Royal Philips today announced the appointment of Jean Botti as Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer as part of the company’s strategy to capture a larger portion of the HealthTech opportunities. Jean Botti, who will join Philips as of April 1, 2016 from Airbus Group (AIR), will become a member of Philips’ Executive Committee and will report directly to Philips CEO Frans van Houten. Jean Botti will succeed Jim Andrew, who left Philips in the fourth quarter of 2015 for personal reasons.

The worst is thought to be over as 2015 comes to an end, a quick overview of developments in the past year show product prices have reached new historical lows in the past year. The elimination race has escalated with restructures becoming the new norm in the industry.

The California Energy Commission adopted first-in-the-nation energy standards for the next generation of light bulbs. The standards cover small-diameter directional lamps, often used in track lighting, and general purpose light-emitting diodes - commonly called LEDs - used to replace typical existing home lighting.

Imagine a lamp without a light bulb. The People's light is an exciting new textile product developed by Finnish textile heritage company Finlayson. The People's light includes a LED embedded light film which lasts up to 10,000 hours. The lamp is light and can be folded flat, making it an ideal product for web stores and retailers.

This Saturday, the non-profit arts organization, ILLUMINATE, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and world-renowned artist Leo Villareal will officially re-light The Bay Lights, an iconic LED lighting installation on the San Francisco Bay Bridge, using equipment developed by Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), the global leader in lighting. The artwork, which originally appeared in March 2013 as a two-year installation, will now permanently illuminate the San Francisco Bay’s night sky with 25,000 Philips connected light points and an advanced cloud-based connected lighting platform to remotely monitor and maintain the lighting system.

Power management company Eaton today announced that the biggest names in the National Hockey League (NHL®) and American Hockey League (AHL) will play their all-star events this weekend under its innovative and energy-efficient light-emitting diode (LED) digital lighting system.

One of the benefits of automating control systems within buildings is the ability to customize services and personalize a user’s environment; the human machine interface (HMI) is the gateway to such controls. The addition of proximity sensing is an underutilized improvement to many interfaces in an automated building ecosystem, including thermostats, security-system keypads, monitors and elevator call buttons. Proximity sensors can improve the user experience, decrease power consumption, and increase the life of the liquid crystal display (LCD) and backlight.

The IG Series parking garage luminaires and KR Series LED downlights by Cree, Inc. (Nasdaq: CREE) are now available to ship in volume. Both series feature cutting-edge Cree® WaveMax™ Technology, an optical platform with a revolutionary combination of control, uniformity and efficiency to deliver a superior visual experience in new form factors that are intelligent in both design and function.

EpiTop Inc., a leading company in the development and manufacturing of deep ultraviolet light emitting diodes (DUV LEDs) today announces that they have demonstrated high performance DUV LEDs with wavelength at 280nm from a single 4545 large chip device, achieved a world record optical output power of 176.6 miliwatt @ 1A dc operation at room temperature. According to the best of their knowledge it is so far the highest reported optical power from a single die at such shorter wavelength under dc operation. The L-I and IV characteristic of the 4545 large chip was plotted below.

NPF family and PWM family are two recently unveiled high efficiency LED power supplies (or drivers) of the leading standard power supply brand—MEAN WELL. The product design of these two families are planned to adopt the identical plastic cases and equipped with various dimming functions in light of the application demands from market. The whole product line covers the output wattage from 40W to 120W.

Taiwanese LED manufacturer Everlight reported mixed results in several patent lawsuits rulings against Japanese manufacturer Nichia.

Nichia announced that the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has issued a decision holding that Everlight Electronics and Everlight Americas (collectively, “Everlight”) have infringed three Nichia patents. The court upheld patent infringement claims that Nichia filed against Everlight in 2013.

The Texas Rangers announced that the club has entered into an agreement with Eaton's Ephesus Lighting to implement an advanced LED system for the field lights at Globe Life Park in Arlington beginning with the 2016 season.

Scarsdale Village, a town in New York, U.S. is considering to convert its 2,000 streetlights to warm colored LED ones, reportedScarsdale10583.com.

On Jan. 26, 2016, Harvatek announced it has entrusted Devlin Law Firm LLC to represent it in a patent infringement case against Cree that has been filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California . The patent in suit is US 6,841,934.

LG Display, the world’s leading innovator of display technologies and an OLED lighting panel manufacturer, announced that it will supply OLED panels to ilroom, a specialized home furniture brand of the Fursys Group, a leading office furniture company in Korea.

