Glo-Blades are a new skating accessory that easily attach to both inline and ice skates and brightly illuminate the surface beneath the skaters’ feet, providing for a unique, new effect of “Skating on Light !”™ The product utilizes super bright LED lights and patented wireless technology, with easy mounting that allows the skater to readily swap them back and forth between skates.

Torafu Architects, a Japanese architect firm has created a bubbly LED bulb resembling a water balloon, according to a Spoon and Tamago report. The glass bulb which uses LEDs for lighting and is made from recycled fluorescent bulbs. The lights are diffused from the bubble structures within the bulb.

Forepi’s LED business hit rock bottom in 2013, said Jian Fengren, Chairman of Taiwanese LED chip manufacturer Forepi. However, the company will benefit from the gradual development of flip chip, HV LED, and package free products in 2014. The addition of injections from rebounding industrial demands will help the company reach its goal of turning the year’s loss into profit. With 10 consecutive quarters of loss, gross profit margin for the first three quarters is still -14.32 percent and legal persons believe improvements of gross profit margin in 2014  will be the key to turning loss into profit.

It's lights out for the common household incandescent bulb come Jan. 1, 2014, as the final step of the Energy Independence and Security Act takes effect phasing out 40- and 60-watt bulbs.

BigBright Malaysia, the sole distributor for Rishang LED lighting products in Malaysia, will be moving into a major expansion for 2014. BigBright is among the leading companies in Malaysia with a strong focus in LED lighting modules and components which are known to be very energy efficient and cost-effective.

Belvedere Vodka announces the launch of its first ever laser cut bottle with LED technology, the Belvedere Silver Saber. Just in time for New Year’s Eve festivities, the Silver Saber will feature a special lighting element that will completely illuminate the Belvedere bottle. It will be showcased during a New Years Eve party with musician Robin Thicke at the SLS Hotel South Beach and at selected top nightlife venues in NYC and LA with a nationwide rollout planned for key nightlife venues in 2014.

Evluma is taking orders for the latest release in its expanding line of utility-grade LED area and security lights, the 70W AreaMax. With twice the LEDs and a higher lumen output than the existing 40W models, the 70W AreaMax is designed to replace up to 200W HID lights. The AreaMax delivers more than light; it maximizes energy savings with controls and minimizes maintenance costs with built-in Photocontrol Failsafe Mode (PCFM) and new FaultCast BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) broadcasting.

Tsinghua Unigroup and Lipu County government signed an agreement on December 25th for an investment of RMB 1.2 billion in construction of Tsinghua’s Lipu technology park.

LED lighting market gross margin index for LED manufacturer Honglitronic is more stable, but will experience slight decline year-on-year, as reported in the company’s Shenzhen Stock Market investor relations activities record.

Philips is said to be in talks with Foxconn in regards to OEM light bulb production with orders estimated to reach 10 million a year, according to a report by Apple Daily on the 26th. Foxconn declined to comment to the market rumor.

New Year’s Eve in Times Square has become a worldwide phenomenon with hundreds of thousands of people gathering in Times Square and happily waiting in the cold for hours for the famed street party and legendary Ball-lowering ceremony.

Larson Electronics has released a new equipment light designed to withstand extreme operating conditions while providing powerful and reliable high output illumination. The 1830L LED light features a robust design and high output Seoul Z Power LEDs to provide a lighting solution ideal for military, law enforcement and marine applications.

The LEDinside editorial team would like to wish everyone a Happy Holiday. Before the official countdown to 2014, our team has compiled a review of 10 important topics in the LED industry in 2013. This is a sneak peak we promise there is more to come next week so please stay tuned. Coming back to our usual course, despite the Christmas holiday season this week, Apple has kept up its pace of issuing patents. The company first issued a new quantum dot patent to enhance display colors, then with a flexible sapphire substrate display cover patent. 

San’an Opto has announced on Dec. 25th that the company has signed the “Cooperation Framework Agreement” on Dec. 24th with Zijin Mining Group and Fujian Anxin Contract Energy Management Co. The company will gain an LED lighting product purchase project of at least RMB 300 million (US $49.5 million) within two years. 

Panasonic and Sony end their one year OLED TV partnership due to technical difficulties, according to a report by Nikkei Asian Review. 

In order to avoid saturation of the high-end smartphone market and increase market penetration in India and China, Samsung Display will reduce AMOLED panels and increase LCD panel production in 2014. Samsung Electronics wants to turn their focus to mid-market LED handsets in 2014, but this change in business strategy will have an impact on Samsung Display’s business performance.

