LED grow light module markets at US $395 million in 2014 are forecast to reach $1.8 billion by 2021.  Rapid growth is anticipated as green house and plant factory growers find the LED grow lights improve agriculture, projected WinterGreen Research.

Until now, the wearables revolution in technology has centered mostly on health and fitness devices. Today it enters the realm of music with the Soundbrenner Pulse, the world’s first wearable device designed specifically for musicians. Engineered in Berlin by a team of entrepreneurial musicians and designed to help musicians keep the beat and become better performers, the Soundbrenner Pulse is available now to pre-order at //indiegogo.soundbrenner.com with special pricing of US $129. The retail price will be $149.

The promising new material molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) has an inherent issue that’s steeped in irony. The material’s greatest asset—its monolayer thickness—is also its biggest challenge.

Cree continues to relentlessly expand its leading LED bulb portfolio with the TW Series™ LED T8 Tube Replacement for consumers, making inferior linear fluorescent tubes a ‘thing of the past.’ Designed for simple, wire-free installation, the Cree® TW Series LED T8 Tube provides industry leading compatibility, beating the competition in light quality and performance, all at an affordable price. Available as 32-watt replacements, the TW Series LED T8 Tube Replacements are sold at The Home Depot®stores starting at just $21.97 and consuming up to 42 percent less energy than the 32W fluorescent tubes they replace.

Flexfire LEDs, a producer of linear LED lighting products and accessories, announces the opening of a new distribution center at 14761 Franklin Ave, Unit G, Tustin, CA, 92780. The U.S.-based company applauds the opening as an opportunity to expand its global operations, and further solidify its standing as a leading producer and supplier in the global marketplace for signature brand LED strip lighting products and accessories.

India’s LED industry is undergoing dramatic changes, and is entering an exponential growth phase as more manufacturers jump in, said Deepak Loomba, Managing Director and CEO of De Core Nanosemiconductors during a New Critical Territory in Global Lighting Marketing forum last Thursday at TILS 2015, Taipei, Taiwan.

Over the past year, the LED industry had pondered about the company that would eventually take over Philips lighting component (Philips Lumileds) and automotive business. Go Scale Capital's acquisiton of Lumileds just might be the solution to Chinese manufacturers lack of LED patents, said LEDinside analysts.

GO Scale Capital, an investment fund sponsored by GSR Ventures and Oak Investment Partners has announced today that it will acquire an 80.1% interest in Philips' combined LED components and Automotive lighting business, with Philips retaining the remaining 19.9%* interest. The transaction values the business at an enterprise value of approximately USD 3.3 billion. The transaction is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2015, subject to closing conditions, including customary regulatory approvals.

Leicester, a city in UK, will be spending almost GBP 1 million (US$1.48 million) in LED traffic lights, reported Leicester Mercury.

Veeco Instruments announced Susan Wang has been nominated for appointment to its Board of Directors. Her appointment is subject to shareholder approval, which is being sought at Veeco’s 2015 annual meeting of stockholders, scheduled to occur on May 13, 2015.

GE to manufacture TriGain™, GE’s family of enhanced potassium fluorosilicate (PFS) phosphors for use in LED-based display backlight applications. The TriGain family of phosphors offers improved narrow red band performance, resulting in reds that are sharper and cleaner, enabling richer picture quality and increasing the color gamut for backlit displays. Samples of TriGain may now be obtained from GE Lighting with production quantities available in mid-2015.

Cree introduces the LED Rural Utility Light (RUL) Series, designed to deliver an unprecedented combination of price, performance and quality to accelerate adoption of LED lighting across rural areas in North America. The first of Cree’s innovative outdoor LED luminaires to address the estimated 10 to 13 million rural street and area light fixtures installed, the new RUL Series delivers a better, more affordable lighting experience for residential roadways, security, storage and loading areas with game-changing efficacy, rapid payback of less than one year* and Cree’s industry-leading 10-year warranty. 

Innovative technology allows LED fixture manufacturers to create wireless-enabled LED lighting solutions for their commercial and industrial customers to seamlessly interact with wireless control solutions

Hubbell Lighting, a world leader in lighting innovation, announced today that Columbia Lighting has introduced the RLA—an LED recessed architectural luminaire. With a low initial and operating cost, the RLA is an excellent choice for savings without sacrificing function.

