LiDAR companies continuously extend their partnerships with autonomous driving technology developers to speed up self-driving applications. Canadian LeddarTech announced the collaboration with the Flodraulic Group for autonomous applications. Velodyne Lidar, on the other hand, is providing its LiDAR sensors to Optimus Ride’s self-driving vehicles. Flodraulic is a mobile system integrator specialized in creating full machine control and monitoring systems. The company selected LeddarTech's LeddarTM IS16 LiDAR sensors for the feature of distance and a...

Visible light communication, or LiFi, has provided a high speed internet connection for residents on Graemsay, an island in Scotland. The LiFi network trial project was developed by The University of Edinburgh and pureLiFi. The LiFi trial project began in June 2019 with project named 5G RuralFirst. Before the trial, residents of the island often stock in a connection below 2Mbps. The LiFi network completely improved the connectivity by providing connection which is four times faster. Both outdoor and indoor systems are included in the LiFi trial network. Th...

Sony announced the partnership with Yamaha Motor for a joint development of the SC-1 Sociable Cart, an autonomous vehicle that delivers a new mobility experience. Sony and Yamaha Motor plan to launch services using this model in Japan in fiscal 2019. The vehicle was developed solely for the purpose of providing a new mobility experience, and it will not be made available for sale. The SC-1 is designed to transform what was a mere means of mobility into an all-new opportunity for entertainment. Sony and Yamaha Motor will deploy it to provide fun new diversions at venues s...

The annual Display International Touch Taiwan is taking place this week with exhibitors from all over the world showcasing their latest developments in display technology. Taiwan-based panel makers AUO and Innolux are both showing their innovative display products at the show including Mini LED backlight display, Micro LED displays and more. (Image: AUO) AUO announced that it will unveil several new display technologies covering Mini LED backlit 8K TVs as well as gaming monitors, notebook panels and VR wearable displays adopting Mini LED backlig...

A research shows that birds exposed to artificial light at night might increase the spread of West Nile Virus (WNV). West Nile Virus that infects birds and other animals including humans. The virus can cause West Nile fever for people and sever disease in horses. The virus is transmitted by birds and mosquitos. The study led by Meredith Kernbach, a PhD student in the University of South Florida College of Public Health, suggested that wild birds who carry the virus would remain infectious two days longer if exposed to artificial light at night time, leading to h...

The International Symposium on Automotive Lighting 2019 will take place from September 23 to 25 in Darmstadt, Germany. Inova Semiconductors, a member of the ISELED Alliance, is going to present its innovative solutions for automotive lighting with a focus on interior lighting during the event. Inova will exhibit the first available products and applications based on ISELED technology. A "Carbox" demonstrator illustrates the interaction between dynamic light and image content, opening up new possibilities for driver assistance and infotainment systems. A...

LED manufacturers all over the world have suffered from low profit and market uncertainty due to continuous price competition and on-going trade dispute. Besides cutting off lighting business, LEDinside observed the strategies developed by worldwide LED companies under the difficult circumstance to alleviate impacts on their business. Micro LED and Mini LED: the Turning Point for Taiwan LED Manufacturers Taiwan-based LED companies were challenged by Chinese competitors with their low price strategies in the past few years. However, Mini LED and Micro...

Many LED producers have turned their focus to automotive applications for higher profit. The ongoing development of autonomous driving technology and next generation automobile also creates new requirements for automotive lighting as well as automotive displays, leading to new opportunities for LED makers. Exterior lighting becomes even more important for driverless cars, as they need to pass information and communicate with each other as well as remind pedestrians of their movement. Deployment of advanced LED technology enables cars to provide details when they are about to ...

UV LEDs are recently replacing mercury light as UV light source for disinfection applications. German researchers have developed a UV LED based disinfection system to purify brewing water and clean the caps for bottled beer and soft drinks. Researchers at the Advanced System Technology (AST) branch of the Fraunhofer Institute for Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation IOSB in Ilmenau, Germany, have cooperated in collaboration with PURION, a UV technology solution provider, to create UV LED based purifying module to destroy germs...

Fluence by OSRAM announced that it will become the LED provider of choice for The Green Organic Dutchman (TGOD), an organic cannabis company based in Ontario, Canada. TGOD will use Fluence LED lighting solutions for year-round cannabis cultivation, pushing its production capabilities to meet rapidly increasing global demand for organic cannabis. Fluence will supply its high-bay VYPR lighting solutions in two additional hybrid greenhouses of TGOD which measures over 1.4 million square feet. These new facilities will open in phases starting August 2019 ...