There are many topologies that can be used to power LEDs.  But as you probably already know, it all starts with having the design requirements in place before you start.  Without this, you may end up with a design that is less than optimal, or worse, one that may not always operate properly. 

The market has been focused on whether Taiwan LED chipmaker Epistar’s private placement will draw large international investors. Epistar issued US $250 million (NT $7.5 billion) euro convertible bonds (ECB) to Philips in August 2013. However, the company has denied the transaction.

Seoul Semiconductor has announced on 23rd of December that the company has been recognized for its intellectual clout in semiconductor manufacturing. According to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), among the companies which manufacture LED components only, Seoul Semiconductor was the only one to be selected in the 2013 Semiconductor Manufacturing Patent Power Ranking. Seoul Semiconductor was also selected in the same category in 2012.

GlacialTech Inc., which was established in 2001 by a team with many years of experience in thermal module design and manufacturing for internationally renowned brands including Apple, Canon, Dell, Foxconn, HP and Intel, is a diversified provider of thermal, power, optics and systems solutions.

The team at Technical Direction Company (TDC) delivered spectacular projections at multiple iconic locations during December 2013 including; St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, Melbourne Town Hall and the Old Post Office, Newcastle. “We are delighted to have the opportunity to transform and bring these beautiful buildings to life to celebrate the festive season”, says Kain Jones, TDC’s Special Projects Manager. “TDC are the video projection experts who work behind the VIVID festival so are familiar with lighting up and transforming...

Not content with boring black boxes that light up, tech-savvy airfy announces a new way to access WiFi easily, securely and stylishly with the airfy router, the world's first smart WiFi hotspot. The trendsetting company has just launched an Indiegogo campaign with a goal of 20,000 dollars to bring the device to market by September 2014. While other routers sit in the corner to do their jobs, the airfy takes center stage with its modern and fresh design complete with LED lights that can be configured for a variety of notifications.

Tempo Industries announced the release of a new addition to the CLiP C71 high performance linear LED product family, the C7100/HU 'High Uniformity Series'. The new offering joins the original C7100, incorporating the 'form follows function' aesthetics and robust architecture that have propelled Tempo's Configurable Lighting Platform (CLiP) to a position of prominence in the architectural linear LED lighting space. 

Like with many things in life, you can never ride the same Santa sleigh twice. Every holiday season the elves roaming labs and corridors at GE Global Research (GRC) trick out Santa’s ride with their latest technology. The need for their skills has never been more urgent than this December, with the planet’s human population above 7 billion and rocketing higher. How Santa pleaded with the elves to make him fly faster, smoother and increase his range!

Taiwan based LED package manufacturer Everlight had successful lighting revenue growth in 2013 due to gradually maturing LED lighting applications. Although, 4Q is typically a slack season for the LED industry, the company’s revenue this quarter were 30 percent higher than 4Q last year making up 25 percent of the company’s overall revenue, similar to the revenue proportion from backlighting. Everlight’s lighting revenue is anticipated to surpass backlighting for the first time, due to market growth in 2014 LED lighting.

Chinese LED chip manufacturer Elec-Tech has been seeking partnership with Taiwan-based manufacturers. Regarding forming partnerships with Chinese LED die manufacturers, Genesis Photonics Inc. (GPI) is open to discussion, as long as it benefits the industry, company, and stockholders,  said GPI Chairman David Chung.

Apple has filed for a new patent with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office entitled “Quantum dot-enhanced display having diachronic filter” for enhancement of color accuracy in displays. This patent shows the company’s eagerness in researching next-generation screen technology to keep their products on the cutting edge.

Urban Matter Inc. has just completed installing noise interactive LED lights on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway pedestrian pathway. The lights are lit up by the New York City Department of Transportation and the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership switched on the lights, a new public art installation located underneath the expressway, according to an Inhabitant report.

Osram Sylvania’s sixth annual SYLVANIA Socket Survey finds that 65 percent of Americans plan to switch to more energy-efficient lighting technologies, as a result of federally mandated legislation that is increasing efficiency standards. Yet, 30 percent of consumers say that they plan to buy a lot of less efficient traditional incandescent light bulbs where still available and will continue using them. 

Texas Instruments presents engineers with 12 handy engineer design tips this Christmas. Their Facebook profile offers some insights into designing power systems, wireless power charging, IC, and other designs. TI staff also gets creative with a humorous blog entry that investigates Santa’s sleigh technology.