Toshiba America Consumer Products L.L.C. (”Toshiba”) Wednesday announced that it is now shipping its premium REGZA® HDTV Series, including the ZV650 LCD TV and SV670 LED TV.

The City of Welland, Ontario, Canada, has issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for switching all the street lighting in the city to LEDs. This is a first in the preparation of municipal, provincial or state RFPs or tenders in Canada that calls specifically for LED lighting. The RFP and tender calls for the replacement of 5903 street lights and an on-hand inventory of 97, making this a 6000-unit project over 3 years. The closing date is Monday July 6. Further details can be found on the City of Welland website.

The Photonics Festival in Taiwan 2009, which has attracted about 360 exhibitors, with 800 booths filled in, is particularly shining with LED and PV— two potential industries that are expected to lead the world to a better and greener future.

Sharp Corporation will introduce into the Japanese market nine models of LED lamps. With the same standard screw-in base and fit in the same sockets as ordinary incandescent lamps, the lamps are easy to use as replacements for ordinary lamps.

Market analyst says that LED revenues from notebook PCs will surpass $800 million next year. Jamie Fox, a market analyst at UK-based IMS research, said that the proliferation of notebook PCs backlit with LEDs will deliver annual revenues of $800 million to chip makers next year. He describes the ramp as "explosive". "Dell has already publicly committed to using LEDs in all [of its] notebooks by 2010, and other manufacturers are also committed to a surge in LED notebook backlighting in 2009 and 2010," said Fox.

Light-emitting diode (LED) manufacturers in Taiwan and mainland China can work together to develop better technologies and create a win-win situation, said representatives from the industry during a cross-strait LED forum held in Taipei on Tuesday, reports The China Post. Taiwan has formed a complete LED supply chain network, with manufacturers having developed expertise in LED applications in notebook PC and LCD TV back-light panels, said Huang Chung-chiu, Taiwan’s deputy minister of economic affairs.

Epistar Corp, Taiwan’s biggest LED chipmaker, Tuesday said that it is optimistic over the next quarter’s prospects, as demand for LED chips used in new applications such as LED TVs keeps growing, reports the Taipei Times. The company plans to expand capacity by 5 to 10 percent this year, with production ramping up by the end of the year, Epistar’s chairman Lee Biing-jye said in an interview during a cross-strait cooperation seminar of the light-emitting diode (LED) industry.

Outdoor LED signs are becoming increasingly popular because it is a targeted medium that speaks to your most important audience, the people who can drive onto your property and purchase something immediately. LED signs have become extremely popular for outdoor advertising. The Small Business Association reports that businesses that choose to install an electronic LED message typically see an increase in business of 15% to 150%.

An image being projected by the OLED panel-based small projector Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering (IOF) of Germany exhibited an OLED-based small projector at SID Display Week 2009.

Interview with Bernd Kammerer — EVERLIGHT’s General Manager of Sales and Marketing Business Group：LED Lighting and LED Backlight Will Be the Strongest Driving Force of EVERLIGHT’s Development in 2009

Everlight Electronics Co. Ltd (TSE:2393) recently introduced the SL-Dolphin Street Light series, following two years of research and development. The product series offers a very wide range of characteristics making it best in class, and adds to the growing portfolio of lighting modules from Everlight. This summer, the SL-Dolphin Street Light series was named the 12th most「Outstanding Photonics Product Awards 2009」from PIDA (Photonics Industry & Technology Development Association Taiwan).

PR Lighting Ltd of Guangzhou, China (which supplies intelligent stage lighting, architectural lighting and LED lighting products) said recently that it had chosen Golden DRAGON LEDs from Osram Opto Semiconductors for its XLED 590 intelligent wash light. XLED 590 intelligent wash light, incorporating Osram'’s Diamond DRAGON RGB LEDs for high-power stage lighting.

Havells India Ltd, a electrical and power distribution equipment manufacturer, has entered the Light Emitting Diode (LED) market with the launch of Endura Lite. LED is the future lighting source in India and are at the forefront of technological innovations.

A survey of electrical and lighting distributors recently conducted shows the importance of the sales channel for LED lighting manufacturers in gaining access to the emerging solid-state lighting market.

