This week Walmart has pushed LED manufacturers into hot water as it releases a US$ 9 LED bulb line, while German manufacturer Osram slashed 900 jobs in the U.S. as part of its restructure plan. Goldman Sachs on the other hand has remained upbeat about LED growth in 2014, and has cast a rather rosy light on the industry. Below are LEDinside’s editor team’s pick of some important news over the week, that you might not want to miss out:

GlacialLight's Flood Light series now includes models with Standard AC input, DC input, and PIR Sensors. They are suitable for a very wide variety of indoor and outdoor architectural lighting needs, in commercial, industrial and residential environments. Special functions include solar powered lighting and security-enhancing illumination.

LED chip manufacturer Genesis Photonics flip chip components have obtained Japanese smartphone manufacturers certification to be used to make smartphone flashes.

Just one day after Walmart announced working with GE to sell US$ 10 LED bulbs, the retailer has gotten even more aggressive in its push to make LED lights available to all. The retailer is launching a new line of in-house LED bulbs to be priced below US$ 9, according to a Verge report.

Hubbell Lighting today announced a new solution to cut electricity costs, enhance the quality of light and reduce the financial risk of upgrades–resulting in up to a 3% increase in net operating income while at the same time improving the property value and attractiveness for tenants.  

Phillips Luxeon® LED-based street lighting is being installed in the Garment District, Manhattan borough of New York City, also known as the Fashion District for fashion manufacturing in the United States, and even the world.

Design website Designboom recently introduced a creative interactive OLED photobooth designed by Vienna-based designer Talia Radford of Talia Ystudio and media artists Jonas Bohatsch at Vienna Design Week 2013. The photo booth uses Osram’s high-tech OLED mirrors, which acts as a flash and display in conjunction with a camera that creates instant lo-fi thermal image print outs, according to the Designboom article. Two conductive plates are on the bottom of the contraption. Photos are shot when skin contact occurs between two people standing on the plates, and for about 20 seconds OLEDs flash and develop pictures onto a small scroll of paper.

LED Canada announced today their newest LED Lighting series, LED Canada’s PAR20-PAR30 and PAR38, have all qualified for Energy Star program and feature cUL, FCC, and now Energy Star certification.

RAB Lighting's ENTRA is the new affordable, high performance, low maintenance LED doorway light with a 12W, long-life LED. This sleek doorway light will outshine and outlast your traditional high-pressure sodium fixtures.

Acclaim Lighting offers its Flex line of low-profile LED circuit strip, which can be cut to any length needed to provide high-output lighting in a variety of cove, millwork, signage and other applications.

lucy®, a performance apparel company for active women, is pleased to announce a unique, inspirational and interactive light experience along the DCR Charles River Esplanade of Boston.

As electricity prices shoot up, projectors with energy saving LED lights and 3D features will allow consumers to enjoy the benefits of energy saving and a feeling of presence.

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will be releasing a new energy policy, according to LED industry sources. Starting from Nov. 2013, bids for China street light construction projects will be divided into three phases. Most of the projects are aimed at second tier and third tier cities. Scale of the new project is expected to be three times larger than the first phase of more than 100,000 streetlights in 10 cities. Due to the new LED street light bid specifications, Taiwanese LED manufacturers including Everlight, Delta Electronics, and Leotek that that already have street light bids in Taiwan received quality recognition for their products.

Lowered LED bulb prices by Cree in 2013 proved effective. The low price policy not only successfully drove sales for LED bulbs but also lead to stock prices doubling for 2013. Goldman Sachs newest report lists four major reasons for its positive outlook on Cree, which include incandescent bulbs exiting the market en masse, rebound in U.S. commercial construction projects, North American green building demands, and Cree’s increasing penetration rate in the Chinese LED market.

Patent wars between Japanese LED manufacturer Nichia and Taiwanese manufacturer Everlight have intensified over the last two to three years. Last month, Katsuyuki Akutagawa, General Manager of Legal Affairs and Intellectual Properties at Nichia visited Taiwan to clarify the ongoing disputes. Akutagawa pointed out that Everlight has continued to file meaningless patent invalidity lawsuits against Nichia. In response, the Japanese company declared a full scale patent war against the largest Taiwanese LED manufacturer, and revealed plans of hunting down Everlight for patent infringements in any country, by taking all necessary legal actions. 

Cree, Inc. sets a new industry benchmark with higher performance XLamp® XP-G2 LEDs. The latest innovation boasts a seven percent increase in brightness compared to the already industry-leading XP-G2 family. The new LEDs provide lighting manufacturers with an unprecedented combination of light output, efficacy and outstanding reliability, while delivering an immediate boost in performance.

