Korea looks to increase subsidies it has been offering to OLED technology -related business projects to remain ahead of Chinese enterprises Reported Korea Times.

GE released first-quarter results last week, with industrial operating plus verticals earnings reaching $0.21 per share, up 5 percent compared to last year. The company said it remained on track to earn between $1.45 and $1.55 per share and return $26 billion to shareholders in 2016.

Biological implants that communicate with the brain to control paralyzed limbs or provide vision to the blind are one step closer to reality thanks to research by Brian Collins, an assistant professor of physics at Washington State University.

Having explored in my last post how we designed a source with very high fidelity, I would now like to discuss in more detail another class of so-called “color-enhancing” light sources. Today, I will make some general statements about this concept, and in a follow-up-post I will talk more specifically about how Soraa products uniquely deliver this enhancing experience.

Today Current, powered by GE (NYSE: GE), announced the acquisition of Daintree Networks, an Industrial Internet provider of building controls solutions for commercial facilities. This acquisition will enable Current to expand its building automation platform and its energy-as-a-service offering to small- and medium-size facilities through the deployment of Daintree’s open, standards-based wireless control systems.

The Toronto-Dominion Centre (TD Centre), the original skyscrapers of Toronto’s Financial District and the largest commercial complex in Canada, is working with North American lighting leader OSRAM SYLVANIA and Gerrie Electric, one of Canada’s largest independently owned electrical distributors, to help continue its mission of sustainability. TD Centre is replacing T8 fluorescent lighting with approximately 55,000 energy-saving and long-life SYLVANIA SubstiTUBE® IPS LED Tubes, saving approximately 2,500,000 kWh annually and $250,000 per year. At 4.3 million square feet the TD Centre, managed by the Cadillac Fairview Corporation Ltd., is one of the largest LEED Platinum certified properties in North America, in addition to being one of North America's largest business communities and home to 21,000 office employees. 

"We not only produce energy-efficient bulbs, but also strive to take the quality of lighting to the next level," says Michael Yu, CEO of the Taiwan-based Liquidleds. He made the comment while marking the debut of the world's first soft filament LED Lamp at Light + Building 2016 in Frankfurt, Germany, the world's biggest platform for the lighting market. "In contrast to the ways most other players broke into the industry," Mr. Yu explained, "we have pursued patent protection for most of our new soft filament lamp technologies. These inventions, marked by the bendable characteristics of the soft filaments, drastically improves the quality of light and will open up a variety of options for a lighting fixture design." The demand for LED lighting market, Mr. Yu added, continues to grow at an increasingly robust pace, reducing the need for traditional lighting products. But the real challenge to the industry will be how to bring new sensory experiences for the consumers through design, how to let creativity roam wild into the world of lighting.

Since the discovery of fire and the invention of light bulb, mankind has utilised lighting mainly to meet their single basic need: to see their surroundings. Flint has been created to change it and surpass beyond this.

LEDinside has released two important research reports this week, in case you missed our research director Roger Chu’s talk at Taiwan International Lighting Show 2016 (TILS 2016) last week, you can find the complete summary of his talk from the contracting Chinese LED chip market piece. In addition, the company has unveiled the top 10 LED package manufacturer rankings in 2015. Nichia has defended the top ranking position, and Everlight edged up one spot. Taiwanese LED package manufacturer Lite-On has also squeezed into the top 10 rankings for the first time, for more details please see below.

Energy Focus, Inc. (NASDAQ:EFOI), a leader in LED lighting technologies, today announced its development of a new generation of “Network-Ready,” dimmable LED lighting products, including dimmable tubular LED lamps (“TLEDs”) that operate in direct-wire mode (without a ballast) and dual-mode (with or without a ballast), an integrated, dimmable emergency backup TLED, and a dimmable luminaire. These products, along with other newly developed products from Energy Focus, will be featured at the company’s booth (#5955) at Light Fair 2016 being held at the San Diego Convention Center on April 26-28, 2016. (See: //www.energyfocusinc.com/wp-content/uploads/LightFair-2016-Featured-Products.pdf).

Authorities of Vietnam capital Hanoi plans to roll out LED streetlight upgrade across the city, and has recently called on municipal agencies to scale up installation of LED lights in public lighting system in the locality to save energy, reported Vietnam Plus.

Korean researchers from Department of Bio and Brain Engineering and KAIST Institute for Optical Science and Technology have been able to boost OLED efficiency significantly by imitating nanostructures found in fireflies, according to a latest paper published in Nano Letters.

Greg McNevin sheds light in this Greenpeace blog entry how LEDs are illuminating invisible radiation levels in Chernobyl and Fukushima. 

“Start-up meets Grown-up” is the slogan chosen by Osram and the Berlin start-up company Bär-Drones for presenting their innovative concepts which will enable drones to be used for filming or for video monitoring of extensive areas. The promising results of this cooperation can be seen in the Digital Factory at booth C34 in Hall 7 during the Hanover fair which runs from April 25 to 29, 2016.

mindSHIFT, a leading IT outsourcing and cloud services provider, selected SmartCast® Power over Ethernet (PoE) LED lighting by Cree, Inc. (Nasdaq: CREE) integrated with a Cisco network for the build-out of its cloud mounting services facility in Long Island, N.Y. SmartCast PoE is an intuitively simple, scalable and open platform that enables the Internet of Things (IoT) for buildings through better light. The system embeds intelligence to make buildings more efficient and people more productive, while delivering far better light for less energy than ordinary LED lighting systems.

