LED display manufacturer Daktronics announces that it has participated in a Series A investment round in X Display Company (XDC). XDC is a spinoff of X-Celeprint, who creates and owns leading intellectual property (IP) and capabilities in Micro LED mass transfer technology. Series A investments will support XDC’s further development in Micro LED capabilities and applications. Micro LED technologies support Daktronics’ line of narrow pixel pitch LED displays and will enable solutions to move into the realm of less than 1-millimeter line s...

Legrand, North and Central America (LNCA), announced the acquisition of Focal Point, a manufacturer of architectural lighting products. This acquisition is Legrand’s fifth addition to its Lighting Sector and marks the company’s elevation to a full solutions provider in the architectural lighting space. Legrand provides a high degree of autonomy to its lighting companies and supports Focal Point's business leadership team in the pursuit of innovation and growth. Legrand’s scale and infrastructure will allow Focal Point to deliver innovative light...

Due to the increased spread of the coronavirus, Light + Building 2020 had been postponed with a new date. LpS, LED professional Symposium + Expo, which scheduled from September 22 to 24, on the other hand, has been cancelled. (Image: Pixabay) After the announcement of Light + Building 2020 postponement, Messe Frankfurt announced the new date for the event. The largest fair of the lighting and building technology industry will take place from September 27 to October 2, 2020, at the Frankfurt exhibition center. Meanwhile, the other lighting event in Europe, LE...

Germany-based semiconductor equipment provider AIXTRON reported that one of its employees at the headquarters in Herzogenrath, Germany, had been tested positive for the novel coronavirus. (Image: Pixabay) The case was confirmed in the evening of February 27 which is related to other already known cases in the district. AIXTRON noted that the employee has only contacted with only a few colleagues and its chain of contact was indemnified. Those who had contacted the confirmed cases have been informed and instructed to stay home. AIXTRON addressed that its ...

Light Engine Design’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Tall Trees LED Company, announces an expanding partnership with a prominent nutraceutical company in Oklahoma. Tall Trees will be providing technical consulting and operational management, as well as LED lighting for both the indoor and greenhouse facilities. Tall Trees LED Company, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Light Engine Design, focuses on research, development, manufacturing, and sales of Solid-State Lighting (SSL) in the Controlled Environment Agriculture industries. The facility in Oklahom...

Human centric lighting and circadian lighting applications have become popular as people are getting more aware of the effect of lighting on our physical and psychological condition. To further understand the connection between lighting and people’s wellbeing, a new study found a cell in the retina which create the effect of light on human. Researchers at the University of Washington Health Sciences (UW Medicine) identifies a cell in the retina, which plays an important role in signaling our brain centers that regulate circadian rhythms, boost alertness, help memory and co...

Velodyne Lidar announced a sales agreement with Idriverplus to provide Puck™ sensors over three years. The LiDAR sensor from Velodyne will be used in mass production of commercial autonomous vehicles, including street cleaners, passenger cars and logistics vehicles. Idriverplus is a Chinese company focusing on driverless technology and plans to place into commercial operation in China thousands of units of its unmanned, electric street cleaning vehicles, called WOXIAOBAI, with each vehicle equipped with two Puck sensors to ensure security and perception. Idri...

Samsung continues to expand the market of its cinema LED display Onyx and the screen has landed in Australia for the first time at HOYTS Entertainment Quarter in Moore Park, Sydney. The new installment features Samsung’s latest 14-meter Onyx Cinema LED screen. Another 10-meter Onyx screen will also be installed at HOYTS Highpoint in Melbourne, Australia, by March 2020. (Image: Samsung) “As the cinema landscape continues to evolve globally, theaters are looking for new ways to enhance the movie-going experience,” said Hyeseung Ha,...

Energy Focus, a U.S. LED lighting company, announced that it has been awarded a contract valued at approximately US$3.4 million to supply tubular LED lighting products to the U.S. Navy by Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), a combat support agency in the U.S. Department of Defense with more than 26,000 civilian and military personnel throughout the world. The Company expects to deliver on the contract beginning in the second quarter of 2020 with completion expected by year-end. James Tu, Chairman & CEO of Energy Focus, said, “This contract refle...

Media from Taiwan reported that Apple has placed Mini LED orders to Innolux, a display manufacturer of the Foxconn group, for the new iPad Pro scheduled to launch in 2H20. In response to the report, Innolux announced that the company did not reveal relationships with its clients and the information was not correct. (Image: Pixabay) It was reported that Innolux has sent display samples to Apple for the new Mini LED based iPad Pro. Innolux has been a strong player in Mini LED and Micro LED technology development. As a member of the Foxconn Group, the ...