In early March, Philips announced the winners of the revamped international lighting design CLUE Competition. The theme this year was Interface. The participants were asked to explore transformative potentials and to define unique lighting innovations that celebrate the activities of both the built and unbuilt communities. Incorporating the concepts of contact, transparency, transition, threshold, limits, dark/light, natural/artificial, the interface focuses on the spatial interactions influenced by exchanges between one and the other, and thereby distinguishing the two adjacent spaces.

LeDiamond Opto, a double side emitting LED manufacturer from Taiwan, has announced its new revolution in Tesla 4003 2in1 module today.

Lincoln today introduces the Continental Concept, signaling an all-new full-size sedan coming next year and the future of quiet luxury.

Acuity Brands, one of the world’s leading providers of LED lighting solutions; Cisco, the worldwide leader in IT; and Sensity Systems, the pioneer of Light Sensory Networks (LSN), will present an educational webinar, “Meeting the Presidential Challenge for Advanced Outdoor Lighting.” The webinar is designed to help public sector organizations learn more about what it takes to get involved in the Presidential Challenge for Outdoor Lighting program, which was announced by the White House in January during the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Don't miss C3 Lighting Solutions at this year's LightFair International in Booth #3031 located in the Building Integration Pavilion.  C3 will be displaying fixtures from several of their new product lines, including Relucent Surgical Lighting, Aedis Patient Room Lighting, Clarus MRI/Radiology Lighting, NovaLux Neonatal Lighting, Luminis Classroom Lighting, Motif Architectural & Backlighting Systems and their Remote Power & Control systems. 

Switching on to the global market, the 7th edition of HKTDC Hong Kong International Lighting Fair (Spring Edition) will be staged from 6 to 9 April 2015 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Around 1,100 exhibitors from 12 countries and regions are expected to join the fair. 

LED lighting developed rapidly in Southeast Asia thanks to its infrastructure construction, which was promoted by the development and impact from the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), according to LEDinside, a research subsidiary of global research institute TrendForce. ASEAN is an inter-governmental international organization gathering countries in Southeast Asia. Established in 1967, ASEAN covers a population of approximately 618 million people, covering a land area of 4.48 million km², with abundant natural resources, and it is one of the world's fastest growing economic regions.

In late February, an innocent question raised by Grace Johnston from Scotland as to what color a striped lace dress her mother wore to her wedding on Tumblr went viral on the Internet. Celebrities and public were equally divided as to whether the dress was blue and black or white and gold, and the heated debate went on well into mid-March. Since the incident, there has been many theories ranging from genetics, optical illusion, visual perception, and poor lighting to explain the phenomemnon. LEDinside had an opportunity to speak to Bridgelux experts Maria Topete, and Aaron Merill, Senior Director of Channel Marketing about this rare visual perception phenomenon, and why this is so important for the retail lighting sector.

A Canadian-financed company, Graphene Lighting, has succeeded in commercializing graphene LED light bulbs, and will be launching the lights on the market sometime later this year, reported BBC.

Traffic signals in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) will be replaced with LED technology, said the city’s Department of Transport (DoT) recently.

By replacing inefficient incandescent bulbs with LEDs, India could save up to $7 billion per year, said the country’s Power Minister Piyush Goyal recently.

North America is the largest region and Asia represents the fastest-growing region in the surgical lamps market. LED represents the largest and fastest-growing technology in surgical lamps market. High color rendering index (CRI) light lamps account for the largest segment while vein light lamps are the fastest-growing light lamps segment in the market.

Nanoco Group plc, a world leader in the development and manufacture of cadmium-free quantum dots and other nanomaterials, and Marl International, a pioneer of the LED lighting industry, today announced that they have entered into a partnership to bring novel LED lighting products to market. The new products will feature Nanoco’s cadmium-free quantum dot technology.

Shunfeng International Clean Energy Limited (SFCE) announced that it has signed an MOU with Lattice Power to acquire a 51% ownership stake in the company. SFCE's successful bid in Lattice Power is a milestone for the listed company as it transitions to become a global low carbon solutions provider. Lattice Power's gallium nitride (GaN) on silicon technology is exclusively patented worldwide, offering significant cost advantages compared to sapphire substrate technology LED. The partnership expands SFCE's portfolio and increases the profitability of the listed company.

Digital Lumens announced strategic expansions to its team, with Kaynam Hedayat joining as Vice President of Product Management, and Jason Hanna as Director of Software Products. These new executives will help Digital Lumens expand its lighting and energy management solution portfolio, which brings the benefits of the Internet of Things (IoT) to commercial and industrial customers worldwide.

How many researchers does it take to change a light bulb? And how many lives could they save by changing it?