This holiday season the consumer market was a-buzz with the relatively new holiday lighting product, LED Christmas lights. The new lighting technology boasted energy savings of over 95% and lamp life of 50,000 hours or more. The consumer market embraced this new technology and now many people are looking for LEDs suitable for other applications. LED technology has been around for more than 30 years but it was largely used only in industrial applications. Most consumers didn't even know it existed until recently.

Last year Ann Arbor joined forces with LED manufacturer Cree, Inc, on an ever-expanding citywide LED initiative to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. With a recent retrofit contract signed with Lumecon, Ann Arbor is on its way to being the first U.S. city to light up its downtown with 100% LED technology!

Recently, OSRAM Opto Semiconductors announced its OSTAR Headlamp LED have been selected to power the headlights of Cadillac Escalade Platinum sports utility vehicle (SUV). The Cadillac Escalade Platinum, scheduled to be launched this year, is claimed to be the first SUV with LED headlights as standard. OSRAM LEDs powered the functions in the headlights supplied by Hella KGaA Hueck & Co.

Global Warming Solutions company has devised an LED lighting technology it says increases the shelf life of produce. The company's proprietary PureRay lighting technology reportedly kills or at least suppresses E. coli, Listeria, Penicillium (blue mold) and yeasts. As a result, the company contends it slows down spoilage of produce. The PureRay System is proprietary design comprised of LEDs assembled in arrays.

January 24, 2008... Making a good thing better, CAO Group has introduced a compact new High Flux Dynasty™ LED bulb, designed with a driver included in the base to provide constant current, transforming AC/DC low voltage to ~3.3 V. Available with both white and color LEDs, the new bulb is screw-mounted on a waterproof 1156 base.

Martin Professional has been awarded a technology grant from the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation for the development of new LED technologies. The project, called INLED (Intelligent Light Emitting Diodes), is a cooperation between Martin Professional A/S, Denmark's Aalborg University, and the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation.

Television and outdoor advertising will soon merge with the launch of South Africa's largest and highest resolution outdoor digital advertising screen at the country's busiest shopping destination, Sandton City. This 40m² LED screen will be capable of delivering 4,4 trillion colours with unequalled brightness and contrast levels, even in full sunshine.

Catalyst Semiconductor, Inc. announced that its CAT4201, 7W buck LED driver has been named to the EDN Magazine's list of Hot 100 Products of 2007. The CAT4201 was selected one of nine hot products in the "Power Semiconductors and ICs" category, which includes leading analog semiconductor suppliers.About the CAT4201 LED Driver

LED makers from Taiwan project that the cost of LED backlight units (BLUs) will shrink to 1.5 times that of CCFL-based units during late 2008. Despite that the current penetration rate of LED-backlit notebooks barely exceeds 10% due to LED patent issues and insufficient LED chip supplies, many industry players and research firms project that the rate will rise in the 10~20% range in 2008.

This LED concept watch requires you to slide the band open to reveal the time.If it does end up getting made, it'll be made by Gucci, as its who the concept was created for.

It's reported that Epistar Corp of Hsinchu has placed a third multiple order for MOCVD systems from Aixtron of Aachen, Germany. The order was placed in Q407, and includes both multiple CRIUS Close Coupled Showerhead (CCS) reactors and AIX 2800G4 HT Planetary Reactor systems for volume production of GaN-based LEDs. Aixtron says that the latest order, along with a multiple order announced last October, made Epistar the single largest individual system investor in Q407.

It's reported that the village of Frankfort is looking into replacing its traffic and street lights with light emitting diodes, also known as LED lights.Department of Public Works Supervisor for the village of Frankfort Ron Vivacqua says the village could cut its electric payments by a significant amount if it switches to LED lights.

Many companies have ventured into the LED street light market with varying degrees of success. One new company, Remco Solid State Lighting, has delved into this market with a recently patented light engine for a truly equivalent prototype street light. As the old adage suggests, seeing is believing (See the bright LED street light in the foreground).

Remco Solid State Lighting Inc. (Toronto, Canada) has broken through the barrier to replace conventional street lighting with its recently patented SSL technology. Its disruptive SSL technology utilizes the dynamic resistance of LEDs providing a LED light engine that is up to 98% power efficient–only a 2% power loss which enables optimal power and LED lighting efficiencies as verified in a pilot test as proof of concept.

On 22nd，Diguang International Development Co., Ltd. reported that during the 2008 CES Show, its LED general lighting and flat panel lighting (FPL) products drew especially high levels of attention from attendees. At CES, held January 7-10 at the Sands Expo, Las Vegas, the Company displayed backlight products for a wide variety of applications.

Allegro MicroSystems Inc. has announced the release of two new LED driver ICs for use in displays, signs and control panels. The A6282 and A6285 both have 16 constant-current output channels. They have serial data inputs and outputs, which can be cascaded to create large, megapixel text or video displays. They can also be used in smaller applications such as LCD backlighting or controlling LEDs in an instrument or control panel.

Apple Computer Inc. has launched a 13.3-inch LED-BLU-based MacBook Air, which is only 0.76-inch (19 mm) thick on the hinge side, and 0.16-inch (4.1mm) for the opposite side. Apple mentioned that this super-thin product is the result of LED BLU technology advances, and moreover, the mercury-free, arsenic-free notebook is more beneficial in power

Cutter Electronics provides the new 600 Lumen LED light bulb upgrade from TerraLUX which replaces the standard incandescent bulb in Maglite D cell flashlights. The TLE-300 upgrade fits into and converts a Maglite flashlight with 4, 5 or 6 D cell batteries into the bright LED flashlight available, setting a new performance milestone in flashlight brightness.TerraLUX uses three of the latest Luxeon K2 flip chip high powered bright LEDs to make this performance possible. The product will be available to upgrade other flashlight manufacturer’s products in the near future.

On January 18, Qiao Xing Mobile Communication Co., Ltd announced the launch of its new C3100 handset model that targets the low-end and rural markets with a bright LED flashlight and long standby time. The retail price of RMB499 is expected to make the handset attainable to a wide variety of consumers.The C3100 has the following features:LED Flashlight–The C3100 offers a bright flashlight powered by six light-emitting diodes (LED)Long standby time –The handset can run for over 25 days in standby mode without a recharge

It's reported that Catalyst Semiconductor has expanded its recently introduced family of large LED video display drivers with the new CAT4008, an 8-channel, constant-current sink LED driver for billboard, marquee, instrument and other large, general-purpose LED displays. The CAT4008 joins Catalyst's CAT4016, 16-channel, constant-current LED driver introduced in October 2007.

The MBI5039 is a 16-channel constant current LED driver with smart error detection functions released by Macroblock. The MBI5039 supports constant output current from 3mA to 90mA and sustains up to 17V at the output ports. In addition, the high clock frequency (30MHz) satisfies the system requirements of high volume data transmission. The MBI5039 includes two error-detection functions: in-message error detection and silent error detection.