At Euroshop, the world's leading fair for the international retail sector, Osram is demonstrating how retailers can win over customers for their products with light, ranging from lamps to complete solutions. The highlight of the fair is a spotlight that brings the quality of museum illumination to the classic retail sector, and a real eye-catcher is Osram's design study of a fitting room: Using LED screens and variable light, customers can test in the store how swimming trunks for example will look later on the beach. Euroshop takes place from 16-20 February in Düsseldorf, Germany.

A new cause campaign, ‘Brighter Lives for Refugees’ will run in IKEA stores globally from 3 February to 29 March 2014. For every LEDARE (LED light bulb) sold during the campaign, the IKEA Foundation will donate Є1 (US$1.37) to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR). Funds raised by the campaign will help to provide solar street lights, indoor solar lanterns, and other renewable energy technologies such as fuel efficient cooking stoves in UNHCR refugee camps in countries including Ethiopia, Chad, Bangladesh and Jordan. 

ForceField Energy Inc., an international manufacturer, seller and distributor of energy products and solutions, announced the launch of a turnkey LED lighting retrofit program for franchisees at the 2014 Caribla and Association of Kentucky Fried Chicken Franchisees ("AKFCF") Convention being held in Orlando, Florida from February 14-17, 2014.

The crypsis lighting system allows users to move LED sources by hand to various locations without the need of wires or batteries.

Taiwanese LED manufacturer Power Photon announced the release of a Direct Evaporative Cooled-40W omni-directional LED Light Bulb. The company claims this is the best bulb cooling solution on the market. 

Brilliant Radiance Panel (BRP), Chi Lin Optoelectronics new generation of lighting product based on light guide technology, is not only used as traditional lighting, but also provided with special one-direction transparency when illuminating the panel. BRP replaces normal glass in office and house for the function of decoration and compartment, so it can be widely used in ambient lighting, interior decoration, business space, advertising panel, and building material.

EASLITE INDUSTRY CO., LTD is a LED manufacturer in Taiwan. The company was founded in October 2010, with headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan. The company has experts from different fields including plastic aluminum heat sink molding technology, lens, IC design, PCB design, lighting electrical engineer.

LEDinside team would like to wish all a Happy Valentine’s Day and a merry Lantern Festival. This week more exciting Apple rumors, LEDinside Senior Editor Pinchun Chou latest scoop points to iPhone 6 specs becoming thinner, lighter and wider screened. In addition, the LED specs for the phones will be upgraded as a result of the much slimmer designs. 

As countries kick off incandescent bulb phase out policies, soaring LED lighting demands has attracted market attention. Credit Suisse latest report is optimistic that the LED industry will enter another expansion phase in 2014. In addition, LED stocks will also be on the rise this year. 

China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) recently announced it will be strongly promoting energy efficiency and carbon emission reduction policies in 2014, according to a Chinese-language Huagu.com report. The implementation of the country’s “2014-2015 Carbon Reduction Plan” is expected to spur LED market development in China. 

Apple has filed for a new flexible OLED display patent, and is rumored to be developing a bezel-free iPhone display, according to numerous media reports.

U.S. singer Katy Perry’s favorite clothing brand CuteCircuit, recently showcased its latest collection of interactive wearable LED miniskirts, jackets and accessories controllable by iPhones at Mercedes Benz New York Fashion Week on February 12th at 5pm.

Konica Minolta, Inc. (Konica Minolta) will be showcasing its latest breakthrough technologies at “Light + Building 2014,” the world's largest trade show for lighting and architecture, held in Frankfurt, Germany, from March 30. The company will exhibit demonstration models using flexible OLED lighting panel prototypes with two unique features: the world's first color tunable function* and the world's thinnest* form factor.

Hubbell Lighting, a world leader in lighting innovation, announced the release of the 2014 lighting education course schedule at its state-of-the-art Lighting Solutions Center (LSC).  The schedule is available at www.lightingsolutionscenter.com.  

Soraa, the world leader in GaN on GaN™ LED technology, will display their new AR111 lamp at EuroShop this month. The lamp is the market's first full-visible-spectrum LED AR111, and brings Soraa's signature elements of light quality to the large lamp arena: vivid colors, unique whiteness rendering, and perfectly uniform beams casting sharp single shadows.