The European Union announced an establishment of a new three-year project, ELIoT (Enhance Lighting for the Internet of Things), which aims to develop mass market Internet of Things (IoT) solutions using LiFi. With LiFi, the ELIoT consortium will explore a networked wireless communication technology operating in the previously unused light spectrum, besides Wi-Fi and cellular radio. LiFi can be used in environments where certain radiofrequencies are not possible or allowed. For outdoor usage, it could offer high bandwidth point-to-point links from rooftops, ...

A French/Chinese design store NOERDEN launched a smart bottle which can autonomously sterilize water with built-in UV-C LED sterilization system and remind people to drink more water with the hydration reminder. The smart bottle, named LIZ, is featured with a touch responsive smart lid with UV-C LED that can destroy up to 99.9% of harmful viruses and bacteria, according to NOERDEN. Users only have to tap the lid twice to start the sterilization process, which sends the UV-C light through the empty bottle or through the water in the bottle to destroy ba...

Shulin District, New Taipei City, Taiwan, July 30, 2019-Everlight has filed invalidation trial procedures against Nichia ‘s YAG patents in United States, Australia, China and Taiwan. Everlight has received these winning judgements. Supreme Court of the United States has decided that the asserted claims of Nichia’s US YAG patents US5,998,925 and US7,531,960 are invalid. Full Court of Federal Court of Australia has decided that the asserted claims of Nichia’s Australia YAG patent 720234 are invalid. On May 9, 2019, Beijing Inte...

Scientists have demonstrated blue light’s anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory effects and they turned it into a flexible bandage to heal wounds. MEDILIGHT, a European research project which aims to develop smart and wearable medical devices, have presented a prototype of the LED embedded light solution for treating chronic wounds. Within the framework of the European project MEDILIGHT, seven partners including research teams from Germany France, Switzerland, Cyprus, the UK and Czech, were coordinated by the Technical University of Berlin (TUB)....

LASER COMPONENTS, specialized provider of components and services in the laser and optoelectronics industry, has been named a “Best of Sensors” 2019 Award winner in the Automotive/Autonomous category. The company’s QuickSwitch Pulsed Laser Diode (PLD) was recognized as one of the Innovative Products of the Year 2019 which highlights cutting-edge advancements and achievements that are moving the sensors industry forward. Across fourteen categories, the prestigious awards were presented by the Editor of Fierce- Electronics during Sensors Expo & Conference 2019, held June 25-27, 2019 in San Jose, California.

AGreen Farms, an indoor hydroponic farm based in Philadelphia, USA, is investing in LED horticulture lighting from Current by GE to produce greens, herbs and edible flowers. Adam Green, founder of AGreen Farms, has worked as a sales intern at Farm.One, a vertical farm based in New York, and gained experiences of the technology-powered urban vertical farm. He launched AGreen Farms in 2018 in a mixed-use building in Philadelphia’s Germantown neighborhood. The 5,000-square-foot operation includes 3,500 square feet of grow space dedicated to microgreens a...

Pharmagreen Biotech, a Canadian biotech science company specialized in cannabis, announced that it will use Signify's Philips GreenPower LED Lighting for cannabis cultivation in its Cannabis Biotech Complex. The complex is a large-scale tissue culture production, research and storage facility of plantlets witch ensures the quality of Cannabis as medicine. The strategic supply partnership with Signify's Philips LED lighting technology adds the high-tech value and opens the door for future cooperation in advancing solutions for the tissue culture industry. ...

Cyprus, the island country on the Mediterranean Sea, is on its way to improve energy efficiency by switching all conventional streetlights into LED. According to the report of CyprusMail, the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) has signed a contract to replace all existing lights in Larnaca. The contract will be executed by the end of August in 2019 with 1,500 streetlights switched to LED. The replacement is expected to save up to 67.56 percent of energy cost compared to current consumption. (image: Pixabay) Moreover, Yiangos Frangoulides, senior manager ...

LiDAR sensor provider Ouster announced its partnership with food delivery firm Postmates. The LiDAR company will provider its Ouster OS1 LiDAR sensor for use in Postmates’ latest autonomous delivery rover, Serve. The Ouster OS1 LiDAR is a 64-channel sensor based on complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology, enabling Serve to seamlessly and safely navigate sidewalks, detect pedestrians, and interact with the community. Combining Postmates’ patented Socially-Aware-Navigation system with Ouster’s multi-beam flash lidar ...

Celebrating Macroblock’s20th anniversary and facing the rise of 5G era, Macroblock this year helds a whole day symposium with interesting topics regarding 5G era LED displays and HDR challenges and solutions. Furthermore, the demonstration zones also roll out advanced LED display technologies for the 2nd half of 2019. Fig.1 Comprehensive LED display solution demos at Macroblock’s Symposium Macroblock spreads outthe demo zones into 4 zones: 1. 5G Future-High Frame Rate Demo 2.Highly-integrated LED Display Driver IC Demo 3. 16-Channel L...