The University of Dayton, located in Dayton, Ohio, U.S., is the largest private university in the state of Ohio. Managing the energy consumption of a university that large is no easy feat, but that’s exactly what is asked of Steve Kendig, the Energy Manager for Department of Facilities Management, who manages all of the buildings located on the university’s campus. Energy consumption is one of the main things Steve focuses on, constantly striving to lower energy use as well as advance the sustainability footprint of the school. One project that was spurred through his ever constant battle to curb energy usage was within the Department of Visual Arts. This department provides quality education in multiple fields of art, from history to photography to graphic design. 

Taiwan’s National Tsing Hua University has developed a method to improve the performance of zinc oxide (ZnO) transparent conductive oxide (TCO) as an electrode for short-wavelength nitride semiconductor light-emitting diodes (LEDs). In particular, the method enhances the light output power of an LED emitting 380nm ultraviolet (UV) at 20mA by 166%.

iMotion control and touch sensors has brought people closer to the sci-fi world in the movie Minority Repot where objects on a screen can be changed and enlarged with hand gestures. The technology has been largely limited to game consoles in the past, but iMotion is bringing the technology from the living room TV screen to computer monitors. The motion control which uses LED sensors for 3D space positioning can replace the mouse and even keyboards, allowing tech enthusiasts to show off their Jedi skills on the computer monitor.

Fairchild Semiconductor, a leading global supplier of high performance power and mobile semiconductor solutions, has appointed Chris Allexandre to the position of Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales.

Walmart today announced the launch of a Great Value line of LED lightbulbs for less than $10 in all of its U.S. stores, with the goal of making LED lightbulbs more accessible and affordable for consumers. The new line will be available exclusively at Walmart stores nationwide and Walmart.com. Building on a history of collaborative innovation between Walmart and General Electric (GE), the retailer will also offer a new, dimmable 60-watt equivalent GE LED lightbulb for less than $11.

Lextar Electronic’s newly developed dual-sided LED panel light Harmonia has won the Good Design Award 2013, one of the most influential design awards in Asia. The light’s simple and clean appearance, dual-sided LED that gives a harmonious lighting environment was awarded the Good Design Award. This is the third time that Lextar has received recognition from Good Design Award in Japan. The company had previously clinched two prizes at the awards in 2012 with two LED bulb designs. Harmonia is expected to debut in October at the Hong Kong International Lighting Fair (Autumn Edition).

The supply and demand situation for the LED industry has affected LED prices.  Foreign investment firm Goldman Sachs in the most recent global LED industry report pointed out that due to lowered demand expectations from Japanese, Korea, North American and European LED manufacturers, MOVCD equipment volume increase for 2013 has been lowered.

Taiwanese design company Gixia Group was invited by German Vitra Design Museum to display its Luxifer LED bulbs at the Lightopia exhibition. According to the group, this is the first LED luminaire manufactured by a Taiwanese company displayed at the exhibition. The exhibition will also be traveling to other museums around the world.

The LED package market value reached US$ 12.5 billion in 2013, and projected to grow at a Year-over-Year growth rate of 7% to US$ 13.39 billion in 2014, according to the latest LEDinside research report. Tablets and smartphone backlight applications will still be the main highlights in 2014. The lighting application market will see most growth in industrial, commercial and outdoor lighting markets.

The LED industry after entering into the lighting era still continues to face pressure to lower prices. LED manufacturers have thus begun competitively pushing their way into package free chip development. Manufacturers like Philips Lumileds, Toshiba, TSMS Solid State Lighting, Epistar, and Formosa Epitaxy have already begun promoting package free chip products.

The popular doll gets a wearable technology update with an LED infused LBD.

Fujifilm Corporation and imec have developed a new *photoresist technology for **organic semiconductors that enables the realization of submicron patterns. (For * please see note at bottom for further explanations.)

Xicato announced an exclusive LM-79 testing program that lowers testing costs by 50% per luminaire, and reduces testing turn-around time to just five business days, in comparison to industry norms of approximately four weeks. This unique program, in cooperation with UL is open now to all manufacturers whose luminaires have passed Xicato's thermal validation, a complimentary program offered by Xicato to all its customers.

Veeco Instruments Inc. has completed the previously announced acquisition of Synos Technology, Inc. (Synos). Synos designs and manufactures Fast Array Scanning™ Atomic Layer Deposition (FAST-ALD™) systems that are currently expected to enable the production of flexible OLED displays for mobile devices. The business, with operations in California and Korea, has been renamed Veeco ALD Inc.