Uncontested as the thinnest and easiest to install LED Puck Light on the market, Outwater’s Venus Ultra Bright LED Puck Light readily mounts to any surface with a single screw, which is merely inserted through a small, inconspicuous, recessed hole in the middle of the fixture, thus negating the need for pre-drilling.

Taiwanese LED secondary optic lens manufacturer LedLink has received orders from three major international lighting brands and from other regional LED luminaire manufacturers this year, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News report. The company hopes its market share will increase from 35 percent in 2013 to 40 to 50 percent in 2014.

Affected by the global economic downturn, there has been rising cases of city bankruptcies, which has led to city management increasing value of sustainable development. Among cities public lighting expenditures, outdoor lighting construction and maintenance costs have gradually increased over the years. City managers are also focusing their attention to making suitable living environment on limited budgets with low investment and maintenance costs.

The LED industry has been in a slump for the past 2-3 years, but 2013 marked a turning point. Rise in LED lighting demands brought new opportunities for the industry, but low price and low cost trend caused many manufacturers to incur losses and struggle financially. LED chip manufacturers with high capital expenditures were the most affected, with many still stuck in the situation. Chip scale packaging (CSP) products are the industry's latest attempt to lowering costs, as the technology is able to eliminate wiring bonding and lead frames during the production process. The product has become a hot topic in the industry upon its release. With improving CSP products technology and rising market acceptance, CSP developments in 2014 are highly anticipated by the industry.

The financial industry’s interest has obviously increased as the Taiwan LED industry recovers. Rising LED lighting market penetration rates will lead to improvements in Taiwan LED industry demand and supply situation resulting in overall industry growth. In turn, manufacturers’ better gross margin performances will also boost stockholders Return On Equity (ROE), 

Taiwanese LED manufacturers Jan. 2014 performances showed stellar results spurred by rising lighting and backlight demands. Taiwanese LED package manufacturer Everlight product growth momentum was evenly distributed in 1Q14, and there has been good backlight and lighting demands, said the company Chairman Robert Yeh. The company expects increased 1Q14 revenue growth compared to 4Q13.

Two U.S. cities Detroit and Philadelphia have recently announced plans of upgrading to LED streetlights, according to recent U.S. media reports.

Three new LED arrays from Cree, Inc. redefine what is possible for LED lighting in high-intensity applications. The Cree® XLamp® CXA2590, CXA1850 and CXA1310 High-Density LED Arrays double the light output of existing standard-density CXA LED arrays without increasing the size. 

At Euroshop (Feb. 16-20, 2014), Philips, the global leader in lighting, presents a new LED lighting solution that offers brands bespoke light signatures to help project their brand image and differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive market.

Rubicon Technology, Inc., a leading provider of sapphire substrates and products to the LED, semiconductor, and optical markets, announced that it will showcase large-diameter patterned sapphire substrates (PSS) as well as its line of 6”polished sapphire wafers for the LED industry at LED Korea 2014 at COEX, Seoul, Korea, February 12-14, 2014. Rubicon will exhibit its line of sapphire products in Booth #4707.

CIMCON Lighting, Inc., a provider of intelligent, centralized Wireless Outdoor Lighting Management Systems, today announced its immediate support for the NEMA's recently published "ANSI C136.41-2013" standard for external locking type dimming and management controllers into its iSLC series of Street and Roadway Lighting product line.

NEC Display Solutions of America announced the L102W LED projector, the newest addition to its mobile projector lineup, which alleviates cumbersome technology setup and offers intuitive design for people on-the-go.

StrongLED new product Dot Sirio is a high brightness dot light. The dots are constructed on a flexible cable with a customizable pitch containing up to 30 dots 9-LED or 30 dots 6-LED (dependant on length of lead cable and pixel pitch). The dots, which are for pixel array, designed to show the video, animation, image and various patterns of color, are single dot controllable by DMX. Our software, Strong Player, makes it become a simple large-scale installations.

A global manufacturer of high performance and innovative cable management solutions has almost quadrupled light levels in its Manchester factory thanks to an LED lighting solution.Thanks to the innovative lighting provided by MHA Lighting, HellermannTyton has almost quadrupled the light levels in parts of its Manchester manufacturing site from an average of 90 lux to 400.

Tanlong Photoelectronics will benefit from Apple’s push in the sapphire substrate market, Aastocks.com cited a member from the Chinese company’s security department saying. Although, there has been no growth in the company’s sapphire growth furnace orders, increased downstream demands are expected to spur the company’s furnace sales.