For one sleepless night last weekend, Toronto buzzed with excitement for the 10th edition of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche. This popular all-nighter celebrating contemporary art featured more than 110 projects created by 400 artists. Since lighting installations are often a big part of these nighttime festivities, let’s take a peek at four light art projects that were featured during Toronto’s Nuit Blanche 2015.

Clinching headlines this week, GE has announced it will be spinning off its new energy businesses including LED, solar energy, electric vehicle and energy storage into a separate entity. The new company will start off with US $1 billion financing and is expected to grow fivefold to US $5 billion in the next five years, according to a Bloomberg report.

China’s exports to 70 countries under its “One Belt, One Road” strategy was up 1.5% to US$ 372 billion from January to June 2015, according to China’s custom data. The country’s imports declined 18.8% to US$ 256 billion, while its trade surplus rose US$ 65 billion compared to last year’s US$ 115.5 billion. Vietnam is China's third largest trade partner, and it has a trade surplus relation with the country.

When GE sold its home appliance division in September 2014 for US $3.3 billion to Swedish company Electrolux, market rumors surfaced that the company might sell its lighting business too. The company denied intentions of selling its century old lighting business at the time. Instead of selling its lighting business, GE announced it would be spinning off its commercial LED lighting business, solar energy, and energy storage devices into a new startup company on Oct. 7, 2015. According to aBloomberg report, the new business is expected to increase annual sales to about US $5 billion from its current start of US $1 billion.

Healthy lighting … it’s not just for your home. In fact, it’s not just for the planet earth! Or humans, for that matter. Here are five innovative biological correct lighting applications currently helping humans and certain aquatic creatures lead fuller, happier lives in a variety of environments, earth and non-earth.

Rural Agri Ventures, a business incubation firm based in Gurgaon, India, that specializes in assisting the agribusiness sector recently announced the launch of an affordable LED product ‘My Way’, according to a report from Indian media The Hindu.

The U.S. Department of Energy has released a new report on the comprehensive street lighting restoration currently being undertaken by the City of Detroit, which includes transitioning the existing high-pressure sodium (HPS) sources to LED. Entitled Restoring Detroit's Street Lighting System, the report provides an objective review of the circumstances surrounding the system restoration, the processes undertaken and decisions made, and the results to date.

Luminous Patterns opens up a world of exciting new possibilities for designers because all our lights are digitally connected, enabling you to craft dynamic effects that bring a space to life, from vibrant sequences to subtle ambiances.

Last weekend, the official celebrations to mark the 25th anniversary of the reunification of Germany took place in Frankfurt am Main. In honor of the occasion, a lighting installation designed by Sven Sören Beyer and Björn Hermann illuminated 25 bridges across the Main as part of a spectacular light show on October 3. For the technical side of things, they relied on products from Clay Paky, an Osram subsidiary.

The exhibition of LED China 2015 in Shanghai brought a perfect ending right before Chinese Mid Autumn Festival. High definition LED displays are everywhere at the show. Exhibitors demonstrated wide applications of high definition LED displays such as interactive LED screens, video walls of control rooms, alternative LED displays to replace LCD or projection screens for meeting rooms and theaters.

GE announced Current, powered by GE, a first-of-its kind energy company that integrates GE’s LED, Solar, Energy Storage and Electric Vehicle businesses with its industrial strength Predix platform to identify and deliver the most cost effective, efficient energy solutions required by customers today and in the future. Maryrose Sylvester, who as President and CEO at GE Lighting has led the transformation of one of the company’s most iconic businesses, will lead the new enterprise. Current is backed by GE’s balance sheet and financing expertise, and committed to successfully advancing ecomagination-certified technology solutions, new business models and Predix solutions for the energy sector.

UBS forecasted oversupply situation in the LED industry will continue into 2016, while sliding LED prices will nullify growing shipment volume advantages, according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report.

A new specification from Zhaga adds to a scaled family of circular LED modules. The Book 11 modules operate with a separate driver, and are independently interchangeable. The Zhaga Consortium has published Book 11, a new specification that describes circular LED modules with a maximum diameter of 35 mm that are suitable for spotlighting and related applications. A Book 11 module requires a separate LED driver

Authorities of Shetland, UK, announced the subartic archipelagos will be spending more than GBP 2 million (US $3.05 million) to upgrade its streetlights to LEDs, reported Shetland news.