Offering the latest energy efficient alternative to traditional chandelier light bulbs, BULBRITE unveils Chandelier LEDs as an addition to its existing line of LEDs.

QD Vision, developer of nanotechnology-based products for lighting and displays, yesterday announced it has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II contract by the U.S. Army as part of its Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate (NVESD). Combined with new, additional funds for a Phase I option period, the award totals $775,000.

In many Florida resort hotels, LED lighting systems from Axiom NZ, a global manufacturer of LED lighting systems, are being used to protect sea turtles from dying. Axiom NZ Amber Sea Turtle Lighting products are being used at the W Hotel in Miami Beach, the Eden Roc Hotel and Spa in Miami Beach, and the Marriott Crystal Shores resort in Marco Island, to name a few.

CIL, the electronics design and manufacturing services company based in UK, has been appointed as a Future Lighting Solutions Integration Member.  This means the company is approved to provide design and manufacturing services in the integration of solid-state lighting systems for customers of Future Lighting Solutions.  This appointment followed a detailed assessment programme during which CIL demonstrated its extensive experience in LED and optoelectronics design and manufacture.

Exar Corporation yesterday announced the XRP7620, a 4 channel, I2C controlled LED driver with independent software adjustable channel current control.

At SID Display Week 2009, LG Display Co Ltd of Korea exhibited a “rugged” 15-inch OLED panel. And the company had surprised the visitors by showing a demonstration video in which the panel was repeatedly being hit with a mallet to prove its toughness.

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., (TAEC) has expanded its lineup of compact, high-efficiency white light emitting diodes (LEDs) with three devices in PLCC-2 packages in daylight (or cool) white and two warm whites. These white LEDs are among the brightest white LEDs in Toshiba's current LED product line in this form factor.

New side view 99-211 and top view 62-127 SMD LED packages offer high luminous intensity and energy savings for TFT LCD backlight applications

LED lighting fixtures have accounted for fully half of all Underwriters Laboratories (UL) approvals in Taiwan, reports the Taiwan branch of the safety certification organization, comparing with the average 30% ratio worldwide, according to a report on Taiwan Economic News.

Progressive Cooling Solutions is taking a Russian technology for keeping satellite electronics cool and bringing it down to earth to cool LEDs. The US-based company has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from Siemens Technology-to-Business to mesh two technologies – micro loop heat pipes developed by Russian scientists, and a "silicon wick”, which is a silicon membrane with pores about 5 microns wide and 500 microns deep, developed by company founder and CTO Ahmed Shuja while at the University of Cincinnati.

The Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University and Universal Display Corp. recently announced a breakthrough in advancing displays with organic light-emitting diodes.

Labsphere and Orb Optronix, two light measurement companies both based in the U.S., have announced a collaboration to accelerate the development of LED measurement instruments. The two companies say they will cooperate on the development of a broad range of new LED, display and light metrology products. Also, selected Orb Optronix instruments for LED testing will be manufactured at Labsphere’s New Hampshire facility.

Last month, in the Province of Ontario, Canada, Bill 150 was given Royal Assent signing into law the new Green Energy Act, 2009. This Act is intended to build a green economy in Ontario, under the leadership of Ontario Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, George Smitherman.

Five Light-emitting diode (LED) corporate sponsors have recently teamed with the California Lighting Technology Center (CLTC) at the University of California-Davis to hold an LED design contest. In the contest, 28 student participants were required to build working prototypes of new products employing LEDs in a quarter-long course.

Cree, Inc. announced yesterday that it has signed a definitive agreement with RFHIC Corporation (Suwon, Korea) for Cree to supply GaN-on-SiC transistors to RFHIC for their GaN HEMT amplifier product families.

LEDtronics Inc. has announced the latest addition to its series of high-power PAR30-style LED spotlight bulbs. The white-body, medium-beam PAR30 LED bulb is made up of five 3-W LEDs and replaces filament-based PAR30 bulbs, combining advanced LED technologies, a standard 26-mm Edison screw-in base and a light optimizing design, producing 337 lm of vivid warm-white light.