Donna Dederding from Zumtobel reveals the lights used to touch up The Panorama Museum of the Sacred Defense in Iran in this blog entry. The Panorama Museum of the Sacred Defense in Iran is dedicated to the Iran-Iraq war that took place from 1980 to 1988. The historical artworks are highlighted through the minimalistic ARCOS LED spotlight. The museum is due to open very soon.

North American lighting leader OSRAM SYLVANIA is launching the OSRAM BackLED Plus Square Lens, providing superior sign face uniformity in small, shallow channel letters and box signs.  The company has also further extended the simplicity and efficiency of its BoxLED Plus LED signage product line to include accessories to directly retrofit fluorescent T12HO lamps in existing signage. The same BoxLED Plus LED modules that are widely utilized in the signage industry, in both single-side and double-side versions, can now be simply and quickly installed with the BoxLED Adapter System.  They are a great solution for easily replacing T12HO fluorescent lamps utilizing the existing R17d sockets. These new products, along with other long-lasting, efficient LED signage solutions from OSRAM SYLVANIA, will be at Booth 439 at the ISA Sign Expo in Orlando, Florida from April 21 – 23, 2016.

Monocrystal, a global leader in synthetic sapphire growing and processing, today announced its plans to significantly increase its polishing capacity by the end of 2016.

Foreverlamp™, an innovator in retrofit lamp design, will introduce the industry’s first 1000W plug-n-play replacement lamp for Metal Halide lamps during LIGHTFAIR® International.  The powerful LED lamp delivers up to 45,000 lumens at 400 watts providing the most powerful replacement lamp lumen package available in the industry today. The new 1000W lamp will save 600 watts per socket over MH providing an eco-friendly alternative to MH with the simple screw in replacement of a light bulb. 

The U.S. Department of Energy's Building Technologies Office Emerging Technologies (ET) program is announcing the availability of up to $3 million in funding to develop energy efficient replacement lamps in general illumination applications. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 set a 45 lumen per watt minimum efficacy backstop requirement effective beginning January 1, 2020. ET's Lighting Alternatives Maximizing Performance and Suitability (LAMPS) program seeks to create suitable high-efficacy lighting options for incandescent lamps where none exist today.

Fierce competition caused major shifts in the global LED package revenue ranking for 2015, according to LEDinside, a division of TrendForce. Nichia remained the leader, followed closely by OSRAM Opto and Lumileds. Samsung LED and other South Korean manufacturers suffered revenue declines due to the price war and the contraction of LED backlight market. By undercutting each other, most manufacturers ended up with lower revenues last year. Some companies’ revenues also decreased when measured in U.S. dollars due to the dollar’s appreciation.

EVERLIGHT ELECTRONICS, a leading player in the global LED and optoelectronics industry, announces five new UV LEDs at LIGHTFAIR International 2016, showcased at booth #1851.

Today, the U.S. Senate passed the Energy Policy Modernization Act by a vote of 85-12. This vote comes four months after a December 3, 2015, vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on its comprehensive energy legislation, the North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act.

On April 18, 2016, United States District Court for the Northern District of California entered judgment in accordance with the jury’s verdict in Enplas Display Device Corporation v. Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (N.D. Cal., Case No. 3:13-cv-05038-NC) that EDD’s sale of light diffusion lenses #9854D, #9854E and #9879 in Japan and Taiwan induced unnamed parties to infringe claims 1, 6, 33, 34 and 35 of United States Patent No. 6,473,554 (USP ‘554) and its sale of those lenses and lenses #4922 and #9853A in Japan and Taiwan induced unnamed parties to infringe claim 20 of United States Patent No. 6,007,209 (USP ‘209) (under 35 U.S.C. § 271(b)). 

Lighting leader OSRAM SYLVANIA is announcing an exclusive partnership in North America with Senmatic A/S in Denmark to bring total greenhouse system solutions to the horticulture market that enhance operational performance and offer optimal lighting. OSRAM SYLVANIA will work directly with Senmatic A/S in the design, development and distribution of high-quality horticulture LED fixtures sold under the OSRAM brand.

Hubbell Control Solutions announces the appointment of three new US Regional Sales Managers. Greg Ortt takes over the Southeast states, while Joe Osterwyk handles the North Central states and Mark Westgate takes the Western states. Hubbell Control Solutions leverages a history of innovation to create future-proof lighting controls.

A team of researchers from across the country, led by Alexander Spott, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, have built the first quantum cascade laser on silicon. The advance may have applications that span from chemical bond spectroscopy and gas sensing, to astronomy and free-space communications.

Siegwerk, one of the leading providers of printing inks for packaging applications, labels, and catalogs, is now the first company in the market to offer LED UV printing inks for food and pharmaceutical packaging. By launching the SICURA Nutriflex LEDTec ink series, Siegwerk is specifically expanding its low migration UV printing ink portfolio. Expectations of UV printing inks are very high, particularly in the food and pharmaceutical packaging segment – users want the highest level of product safety at minimal migration risk coupled with optimal efficiency and short production time.

OSRAM Lighting Solutions proudly introduces LIGHTIFY Pro to China market. With LIGHTIFY Pro, installers and building managers can install a wireless lighting solutions with little effort for their customers, in offices, medical practices, law firms, agencies, restaurants and shops. No data wiring or wall openings are required.

Soraa, the world leader in GaN on GaN™ LED technology,  announced the expansion of its product portfolio with two new exquisitely designed, minimalist ambient LED luminaire series—the Gable and Barrel—perfect for office, healthcare and retail applications. By coupling the company’s award winning optical design expertise with its Violet-Emission 3-Phosphor (VP₃) LED technology, Soraa has redefined human centric lighting with its two new specification grade fixtures families that have outstanding lens uniformity, color rendering (CRI > 90) capabilities and DLC compliant efficacies.