Ashland, a city located in Oregon. U.S. has replaced some 33,670 decorative incandescent lights with LEDs in the city hall during this Christmas season, reported Ashland Daily Tidings.

During the Christmas season this year, the Japanese government announced plans of raising LED lighting market penetration as part of its global warming prevention strategies. Siemens announced shortly before the holidays that it had not known about Osram’s plan to invest in white LED chip manufacturing, and was unsupportive of the decision. In the automotive lighting sector, Audi expanded its advanced lighting options. LEDinside has also projected the car lighting market will reach US $2.29 billion by 2020. For further details about industry developments this week please see below.

Taiwanese LED manufacturer Unity Opto Technology received orders from the European market and will be shipping in total products valuing US $3 million to US $4 million in a single quarter, the company is targeting US $30 million shipment volume.

Planar Systems, a global leader in display and digital signage technology, announced today that it has closed its sale to Leyard American Corporation, a subsidiary of Leyard Optoelectronic Co., Ltd., which designs, produces, and distributes a range of LED display products and its ancillary systems.

Engineers have successfully married electrons and photons within a single-chip microprocessor, a landmark development that opens the door to ultrafast, low-power data crunching.

LED package manufacturer Unity Opto has formed a close partnership with B&Q in Taiwan, and is an OEM of the home improvement retailer brand’s LED bulbs. B&Q’s “Super Value LED Bulb” costs only NT $99 (US $3), which is less expensive than Philips’ US $5 light bulb launched in summer and nearing the lowest pricing benchmark of US $2.5 per bulb in U.S. The low- priced LED bulbs will ignite fierce competition in Taiwan’s domestic market, reported Economic Daily News (EDN).

In response to partly misleading media reports ‒ most recently in the Mittelbayrische Zeitung under the headline "Siemens knew" ‒ regarding the involvement of Siemens in the planned strategic realignment of Osram AG, Siemens comments as follows:

This recall involves various Holiday Collection Christmas Lights. The Canadian Tire SKU number can be found on the box or receipt and by the CSA file numbers 224823 which can usually be found on the manufacturer's product identification label, which is a tag affixed to the wire of the light string. These CSA file numbers are not embossed on the plug of the light string; the numbers found on the plug relate only to that specific plug component and are not part of this recall.

Indian consumers are embracing the LED replacement wave, and have swapped more than 10 million traditional and CFL bulbs with LEDs within the last month, but some states have been delaying LED streetlight upgrades ahead of the upcoming elections, reported Indian media.

Seven Canadian climate entrepreneurs will be going into 2016 with a significant financial lift from a new grant program being offered by Shell Canada in collaboration with Canadian Geographic. 

Having survived oversupply in the LED industry, and endured a harsh winter, listed LED manufacturers have been leading the way in mergers and acquisitions in 2015. Listed companies mergers grew significantly this year to become a major trend on the market. Listed companies acquisitions and trade value have grown exponentially, reflecting features of listed companies merging with smaller companies. More than 37 merger deals were negotiated as of October 2015, and have continued to grow.

A Canadian startup designed a LED wearable that could be a helpful aid for first-time parents, when it comes to tending their child.

On the UK’s shortest day Audi adds to the Christmas illuminations with advanced lighting that is now available for more models than ever before: Intelligent Audi Matrix LED headlights now available on many of the latest models: TT, A4, A6, A7 Sportback and Q7. S line versions of the A4, A6, A7, Q7 and TT fitted with all-LED headlights and LED rear lights as standard. Xenon plus headlights with LED DRLs as standard for the rest of the S line range. Laser lighting can also be specified on the all-new R8 and R8 V10 plus. Dynamic sweeping turn signals also standard front and rear in combination with Matrix LED headlights. Future lighting development work focusing on Matrix laser lights, laser rear fog light and OLED ‘Swarm’ technology

Orion Energy Systems, a leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance, energy-efficient retrofit lighting platforms, today announced a multi-billion dollar global retailer with over 575 warehouse club operations has selected Orion LED retrofit lighting as the spec for its retail stores and corporate offices.

