviolet (UV) or infrared (IR) radiation.

The global Breast Cancer Awareness Month takes place every October. To help raise awareness on this health issue that affects approximately 1.4 million women around the world, Philips has decorated 100 buildings and landmarks around the globe in pink lights. This is also the first time that Philips Taipei office is joining the showy display and lighting up four Taiwanese buildings in pink.

Everlight Electronics Co., a leading player in the global LED and optoelectronics industry with three decades of experience, has introduced the latest member of its ITR series of photo interrupters for use in optical switches, digital cameras and printers, the ultra small outline slotted type ITR1205ST11A/TR. A slotted type opto interrupter detects an object when it enters the gap of the slotted switch and blocks the light path between the emitter and detector.

Not to be outdone by compteitor Samsung, South Korean electronics giant LG, recently announced it has started mass producing OLED smartphones screens for phones to be launched on the market by 2014, according to reports by BBC, the Verge, Engadget and other media. Although, Samsung will be launching its new OLED phones later this month, LG is close behind with its new smartphone.

Veeco Instruments announced that the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom, purchased two GENxplor™ R&D Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) Systems for its School of Physics and Astronomy. The systems will enable the growth of high quality, large area layers of graphene and boron nitride for advanced electronic and optoelectronic applications.

GE Lighting delivers improved visibility and a long life rating for drivers with its GE NIGHTHAWK™ LED headlights, which are designed to last for 15,000 hours and draw less amperage than standard halogen headlights.    

Design website Designboom recently introduced a creative interactive OLED photobooth designed by Vienna-based designer Talia Radford of Talia Ystudio and media artists Jonas Bohatsch at Vienna Design Week 2013. The photo booth uses Osram’s high-tech OLED mirrors, which acts as a flash and display in conjunction with a camera that creates instant lo-fi thermal image print outs, according to the Designboom article. Two conductive plates are on the bottom of the contraption. Photos are shot when skin contact occurs between two people standing on the plates, and for about 20 seconds OLEDs flash and develop pictures onto a small scroll of paper.

RAB Lighting's ENTRA is the new affordable, high performance, low maintenance LED doorway light with a 12W, long-life LED. This sleek doorway light will outshine and outlast your traditional high-pressure sodium fixtures.

As electricity prices shoot up, projectors with energy saving LED lights and 3D features will allow consumers to enjoy the benefits of energy saving and a feeling of presence.

The University of Dayton, located in Dayton, Ohio, U.S., is the largest private university in the state of Ohio. Managing the energy consumption of a university that large is no easy feat, but that’s exactly what is asked of Steve Kendig, the Energy Manager for Department of Facilities Management, who manages all of the buildings located on the university’s campus. Energy consumption is one of the main things Steve focuses on, constantly striving to lower energy use as well as advance the sustainability footprint of the school. One project that was spurred through his ever constant battle to curb energy usage was within the Department of Visual Arts. This department provides quality education in multiple fields of art, from history to photography to graphic design. 

iMotion control and touch sensors has brought people closer to the sci-fi world in the movie Minority Repot where objects on a screen can be changed and enlarged with hand gestures. The technology has been largely limited to game consoles in the past, but iMotion is bringing the technology from the living room TV screen to computer monitors. The motion control which uses LED sensors for 3D space positioning can replace the mouse and even keyboards, allowing tech enthusiasts to show off their Jedi skills on the computer monitor.