Velodyne Lidar and Idriverplus announced an expanded partnership and Idriverplus inclusion into the Automated with Velodyne integrator ecosystem, which helps companies grow their businesses while using Velodyne’s LiDAR technology. Through the program, Velodyne will further collaborate with Idriverplus to support its continued innovation and promote Idriverplus autonomous vehicles, including street cleaners, passenger cars and logistics vehicles. Recently, Velodyne signed a multi-year sales agreement with Idriverplus to provide Puck™ sensors for the mass prod...

Cree announced the launch of its new SMD RGB LED product series, CV94D, for video wall, signage and color sign applications. According to Cree, the new LED product deliver high contrast and high quality image at different viewing angle from different distances. Featuring water resistance and containing UV inhibitor, these RGB LEDs are able to deliver stable light output over the lifetime and are suitable for outdoor applications. (Image: Cree) The new CV94D IP X8-rated enables the LED and its lenses to be directly exposed to the environment, wh...

LeddarTech announced that it is working with STMicroelectronics to create a LiDAR Evaluation Kit. The evaluation kit will demonstrate technical concepts and offer development capabilities in a functional LiDAR for automotive Tier 1-2 suppliers and industrial system integrators to develop a LiDAR solution based on LeddarEngine™ technology. LeddarTech’s kit will include ST’s MEMS mirror-based laser-beam scanning solutions along with technologies, products, and services from other LeddarTech ecosystem partners. The evaluation kit is being...

The U.S. lighting company Acuity Brands announced its strategic partnership with Ushio America. The two companies entered into an alliance agreement that Ushio will supply Acuity Brands with its Care222® UV disinfection module, which generate far-UVC light which is safe to human skin but capable of inactivating viruses and bacteria on indoor surfaces. Under the agreement, Acuity Brands will have an exclusive right to use Ushio’s far-UVC disinfecting module for general illumination uses throughout North America and non-exclusive right for the worldwide m...

The COVID-19 pandemic has been the biggest challenge to international trade after the financial crisis in 2008. When most of commercial activities are moving online, international purchasing becomes harder than ever for buyers to import since a purchasing decision must be made directly online without face-to-face communication. Through our recent investigations on hundreds of professional overseas buyers, the biggest worry for them turns out to be the quality issue during the process of oversea procurement online, because a quality issue brings potential risks of damaging brand re...

The tallest building in Southeast Asia currently locates in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The 461.5-meter-high building, Landmark 81, is recently lit up by Osram subsidiary Traxon e:cue and LK Technology. (Image: Osram) The intelligent dynamic lighting system on the facade of Landmark 81 is provided by Traxon e:cue. More than 12,500 sets of Traxon luminaires are pixel precise controlled and managed by the e:cue Light Management System. A variety of products are incorporated into the structure including customized LED Dots, Monochrome Tubes, several e:cue B...

Apple is reportedly preparing the new iPad and MacBook adopting Mini LED technology coming later this year or later while its progress in Micro LED technology has yet enter the next phase. It was said that the Apple Watch Series will feature OLED screen which is similar to the previous model, instead of Micro LED. An anonymous Twitter account who has revealed several Apple products details accurately twitted on May 31 suggesting that Apple will use display from JDI, who supplies OLED panels for Apple Watch. (Image: Apple) Since Apple initiat...

Worldwide researchers continues to explore the possible ways to defeat the novel coronavirus. UV light is considered one of the effective ways to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection as it deactivates microorganism in air, water and on the surface. A new study from Colorado State University (CSU) found that UV light can also diminish SARS-CoV-2 virus in blood. Researchers at CSU used existing technologies to show that exposing the coronavirus to riboflavin and UV light reduces pathogens in human plasma and whole-blood products. The result was published on M...

According to the latest investigations by TrendForce, despite the slight slowdown in wearables shipment (including smartwatches and smart wristbands), the increasing demand for improved health monitoring functions has galvanized a strong momentum in the market for wearables-related components. For instance, to raise the accuracy of health monitoring functions, wearables manufacturers are projected to utilize more green LEDs and infrared LEDs while also increasing the size of photodiodes, in turn doubling the demand for PPG. TrendForce indicates that most wearables measure b...

In 2020, people all around the globe are living in ways that we would never have thought because of COVID-19 pandemic. Majority of the world population has spent most of their time at home with lockdown policies and to avoid infection in the past few months. Even now that several areas have lifted up the restriction, people’s lifestyle is likely to change forever. Lighting applications, which highly related to our daily life, reflect the changes of people’s behaviors. LEDinside is thus seeing some rising trends in the lighting industry in response to the impact of ...

