LED

According to a 2009 Department of Energy study, lighting accounts for 22 percent of all the electricity used in the United States. In an effort to cut this figure, many modern buildings have done away with the humble light switch in favor of automatic motion-detector switches or complicated control panels with arrays of sliders and buttons. A new system literally puts the controls back in people’s hands and its developers at MIT say it has the potential to slash lighting bills by more than half. Read More

We’ve heard of surgeons using a SpectroPen during the tumor removal surgeries, but now Californian scientists are shedding light on cancer, literally, in the hopes to find a new cure for skin cancer. The team of scientists from the University of California, Irvine are currently developing new techniques to image cancerous lesions using LEDs (light emitting diodes) with the hope of then being able to treat skin cancer using photodynamic therapy (PDT). Read More

Researchers have created bio-compatible LED arrays that can bend, stretch, and even be implanted under the skin. While this might cause some people to immediately think “glowing tattoos!”, the arrays are actually intended for activating drugs, monitoring medical conditions, or performing other biomedical tasks within the body. Down the road, however, they could also be incorporated into consumer goods, robotics, or military/industrial applications. Read More

Joby is continuing its run of clever designs with the fourth installment in its hands-free torch line-up – the Gorillatorch Switchback. As anyone who's ever been on an overnight hike can attest, any practical two-in-one solution that cuts down on baggage is a bonus, and this one seems to tick the boxes. The Switchback uses one 130-lumen LED light array as both an LED lantern and a headlamp, plus the lamp stand doubles as a camera tripod... better make that three-in-one. Read More

Joby’s Gorillatorch line has been removing the torches from DIYer’s mouths and underarms for a while now with its original 65-lumens Gorillatorch, which was joined earlier this year by the more powerful 100-lumens Gorillatorch Flare. For the latest addition to the line Joby has again upped the light intensity with the new Gorillatorch Blade. The Blade features the instantly recognizable flexible legs that are found on all Gorillapod tripods, along with a long-lasting CREE XLamp XP-C LED producing up to 130 lumens of light output, which can be adjusted from spot to flood. Read More

Chemists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have stumbled upon a way of producing light from nanowires. While they were refining a method for producing horizontally-grown wires across a substrate, Babak Nikoobakht and Andrew Herzing electrically charged an array of junctions between two materials and caused illumination to occur. The pair hope to further refine the technique so that these nano LEDs can be applied in the development of light sources and detectors useful in photonic devices or lab-on-a-chip platforms. Read More

The folks over at Tokyo Flash are at it again with yet another crazy LED watch design that inspires both awe and confusion. This latest optical illusion watch design makes use of the famous (or infamous?) magic eye phenomenon to display the time. Of course to most onlookers the zig-zag pattern will make no sense, but if the owner can train himself to see the time displayed behind the pattern he will be sure to both astound and annoy friends and family. Read More

Head torches – they're fantastic on your head, but when not in use they tend to end up a tangled mess somewhere in the nether regions of your backpack. Some might come with a sturdy case but, in my experience anyway, the case rarely get used (or gets lost in the first week). The LED Lenser H4 solves this by giving you a reason to put the head torch away – when stowed in the case it becomes a clip-on flashlight. Read More

Now here's something we've never seen before – a rechargeable lightglobe. Chinese company Magic Bulb has patented a new type of device which incorporates a battery and LED lightblobe to produce a lightglobe which uses only 4 watts but produces the equivalent light of a traditional 50W globe. If the power fails, the globe will keep running for around three hours or it can be screwed out of its socket and the handle extended to turn it into a bright torch. Read More