Philips, the global leader in lighting, in collaboration with the projects department of JSC “Electrotechnical Company Eco Svet,” illuminated the newly built Moscow Cathedral congregational mosque, which is the largest mosque in Europe. Philips experts developed a lighting project to highlight the intricate traditional Islamic design of a 6-story, 18,900 sq m building, its large dome and six prayer towers.

Bowling Green State University (BGSU), a higher education leader in sustainability efforts, selected LED lighting by Cree to replace the outdated metal halide light fixtures over its indoor turf field in the Perry Field House. The 100x60-yard field is now illuminated by Cree® CXB™ High-Bay LED luminaires, delivering much better light quality while providing the university with more than US $200,000 in energy and maintenance savings and delivering a payback of less than two years.

Clay Paky Mythos fixtures have illuminated the Costanera Tower, the highest skyscraper in Latin America, with a fantastic light show to celebrate each match in the Copa América 2015 football tournament.

BLACKBODY and LG Chem have collaborated for the special event of Design Junction, part of the London Design Festival, in a major art installation around LG Chem`s square OLED light panels called DISPERTION by Thierry Gaugain.

Orion Energy Systems, a leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance, energy-efficient retrofit lighting platforms, today announced its next generation of Orion LED industrial light fixtures, now the highest-performing high bay suite in the market.

Halco Lighting Technologies introduces their ProLED Downlight Retrofit Replaceable Trim Series. This new product line combines the energy efficiency of LED lighting along with modern and stylish trim options to help complement any décor.

Architectural Lighting Works (ALW) — an international manufacturer of high-performance, commercial luminaires designed for use in office, retail, hospitality, civic and academic environments — announces the release of Moonring.

China’s Light Industry Internet (CLII) recently published important lighting product export statistics for three markets during the first six months of 2015, showed export growth was highest for the Argentina market, and plunged the most in Saint Lucia. Lighting exports to France showed incremental growth.

San’an Opto announced recently its subsidiary in Fujian Province, China has received RMB 170 million (US $) subsidy from Anxi County Finance Bureau to invest in LED R&D, according to a report from Quamnet.

Bangalore (or also known as Bengaluru), the capital of India's southern Karnataka state will be rolling out a LED residential lighting replacement project by January, according to The Times of India and other Indian media.

Royal Philips, the global leader in lighting, takes connected lighting to the next frontier by announcing the integration of the Philips Hue connected lighting system with Apple HomeKit. Like something straight out of a science fiction novel, Philips Hue lights can be voice controlled through Siri on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Apple Watch, and integrated to work seamlessly and securely with other HomeKit-enabled devices. So with only one command you can unlock the front door, turn the lights on and the heating up, truly transforming how you experience and interact with your home.

Today at the IES Street & Area Lighting Conference, North America’s largest conference dedicated to improving the outdoor lighting business of electric utilities and energy service providers, Acuity Brands, through its subsidiary Acuity Brands Lighting, and Silver Spring Networks announced an agreement to jointly develop an intelligent lighting platform for utilities, cities, and large campus operators which will allow them to upgrade their aging lighting infrastructure and establish a path to additional smart city applications and services.

Kees van der Klauw, Senior Vice President at Philips Research shares his insights on smart city streetlights in this blog entry. Within ten years, two out of three people will be living in urban areas, many of them in big cities, which means – now more than ever – that these cities need to be functional and sustainable.

Kirin developed the "Illumicap," an innovative IoT plastic bottle cap with a built-in wireless communication and lighting system, in collaboration with WHITE Inc. with the goal of creating a new drinking experience for consumers.

Macron Associate, a leading LED driver manufacture announces the release of the Programmable LED Driver series, high performance LED drivers in 3 different form factors. The Drivers cater to variety of LED lighting applications like down lighting, office Lighting, Linear lighting systems etc. The Programming capability is done with a simple resistor change outside of the driver housing with commercially available resistors.

Designers of high lumen streetlights, high bay fixtures and downlights are taking advantage of Lumileds latest addition to its successful LUXEON CoB Core Range portfolio, the LUXEON CoB 1216. These arrays provide a 40% greater flux than Lumileds existing CoBs in an identical mechanical footprint. “We continue to push our chip-on-board technology to higher efficiency, which is important in all applications but particularly in outdoor fixtures,” said Eric Senders, Product Line Director for CoB LEDs at Lumileds. “With the new line of arrays, customers are achieving 150 lm/W at nominal condition, which, combined with our lowest in the industry thermal resistance, leads to the most cost efficient systems.”