Veeco Instruments announced today that it has received multiple orders from a leading foundry in Asia for its Precision Surface Processing (PSP) WaferStorm™ system.  The WaferStorm platform provides wafer processing solutions for advanced packaging applications.

Japanese government held a special meeting at its Global Warming Prevention Headquarters to address global warming solutions and implement suggestions issued by COP21, the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris. The government aims to accelerate action plans and strategies.

The United States Patent Trademark Office (USPTO) recently released a paper on its final written decision “Adapted For” Language in Preamble IPR2014-00703, according to a report by The National Law Review.

In the era of LED lighting, traditional lighting brands have continued to control the market’s developments, reported PIDA. Lighting giant Royal Philips (Philips) slashed 2-packed LED bulb prices to US $4.97 on April 22, 2015. A single bulb price during the promotion period that lasted till July was about $2.49 per bulb, reported Chinese-language media Money DJ.com.

To satisfy increasing consumer demand for locally grown, fresh tomatoes during off-seasons, greenhouse tomato growers often need to rely on supplemental lighting. Tomato growers are looking to light-emitting diodes (LEDs), favored for their energy-saving potential, as an alternative to high-pressure sodium lamps (HPS) in greenhouse operations. A recent study offers new information about the feasibility of using LEDs in greenhouse tomato operations.

To coordinate with the market situation and considering the requests from users, recently BIS has published below notifications for CRS.

Billion Electric, a leading networking and energy management solutions provider, today announces that it is in a strategic partnership with numerous LED streetlight vendors to deploy its Smart Streetlight Control Solution (LCMS) for a city-wide street light infrastructure project, providing automatic dimming and energy saving controls based on environmental illumination, motion, and regional sunrise and sunset schedules. Billion is in collaboration with the Bureau of Energy, Taiwanese Ministry of Economic Affairs to expand its system capacity controlling up to 6,000 street lights for a freeway project.

India-based Eon Electric Limited (EEL), a manufacturer of energy-efficient LED lighting products, has secured an extended LED streetlight installation contract aimed at replacing conventional streetlights with LEDs in Jodhpur.

The Indian government aims to distribute more than 60 million LED bulbs through State-owned Energy Efficiency Services (EESL) within one year, said the country’s Power Minister Piyush Goyal recently.

A Philips Hue software update last Wednesday banned third-party LED bulbs from pairing up with Hue Bridge created a lot of backlash, according to a Chinese-language ifanr report. A day later the company reversed the decision to embrace third-party bulb support once more.

Chinese LED manufacturer Changelight Chairman Dianming Deng has retired from his role as the company chairman, and successor has been chosen by the company board, according to a recent company statement.

The Philippines has recently updated its lamp holders and other luminaire standards, according to a DEKRA press release.

The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) called on the California Energy Commission (CEC) today to ensure that California consumers have access to the most efficient and cost-effective LED bulbs currently on the market.

Royal Philips announced that today’s Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders (EGM) appointed Abhijit Bhattacharya as a member of the Board of Management with effect from December 18, 2015.

Traditionally, LEDs are wielded as glow stick replacements at concerts, or found on banners and boards made by fans. Some artists will occasionally wear LED dresses to light up the show, but a new startup is catching on the trend of gloving at EDM rave parties.

There has been a lot of activity going on in the UV LED market in the last two weeks, Japanese media Nikkei reports have pointed out UV LED manufacturer Nikkiso is collaborating with Formosa Plastics Group to build the world’s largest UV LED factory in Taiwan. Dow Chemical and DuPont’s equal merge last week, implies advantages in LED material and UV LED development, but could also raise the bar considerably for other material manufacturers to break through their comprehensive patent networks. Apple is once again under the spotlight, following a Bloomberg report that revealed the company has set up a secret lab in Taiwan to work on iPad or iPhone display technology.