LEDs can be lit on by urine without electricity! A Japanese professor developed a fuel cell which can be powered by urea, a component of urine, to light up LEDs. The approach would offer light source when being in places without electricity such as in the mountains or in times of disaster. The Japan News reported that Keiichi Kaneto, a visiting professor at the Osaka Institute of Technology, created an electricity generable sheet which contains an alloy of copper and nickel and was coated by resin. The sheep reacted to urine drops and could then illuminate a small blue L...

Seoul Semiconductor announced the results of a series of experiments that demonstrated a higher growth rate and higher flavonol (a type of antioxidant) content in crops grown under SunLike Series natural spectrum LEDs than those grown under standard white LEDs. The experiments were conducted on lettuce using SunLike Series LED lighting and standard white LED lighting of the same color temperature and light intensity. After two weeks of crop growth, the fresh weight and flavonol content of the lettuce were measured and compared. The fresh weight of lettuce grown unde...

LED technology enables a wider range of lighting applications, including various types of luminaires. A German company, LUCEM, created a material of light-emitting concrete which is made of layers of transmitting optical fibers. The material allows designers to break the limitation of luminaires for more flexible and creative architecture and interior design. (Image: LUCEM) The products are mixture of fine concrete and optical fibers. The company used thousands of fine optical fibers that are only 0.5 mm diameter, put them layers by layers with the specially designed...

UV LEDs cover a wide range of applications including light curing, medical treatment and disinfection. And now, UV LEDs are put on drones to spew UV light in subway stations and trains for sanitization. An online magazine, Yanko Design, reported that Korean designers at Off Garage Studio created a UV LED integrated drone as a “space care system,” providing autonomous sterilization service. Equipped with sensors and UVC LEDs, the drone is designed to flies smoothly around the station and emits UV LED light in the subways to efficiently and e...

Casambi, the expert in wireless lighting controls based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), has teamed up with Seoul Semiconductor to provide lighting designers with precision control of LED lights that match the spectrum of sunlight. The development puts true human centric lighting in the hands of designers for the first time. Casambi’s wireless control technology can now be used with Seoul Semiconductor’s innovative SunLike Series LEDs, whose spectra match to real sunlight, to realize human centric lighting. “Human-centric lighting” describes...

The City of Wilmington in Delaware, US and Ontario Airport in Canada, have switched to smart LED lighting system. The City of Wilmington collaborated with Delmarva Power on a new citywide smart lighting system. The project begins in July 2019 with the installation of 215 LED street lights and 50 smart sensors in West Center City, North Market Street, and Baynard Boulevard. The final goal is to convert all 7,050 streetlights to LEDs. With the project, the city aims to save up to US$150,000 per year by converting all the streetlights into sensor-equipped...

Last week LEDinside reported that more and more vertical farming startups have received funds from worldwide investors, marking the great potential of the high-tech farming business. Within a week, another US-based vertical farming company, AeroFarms, announced that it has raised US$ 100 million in the Series E funding round. According to the report by the Financial Times, the funding round was led by IKEA’s parent company, Ingka Group, bringing the total funding to US$ 238 million. Other investors include Wheatsheaf, ADM Capital, Mission Point Cap...

The expanding horticulture LED lighting business marks the development of high-tech farming including vertical farming which has attracted increasing investment recently. Vertical farming companies from Europe and the US have reported funds from worldwide investors. Berlin-based vertical farming startup InFarm has raised a US$100 billion fund in its Series B investment led by Atomico with other existing investors including Balderton Capital, Astanor Ventures, Cherry Ventures and TriplePoint Capital joining. Founded in 2013, the Germany company has developed the ...

Connected lighting system integrating smart control and tunable light opens a room for health care applications. Hospitals in Berlin, Germany and Barcelona, Spain, showed the benefits of implementing connected LED lighting systems. At Barcelona’s Vall d’Hebron hospital, a human centric lighting system which can tune the lighting spectrum to match natural daylight was installed in the intensive care unit. With seven LED engines and the combination of single-peak LEDs phosphor-converted LEDs, the system enables light emission to match the visible range spa...

Congratulations Macroblock on 20th anniversary! Our 20th anniversary is an opportunity to honor to celebrate and look ahead to what's next. We celebrated our 20th anniversary with a grand event addressing the future of micro-LED technology development and highlighting its contribution as a key to the next five years. This event is held on 27th of June at Shangri-La's Far Eastern Plaza Hotel in Taipei and offering full-day sessions. "In honor of celebrating Macroblock 20th anniversary, we hold this forum for ‘Next Five Years of LED Display Techn...