Due to COVID-19 pandemic, countless international events across the world have been cancelled or postponed in the past few month. However, in China, where the outbreak first began, LASER World of PHOTONICS will be held as planned in July. (Image:  LASER World of PHOTONICS CHINA) Chinese government issued the guidelines of preventing and controlling the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) on May 8, 2020 and the emergency response level of major public health emergencies in Shanghai was adjusted to level 3 afterwards. Following the gra...

General Electric (GE) is exiting its century-old lighting business with its announcement on May 27, 2020 that it has signed a definite agreement to sell the lighting unit to Savant System. Financial details of the deal was not revealed by both parties. Based on the agreement, Savant System will continue use the GE brand and keep headquarter in Cleveland, Ohio. The transaction is expected to close by mid-2020 and more than 700 employees will transfer to Savant after the deal completed. GE’s light bulb business has a history of almost 130 years and it was the f...

Micro LED and Mini LED technology bring new hopes for industry players in the field since they have been suffered from price competition with oversupply. Taiwanese LED companies were the first to begin Micro LED and Mini LED development and they have entered mass production phase for Mini LED in the past two years. In 2020, as Apple is rumored to release Mini LED-based products, it is expected that demands for Mini LED display technology will surge. Seeing the trend, LED and display companies in China are also pushing their technology development aim...

BIOS Lighting and TrueLight announced their new strategic partnership to advance circadian lighting applications and bring the health benefits of natural sunlight indoors. The new dimmable TrueLight Circadia bulb uses patented BIOS SkyBlue Technology to pinpoint key photoreceptors that signal circadian responses. During the daytime, the TrueLight Circadia bulb infuses the critical sky-blue region (near 490nm), which helps improve alertness, mood and performance. Dimming the bulb after the sun goes down removes daytime photoreceptors and sends nighttime signals to he...

The COVID-19 pandemic spurred the awareness of disinfection and stimulated demands for related applications based on UVC radiation. UVC LED products have thus become a hit across the world. However, the safety issue of UV light also become a concern as direct exposure of UV radiation is harmful for people and animal. Aim to improve safety of UV disinfection and expand application opportunities, researcher across the world are searching for method to make UV light less harmful. And far-UVC seems to be the solution. A new research carried out by the Univers...

Seoul Viosys and SETi have reported a wide range of applications with its Violeds technology, which was claimed to achieve 99.9% sterilization of coronavirus. After the collaboration with automotive component supplier and home appliance makers to apply the technology for car interior disinfection and laundry tank cleaning, the two company announced the launch of portable air purifier with Violeds under the brand “VAC.” SETi and Seoul Viosys are going to release Violeds technology adopted portable air purifiers to reduce the risk of infection from different pat...

Last week, Samsung announced that it is supporting five startups created by Samsung employees under the C-Lab Inside in-house incubation program. One of the new startups, SunnyFive, builds a window look lighting device delivering artificial sunlight. (Image: Samsung) According to Samsung, the window-shaped lighting created by SunnyFive produces full spectrum of light which is similar to natural light, simulating lighting situation including dawn, sunrise, sunset and dusk. Samsung also highlighted that this window-like lighting device can help users synthesize vitamin D...

LED chip supplier Epistar said that it is seeing surging demands for Mini LED display and fine-pitch display. With its mature miniaturized LED technology, the company is expecting to ship about 689.2 billion units of LED chip in 2020. Epistar is reportedly supplying Apple for the coming Mini LED-based iPad Pro and MacBook. The Taiwan-based chip maker has increased its investment for capacity expansion and turned 95% of its blue LED capacity in Taiwan into Mini LED production to meet the demands of Apple products. Despite that Epistar has already pro...

Signify announced the appointment of Francisco Javier van Engelen Sousa as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), succeeding René van Schooten, who currently holds the position on an interim basis. The appointment will become effective on June 15, 2020. Javier most recently held the position of CFO for Grupo Telepizza, a food operator, ultimately leading the process to take the company private in 2019. Signify will propose the appointment of Javier van Engelen to the Board of Management at an Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders (EGM), to be h...

German research institute the Ferdinand-Braun-Institut (FBH) and Technische Universität Berlin (TUB) have developed UV LEDs emitting UV light that is safe to the skin. The achievement has yet commercially available but will be tested in medicine research centers in Germany. The FBH and TUB worked under the framework of their Joint Lab GaN Optoelectronics and created LEDs that deliver far UV light at wavelengths around 230 nm and provide more than 1 mW output power. According to the FBH, the light does not penetrate into the living layers of...