SiliconCore showcased its Lotus 0.83mm technology with a Micro LED display at ISE 2020. The Micro LED display, according to SiliconCore is three times as bright and 50% more power efficient. (Image: SiliconCore) SiliconCore LED displays features lowest power consumption, highest brightness, and lowest operating temperatures. The Lotus 0.83mm LED display with a brightness of 2000 nits surpasses the market with the brightest and most efficient sub-1mm pitch LED display in the world. A 4K resolution display can be achieved at 144-inch with a smooth, touc...

In view of the increasing spread of the coronavirus in Europe and after intensive consultations, Messe Frankfurt has decided to postpone Light + Building. The world’s leading trade fair for lighting and building-services technology will now be held in Frankfurt am Main between the middle and end of September 2020. The cooperation partners of the international trade fair, ZVEI and ZVEH, support this decision. (Image: Pixabay) The unexpected appearance of Covid-19 in Italy since last weekend demanded a new analysis of the situation in close cooperation with ...

Signify announced that it will not participate in Light + Building 2020 due to “health risks posed by the coronavirus.” Light + Building, the world’s biggest biannual fair of the lighting and building industry, will be taking place as planned during March 8 to 13, announced by its organizer Messe Frankfurt last week. Even though the organizer addressed the minor opportunity of getting infected with the coronavirus, Signify, the world’s biggest lighting company, decided not to participate in Light + Building this year. Eric Rondolat, CEO of Si...

Display applications adopting Mini LED technology is expected to bloom in 2020 following the rumors of Apple releasing Mini LED based iPad and MacBook this year. Since last year, related players in the industry are pushing production and development of Mini LED backlight as well as Mini LED RGB displays. (Image: Pixabay) Chip producer Epistar reported that its plans for Mini LED backlight products production and shipment will be process as scheduled, despite the ongoing coronavirus epidemic. Epistar has expanded its capacity in Taiwan for Mini LED...

Osram Opto Semiconductors recently began to work with a Polish company XTPL to initiate evaluation of adopting 3D printing technology solutions to address the challenges connected with the manufacture of future generations of lighting elements. Osram signed an agreement with XTPL on January 21, 2020, to access the possibility of implementing XTPL’s technology in Osram’s production processes for create conductive interconnections for semiconductors. The potential industrial application of the XTPL method in the lighting industry is yet another proof of ...

80 Acres Farms, an indoor farming operator, is growing tomatoes on one of the busiest streets in New York outside the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as part of the Guggenheim's new exhibition in collaboration with Rem Koolhaas, Countryside, The Future, which is taking place from February 20 until August 14, 2020. (Image: Guggenheim Musuem) People in New York will be able to look through a large window in the indoor farm to view a crop of fresh tomatoes being grown continuously during the next six months under precise LED lighting and other controlled conditio...

To fight against the continuously spreading coronavirus, China purchased self-driving disinfection robots with UVC light to run in hospitals. Danish company UVD Robots signed an agreement with a medical equipment supplier to the Chinese market, Sunay Healthcare Supply. The partnership will ship the UVC light equipped robots to China for hospital deployment. (Image: UVD Robots) UVD Robots is a Danish company established from a project between Odense University Hospital and Blue Robotics with their development of an UV-disinfection robot providing auto...

A research team at National Tsing Hua University (NTHU), Taiwan, recently announced the development of a new quantum dot material that provides more realistic color and is more stable. (Image: NTHU) Led by Professor Hsueh-Shih (Sean) Chen at Taiwan’s National Tsing Hua University, the research team developed a “shield” of approximately 1-nanometer at the crystal facets of each quantum dot to overcome the current technology difficulty of quantum dot which is unstable and easily damaged. The team has already applied for patents for the new mat...

The biannual event of the lighting industry, Light + Building will be held as scheduled from March 8 to 13 in Frankfurt Germany, announced the event organizer Messe Frankfurt. (Image: Light + Building) This year at Light + Building there are 2,640 registered exhibitors. Messe Frankfurt noted that these exhibitors are preparing to take part in the event. Based on the information and advises provided by the World Health Organization and other public health authorities, the risk of getting infected by the coronavirus is very low. The organizer addressed that it wil...

As the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, continues to spread across the world, people become more alert to public health issues. Hospitals, where people go seek for health care and treatment, usually gather individual with potential health problem and become a risky environment for others. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in the U.S., approximately 1 in 25 patients contract healthcacre-associated infections (HAIs) in hospitals. Despite that standard cleaning procedures cover manual application of detergents and disinfectants,...

