For travelers visiting Japan this Christmas, a couple of design websites have compiled some must see lighting decoration sites. According to a Philips Lighting blog entry,while Japanese do not celebrate Christmas they are quite keen on creating a festive atmosphere with lights. Design website Spoon and Tamago gives a comprehensive guide to some must see locations in Japan: Sapporo, Hokkaido On top of the design website list is northern city Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido Prefecture in Japan. Sapporo was the first Japanese city to introduce illumination in 19...

Over the past few years, Japan has seen an upsurge in energy conservation awareness. In the wake of the Tohoku earthquake in 2011, the government has even proposed plans for a “low-carbon society”. LED products have since experienced rapid popularization becoming the poster child for energy saving products. A recent survey shows the Japanese LED market size will undergo explosive growth in 2012 of 195 percent to $420.4 billion Japanese yen (US $4.2 billion),as reported by Liberty Times.

LIGHTING JAPAN 2014 newly joined by the global giants – Philips, GE and many others   The world’s leading exhibition & conference for LED/OLED lighting, LIGHTING JAPAN 2014 will take place in 2 months. This time, newly joined by global giants such as Philips, GE and many others, LIGHTING JAPAN is further strengthened as the Asian hub of the lighting industry. Attend LIGHTING JAPAN 2014, meet all the key players from the world’s LED/OLED lighting industry and make the good start of the n...

LIGHTING JAPAN 2014, an important exhibition and conference for LED/OLED lighting, will take place in 2 months. Newly joined by global giants such as Philips, GE and many others, LIGHTING JAPAN is further strengthened as the Asian hub of the lighting industry. Attend LIGHTING JAPAN 2014, meet all the key players from the world’s LED/OLED lighting industry and make the good start of next year.

Surrounded by modern high-rise cityscape, the 100-year old, red-brick building, Tokyo Station stands out for its historical value. Recently preserved and restored, it is not only a historical railway station located near the Imperial Palace grounds and the Ginza commercial district, but also the busiest station in Japan.

As lighting technology improving, people begin to be aware of the importance of good lighting surroundings. In order to give stages to people who work in lighting related industries and exchange their great ideas, Reed Exhibitions organized “Lighting Japan” in Tokyo, Japan. In this internationally open exhibition, you can meet manufacturers, contractors, designers and end-users as well as the newest discovery, technology, products and lighting design concepts.

According to the news reported by Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun on the 8th, Taiwan-based Hon Hai plans to establish OLED panel's core technology research and development (R & D) base in Japan in 2013, in anticipation of confirming the volume-production techniques of OLED panel in 2015 through the alliance of R & D bases in both Taiwan and Japan. Reported that Hon Hai plans to set up this OLED panel OLED panels R & D base  in the large-size LCD panel production base ("Sakai Display Product; SDP") jointly operated by Hon Ha...

According to reports, Horikawa, the birthplace of Kyoto Yuzen silk dyeing, presents "Kyo no Tanabata" with bamboo and LED lights to celebrate Tanabata. People will see a representation of the Milky Way, a night sky full of stars. A touch of Kyoto is added with an illuminated bamboo arch under a thin veil of darkness. The bamboo used in the arch was cut down from abandoned bamboo forests.   The Japanese “Tanabata” came from Chinese legend since long ago has it that Hikoboshi (Altair star) and Orihime (Vega star) separated by the vast Mi...

On July 30, Philips Lumileds announced signing distribution agreements with Macnica/Clavis Company and Marubeni Metals in Japan, in order to expand product availability and speed time-to-market of LED lighting solutions. The two new agreements enable immediate access to Philips Lumileds application-specific LEDs in Japan. "Our new distribution partners will have full access to the products, services and people at Philips Lumileds," said Pierre-Yves Lesaicherre, CEO Philips Lumileds. "Macnica/Clavis Company and Marubeni Metals are now able...

A Japanese research group developed a sheet-like OLED light source that functions even after being crumpled. The group is led by Takao Someya, professor at the School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo. The minimum bending radius and brightness of the sheet respectively are 10μm and 100cd/㎡. The group expects that the sheet will be used as a new light source for medical and healthcare sensors. The research group announced a pressure sensor sheet that functions even after being crumpled and is lighter and softer than feather July 25, 2013. For the pressure sen...