As many countries and cities are lifting the COVID-19 restrictions and reopening business, how to continuously prevent the spread of the virus is a critical challenge for all. LEDinside noticed that many sensor technology developers have created solutions to anonymously monitoring people’s activities in public for controlling social distance and checking health status. LiDAR technology, for example, is now used to support people flow management. Hitachi Vantara, the digital infrastructure and solutions subsidiary of Hitachi, is leveraging its technology to deliver a ...

The British government announced the new tariff regime as it is exiting the EU. The UK Global Tariff (UKGT) was introduced last week to replace the EU’s Common External Tariff on January 1, 2021. With UKGT, LED lamps will be free from tariffs as the new regime aims to support sustainable economy. (Image: Pixabay) According to the UK government, the UKGT is tailored to the needs of the UK economy and will simply nearly 6000 tariff lines to reduce administrative cost. In order to back green economy, tariffs on over 100 items related renewable ...

Signify announced that its lighting portfolio will meet the new EU Ecodesign and Energy labeling regulations, which will affect all lighting products in the EU Member States from September 2021 onwards. The new regulations are representative of the enormous transition that has taken place in the lighting industry. (Image: Signify) The new Ecodesign regulation combines the current three EU regulations on lighting into one. It introduces stricter energy efficiency requirements. Together with the new regulation on Energy Labeling it means that the energy labels for al...

Rumors of Apple’s smart glasses products have never stopped but now they are even more materialized. Jon Prosser, host of Front Page Tech, unveiled alleged details about the AR glasses that Apple might reveal. It was said that Apple will call its AR glasses “Apple Glass,” which will pair with an iPhone like Apple Watch. There will be displays for both lenses and LiDAR sensors will be adopted to enable gesture interaction. In addition, the glasses will be wireless charged. (Image: screenshot from the video of Front Page Tech) Prosser cl...

Researchers at the University of Tokyo published a research demonstrating their achievement of the highest mobility among thin films of tin dioxide. This high mobility could allow engineers to create thin and even transparent tin dioxide semiconductors for use in next-generation LED lights, photovoltaic solar panels or touch-sensitive display technologies. Tin dioxide can be made into a semiconductor. A research team from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Tokyo demonstrated the highest mobility in a thin film of tin oxide ever achieved. The improved mobility no...

Display solution provider Planar introduce its new LED display product series featuring fine pixel pitch and high brightness to support a wide range of application environments. (Image: Planar) The Planar FX Series offers outdoor models available in 1.5, 1.9, 2.6, 2.9 and 3.9 mm pixel pitches, in addition to indoor models with 1.5, 1.9 and 2.6 mm pixel pitches. The outdoor products support up to 4000 nits brightness and indoors 3500 nits. “As customer demand and confidence in LED video walls has grown, our customers have naturally envisioned use cases requirin...

Korea’s LiDAR sensor startup company, SOS LAB, announced that it has secured series A+ investment of a total of US$8 million starting from a lead investment from Korea Development Bank (KDB), bringing the company’s total capital raised so far to US$ 14 million. Despite a decline in general economic activities due to COVID-19, SOS LAB successfully attracted the investment and it has now unveiled its plans for the commercialization of LiDAR. (Image: SOS LAB) SOS LAB disclosed ML-1, the product which mounted the aforemention...

LG announced that it will move two of the six production lines in the Gumi factory in South Korea to its Indonesia facility in Cibitung in order to increase efficiency and capacity for TV production. LG said it is expanding the TV business with the aim to “diversify its production footprint and step up capacity,” and moving TV production lines from South Korea to Indonesia is one of the strategies. The Korean company plans to turn its Cibitung facility in Indonesia into a new regional hub and expects the transformation to boost the efficiency of LG&rsqu...

People are getting more aware of how natural lighting affects the body as well as the psychological feelings. Lighting design and LED technology also address how the artificial light source can mimic the light in the nature. But how do we measure the “naturalness” of light? Bridgelux introduced a new metric to quantify the naturalness. Bridgelux announced that it has developed a new metric to enable objective comparison of light sources to natural light, since standard lighting quality metrics such as CRI and TM-30 do not fully address the naturalness. The LED...

Apple has sparked considerable discussions in the market after rumors surfaced that the company’s new 12.9-inch iPad Pro, to be released in 2021, may be equipped with Mini LED backlight technology. According to the newest investigations by the LEDinside research division of TrendForce, the manufacturing cost of Mini LED backlight displays is currently higher than that of traditional LCD and OLED displays. However, as manufacturers continue to make improvements in process technology and yield rate, the cost of Mini LED backlight displays is expected to under...