The California Energy Commission (CEC) made history again today when it set minimum energy efficiency standards for small diameter directional light bulbs used for accent, spot and track lighting that will be the most stringent in the world. The reflector bulbs, which are less than 2.25 inches in diameter, are most commonly found in retail stores, museums, and hotels, and increasingly in new and remodeled homes.

NTL Lemnis, the LED Lighting solutions company has launched an innovative product “Pharox Decora Track light”. Decora Track light has a sleek and unique design for enhancing décor of any retail space.

TTI, Inc., the leading authorized distributor of interconnect, passive, electromechanical and discrete components, announced today that the company has entered into an authorized distribution partnership with Rohm Semiconductor.

The Designers Lighting Forum of New York (DLFNY) is proud to announce a record number of educational sessions and panel discussions will be offered during LEDucation to be held in NYC in March.  LEDucation will offer a selection of over 30 educational sessions and 3 panel discussions that cover various aspects of LED lighting, design, controls and technology integration and application. The annual event offers attendees a versatile array of educational sessions to attend for continuing educational credits (CEUs).

Behind the scenes at the Emmy-nominated "Jimmy Kimmel Live", lighting designer Christian Hibbard is busy bringing the shows musical performances to life. With two outdoor stages that host the hottest musical acts from around the world, Hibbard is asked to create the ideal lighting environment that best personifies the varying musicality of each artist. Understanding these challenges, Hibbard needs lighting instruments with a number of quality capabilities, which he has found in the VL4000 BeamWash luminaire from Philips Vari-Lite.

In a company statement, former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Genesis Photonics Inc. (GPI) and founder of PlayNitride, Yun-Li (Charles) Lee has refuted GPI’s allegations of selling the company’s key technologies to Chinese LED manufacturer San’an Opto, reported TechNews.

Taiwanese LED epiwafer manufacturer Genesis Photonics Inc. (GPI) has filed a lawsuit against its former Chief Technology Officer Yun-Li Lee for stealing and selling trade secrets to Chinese competitors, and applying acquired GPI technology in his startup company PlayNitride.

LEDinside surveyed 31 listed LED manufacturers announcements made in 2015 on the website Chinfo, the designated information disclosure website assigned by Notice of China Securities Regulatory Commission. We found 11 companies (including certain company subsidiaries) received subsidies totaling a striking RMB 1.18 billion (US $179 million).

Saignaw, a city located in Michigan, U.S. has started to replace 6,400 city streetlights with LEDs, which is estimated to cost the city $ 1.8 million, reported MLive.

Osram headlight lamps are continually being copied illegally by product pirates. To protect consumers from low-quality copies the lighting manufacturer has now developed its own trust program. Thanks to innovative two-step security checks, purchasers can easily verify whether the lamp they have bought is an Osram original that has been manufactured in accordance with international quality and safety standards.

The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) called on the California Energy Commission (CEC) again today to ensure that California consumers have access to the most efficient, cost-effective, and preferred LED bulbs currently on the market. A proposal under consideration at the CEC that could be voted on as early as January 27, 2016, if approved, will be the first instance in which the CEC pursues regulatory action that will reduce potential energy savings, increase the cost of energy-saving products for California consumers, and make it less likely that California consumers will want to buy these products.

The latest bus-based lighting control products not only offer a reduced operating cost through energy efficiency gains and maintenance costs but also the actual cost of controls hardware is changing through the elimination of certain system components. This is just one of the findings from our recent report into the global market for Lighting Controls – //www.memoori.com/portfolio/smart-buildings-the-lighting-controls-business-2015-to-2020/

Revolution Lighting Technologies, a leader in advanced LED lighting technology solutions, announced it will partner with leading national distributor of electrical supplies and services, Rexel Holdings USA for the sale of its LED lighting solutions. Revolution Lighting's LED product to be offered by Rexel Holdings USA and its divisions, Rexel, Rexel Enery Solutions, Gexpro, Platt and Capitol Light to its customers within the industrial, residential and commercial markets.

The Middle Ring Expressway, located at Suzhou Hi-Tech Zone has transformed into the most brilliantly luminated municipal road in Suzhou city. With a total investment of RMB 22 billion, the roadway was equipped with around 2,000 sets of OSRAM OLUX™ LED Spot H with 4000K color temperature. In addition, around 10,000 sets of OSRAM XTRA Liner DC were used to achieve different lighting effects by changing the high powered LEDs. The seamless lighting effects are operated by e:cue control systems, including Butler S2, LCE 2 and RDM Isolater that control around 10,000 sets of OSRAM XTRA Liner LEDs, which produce identical colors simultaneously.