Canon Marketing Japan (Canon MJ) started selling LED bulbs from July 17, 2013. The company intended to exclusively sell in Japan the LED bulbs, which was sold in the United States by venture business headquartered in Silicon Valley. The products adopted the same housing shape of incandescent bulb E26 (Edison screw base standards), with the high diffusion, dimmable options and liquid-cooled heat dissipation technology.            Canon MJ first listed through website three LED bulbs, which respectively are 60W retrofit (810lm...

Using LEDs as light sources in vegetable gardening is a new business opportunity in Japan, according to a recent Sankei Biz report. Large Japanese real estate developers, consumer electronics manufacturers, and architecture firms are utilizing their advantages to quickly set up their business models in this emerging market.

According to the reports from Sankei Biz, using the LEDs as light source for cultivating vegetables becomes a great commercial opportunity in Japan. The real estate industry, household appliances industry and construction industry are all take their own advantages to occupy the market share. Asahi Kasei Homes, a large-scale developer in Japan, intend to bring the device housing cultivation of vegetables to the market next year at the earliest. Another big builders Obayashi, is also preparing to enter the business areas engaged in agricultural production, and Nishimatsu ...

According to reports, Apple recently applied a trademark “iWatch” in Japan after having applied the same trademark in Russian regions. According to one patent official familiar with the situation, Apple submitted the iWatch trademark application on June 3, but Japan Patent Office website chose to release the patent on June 27. Just days before Apple kicked off its 2013 Worldwide Developers Conference, CEO Tim Cook spoke to Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg at AllThingsD’s D11 Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., where he discussed A...

Google glasses have caused a series of disputes concerning personal privacy since they came out. The reason is the Google glasses equipped with cameras enable users easily record what they saw, while without neither video warning lights nor shutter sound. Many people worry that they will be getting photographed. In order to meet the new requirements of protecting personal privacy, Japanese Institute of Informatics developed a new technology. As long as you wear the glasses releasing a special light, you can prevent your face from being recognized by the camera. After the relea...

Spiritual civilization is based on the material, and the entertainment industry in Japan can be traced back to 1920’s. In Japan, the entertainment industry has a very long history; it occupies a huge domestic market and develops steadily. In addition, since streets in Japan are narrow, various entertainment venues along the streets on both sides are dizzying. Spark LED Street Light enjoys great popularity among entertainment in Japan with its high quality and excellent performance. As the photo shows to us, the perfect lighting effect also reflects the development of...

New Japan Radio Co., Ltd. (New JRC) recently has released its new product NJL5303R, a reflective optical sensor combining a green LED and photo transistor into a small COB package which is very applicable to pulse detection. Many pulse testing equipments on the now market, utilize near infrared light to do blood flow detection. The NJL5303R adopts green light with 570nm emission wave length well-suitable for pulse detection. The reflection factor of green light provides higher sensitive pulse detection than the detection employing near infrared light. The NJL...

At SID 2013, an academic conference on display technologies (lecture number: P.140L), Japan Broadcasting Corp (NHK) and Nippon Shokubai Co Ltd announced that they thoroughly improved the oxygen and moisture resistances of their OLED device. In addition, they utilized the new technology to demonstrate a display by playing a press preview of Open House 2013 May 28, 2013. As the development of flexible OLED displays and OLED lighting devices being advanced, their durabilities remain a big problem for commercialization. To solve this problem, the barrier capab...

Earlier in May, Panasonic Corp announced that it has developed a white OLED with the world's highest luminous efficiency of 114 lm/W. Improvements in the efficiency of this OLED device were due to  the company's focus on optimizing light extraction technology for an all-phosphorescent white OLED.  As a reminder, Panasonic Idemitsu OLED Lighting, a joint venture of Panasonic and Idemitsu, began volume production of OLED lighting panels in October 2012.  The partnership was established back in 2011,with an initial investment of $182 M...

The advanced technology of LED chip and package manufacturers as well as the declined market price has allowed LED lighting applications to be more diverse, and LED based-plant factories have also become the target market of global first-tier LED manufacturers. In fact, the idea of growing plants with electric lights has already been proposed in 1950 and implemented in 1970 (using traditional lighting products). Their goal was to grow high quality crops throughout the year and avoid damage caused by natural conditions and the excessive use of pesticides.