STMicroelectronics announced the collaboration with TSMC to accelerate the development of Gallium Nitride (GaN) process technology and the supply of both discrete and integrated GaN devices to market. Through this partnership, ST’s GaN products will be manufactured using TSMC’s GaN process technology. GaN is a wide bandgap semiconductor material which is considered outpacing traditional Silicon-based semiconductors for power applications. GaN is more energy efficient at high power and allows the design of more compact devices for better form fact...

Mariana Figueiro, director of the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, continues to enhance the lighting treatment developed for older adults with Alzheimer’s disease. The research team recently announced a US$ 3 million grant renewal from the National Institute on Aging (NIA). Figueiro has demonstrated that providing light exposure of certain amounts and qualities throughout the day can improves sleep patterns, sociability, and agitation, while decreasing symptoms of depression. With the latest grant renewal, Figueiro and her t...

Signify announced at EuroShop 2020 its further step in the Retail IoT space through the launch of Interact Retail multisite management – a cloud-based, connected lighting system designed for multiple stores and retail distribution centers. The system will be adopted by UK retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S). (Image: Signify) The new features make it possible to create a network of connected stores, helping s the retailer to create and manage uniform light schedules for its stores from a single dashboard. The retailers can thus define scenes and schedules on ...

Nanoco, a UK-based quantum dot technology specialist, announced that it has filed a patent lawsuit against Samsung, accursing the Korean company of infringing Nanoco’s quantum dot patent.   Nanoco filed the lawsuit in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas on February 14, 2020 against defendants including Samsung Electronics, Samsung Display, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Visual Display and Samsung Electronics America. Samsung was accused of infringing five technologies related to na...

After reporting a robust financial result for its Fiscal 1Q20, Osram further announced a better than expected performance of its efficiency programs. The German company said that thanks to the increased efficiency and the initiated measures, its savings target will increase from its original target of EUR 220 million (US$ 237.5 million) euros to EUR 300 million (US$ 323.87 million) by 2022. The cumulative impact of several individually-led programs across Osram business units has resulted in beating expectations with regards to savings. Together, they have already suc...

The Hong Kong Trade Devleopment Council (HKTDC) announced that it will reschedule the Hong Kong International Lighting Fair (Spring Edition) from April 6 to 9 to July 25 to 28 concerning coronavirus. HKTDC noted that it will take measures to prevent infection including distributing personal health control notice to the attendees, providing mask and hand sanitizer upon request and cleaning elevator buttons as well as escalator handles from time to time. As the novel coronavirus continues to spread across the broader and the infected number still goes up, many...

US-based container farm developer Freight Farms has raised US$15 million in Series B funding led by Ospraie Ag Science, an investment firm committed to supporting sustainable solutions. The investment round, which received participation from existing investor Spark Capital, brings the company's total funding to more than US$ 28 million. Freight Farms specialized in containerized vertical agriculture. Its product, named “Greenery,” incorporates hydroponic systems and LED lighting, enabling production of more than 500 varieties of crops at commercial s...

Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI) announced a collaboration with Jungo to develop a Time-of-Flight (ToF) and 2D infrared- (IR) based camera solution to enable driver- and in-cabin monitoring in vehicles. (Image: ADI) The combination of ADI’s ToF technology with Jungo’s Codriver software is expected to enable the monitoring of vehicle occupants for levels of drowsiness and distraction by observing head and body position as well as eye gaze. The solution is also expected to enable smart vehicle interaction based on face, body, and hand gestures, and offer ...

Israel-based LiDAR company Innoviz Technologies announced its partnership with Shaanxi Heavy Duty Automobile, a truck manufacturer based in Xian China, which is also known as Shacman Trucks outside China. With the cooperation, Innoviz will supply its LiDAR sensors for developing autonomous trucks for an upcoming project in one of the biggest ports in China. At the first stage of the project, InnovizPro LiDAR is being utilized in Shaanxi Truck's autonomous proof of concept project at the Chinese port, with Shaanxi's ultimate goal being the deployme...

  In its latest blog post, Osram addressed the significance of smart street lighting for future cities, noting that the digital transformation of city services is critical and will rely on connected city infrastructure. The United Nations foresees that by 2050, 68% of the world population will live in urban areas. For enhanced safety, operational efficiency and sustainability, this growing and concentrated population need to be supported by integrated system and services. Smart street lighting thus serves as a primary smart city installation to simultaneously create the unde...