Panasonic Corporation has developed a white OLED with the world's highest luminous efficiency*1 of 114 lm/W (light-emitting area of 1 cm²). In addition, a luminous efficiency of 110 lm/W has also been achieved with a device with a larger emitting area of 25 cm². In order to achieve such a level of high efficiency with the OLED, the company focused on "light extraction technology" and the "all phosphorescent white OLED technology" (technology for the multilayering of the organic emitting layer). OLEDs are capable of emitting any co...

Ecomaa Lighting’s PAR 30 and PAR 38 which are hot seller in Europe and United States had passed the "Electrical Appliance and Material Safety Law of Japan (DENAE) PSE (Product Safety of Electrical Appliance & Materials) certification. The PAR30 and PAR38 series which had passed the PSE certification with exclusive active fan cooling technology, high stability power supply design and UL94V0 anti-fire material, a reflection for high-power LED lighting of combination between integration, application and design. And also approved b...

Recently, LED street lighting project completed by Kingsun and Yamada Denki lit up officially in Gunma Prefecture, Japan. The project includes seven roads'LED street lights retrofit and is the first time to apply LED street lighting - in wide range in Japan. It's learned that the demonstration project has strictly demand in lights quality, technology, and stability. It adopts Kingsun star products—Apollo series LED street lights with advantages such as accurate light distribution, modular heat radiation structure, flexible drive configuration. The...

Verbatim’s VxRGB Vivid Vision™ directional lamp targets applications that demand highest light quality Verbatim announces the commercial release of Vivid Vision™, a directional LED lamp using VxRGB® technology developed by Verbatim’s parent company, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation. Vivid Vision ensures that colours and fine details of objects are rendered accurately through a unique combination of red, green and blue phosphors applied to a violet, rather than blue, LED die. This type of LED lighting is particularly effective in ...

Panasonic Corp of Osaka, Japan has developed a GaN-based power transistor with a blocking voltage of 600V that enables stable switching operations. Shipment of evaluation samples began in March. The firm claims that its design will for the first time ensure ‘failure-free operation’ by 600V GaN power transistors. The GaN transistors, housed in a small-size package, are also said to contribute to saving energy in a variety of power switching systems for both industrial and consumer applications. The new GaN transistor has the following three key technic...

On March 19, 2013, Nichia has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in Tokyo District Court to enjoin Tsannkuen Japan (Sankun Nihon Denki Kabushiki Kaisha, hereinafter “Tsann Kuen”), a subsidiary of a Taiwanese company, from infringing Nichia’s patent (No. 2780618, or “patent No. 618”) and to claim damages for the infringement with regard to LED desk lamps (product number TF-A321) manufactured by Tsann Kuen. Patent No. 618 relates to the production of blue LED chips. Blue LED chips are incorporated in white LED products us...

SWITCH® Lighting has signed a partnership agreement with Canon Marketing Japan that enables Canon to be the lead import, distribution and sales partner to SWITCH in Japan. "Japan is currently the largest LED market in the world and we are proud to work with Canon Marketing Japan to bring our products to market there,” said Bill Lenihan, Executive Vice President, International. “Japanese consumers and businesses are very energy conscious, quality-oriented, and technology-focused, which is a great fit with our product line. This rela...

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation  announced that it will set up a 4-billion-yen new engineering facility in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture to strengthen its engineering framework as part of expanding the company's infrastructure-system business in fields including public projects, power generation and rolling stock. The new facility is expected to start operating in April 2014. The company expects to expand its infrastructure-system businesses over the medium to long term, especially in view of increasing demand for energy infrastructure. The new facility will help to increa...

Toshiba has developed a new AC/DC offline LED controller IC with a single converter PFC*1 for LED lighting and lighting equipment. The samples are currently available and the company will move to commercialization in July. The new product is an isolated flyback LED power controller that was developed to meet demanding design criteria: support for triac dimming; high PFC and fewer external parts by achieving active PFC with a single converter; and no use of opto-couplers and detectors for average LED current control of the second side of the transformer. Th...

Taiwanese manufacturers that set significant booths at Lighting Japan 2013 including Everlight, OPTOTECH, Genesis Photonics Inc., and Ledlink Optics, as well as exhibitors of the Taiwanese pavilion have all acquired numerous orders at this exposition.  Genesis Photonics Inc. announced that they have acquired an order of 100,000 of their patent candle light bulbs. LED chips produced by the company are applied to these bulbs that share several features of incandescent light bulbs, and mass production is expected to take place in the second half of 2013.......