LED

Flashlight manufacturer Fenix is bringing its lighting expertise to the bike market with plans to launch a pair of bike lights that combine powerful output, low pricing and an established brand name. Some bikers already mount Fenix torches to their handlebars in place of more purpose-built lighting systems but its new bike light line will just give users a more integrated package for lighting up the road or trail with Fenix power.  Read More

Samsung has unveiled a new flagship 75-inch television, named the ES9000 LED Smart 3D TV. While the TV sports a curved bezel of just 0.31 inches (0.78 cm) and boasts plenty of on-board features, most eyes are turned toward the game that ships with the colossal product: a gesture-controlled version of Angry Birds. Though the ES9000 enjoys the benefit of debuting the gesture-controlled game, owners of existing Samsung Smart TV's will soon also get to battle those perennially pesky critters while gesticulating wildly, as the new iteration of the title will eventually be rolled out to both the Plasma 8000 and Samsung's 2012 LED 7500, and superior, models.  Read More

Designed to house the personal library of Mexican diplomat Antonion Castro Leal, the Castro Leal Library in Mexico City won first prize in the institutional category in the 2012 Mexican Association of Interior Designers' AMDI Awards. And looking at the interior shots, it's not hard to see why.  Read More

Our computers are already pretty good at alerting us to things that happen on the internet or on their own hard drives, mainly through the use of pop-ups. We all know what can often happen, however ... we get rid of those pesky notifications in order to finish up what we’re currently doing, and then forget about them until we’re logging off. A physical flashing light attached to the computer, however, would be harder to forget yet also less obtrusive than a pop-up. That’s the idea behind the blink(1) USB indicator light.  Read More

Purveyors of fine home automation technology INSTEON claim to be first to market with a "networked remote control dimmable LED light bulb". Compatible with any INSTEON remote control, the bulb can also be paired with INSTEON's free iOS and Android app so that it can be turned on, off, or dimmed, using most contemporary smartphones.  Read More

If you're anything like us, you probably spent many an hour in your younger days bouncing up and down on a seesaw (or teeter-totter or teeter board, depending on where you grew up. And, even now, you might fight the desire to relive your childhood and jump on one as you walk past a playground. But Melbourne-based design group ENESS has created a seesaw, which comes complete with hundreds of LEDs and a physics engine to explore the forces at work on the familiar playground staple, that might just prove too difficult to resist.  Read More

I have to admit to a tinge of sadness as I report that both of the LED learning sleeve for guitar projects we featured back in April have so far failed to appear. Development of both projects is said to be continuing but Tabber withdrew its presence on Kickstarter after only two weeks to regroup and improve the product and the LED Sleeve didn't make its funding target. Fortunately, there is an existing system called Fretlight that uses lights embedded in the neck to show would-be players exactly when and where to place fingers on a fingerboard. The recent addition of the rather attractive FG-461 PRO electric guitar to the range offered the perfect opportunity to take a closer look.  Read More

Some readers may recall the Torch T1, a prototype bicycle helmet we recently featured. It incorporates light panels on the front and back, to make sure that cyclists get noticed by drivers when riding at night. Well, while it may seem to offer quite the light display, it's decidedly subtle compared to the LumaHelm. Designed by a team of researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology’s Exertion Games Lab (which previously brought us the Joggobot), it’s a bike helmet covered with an array of 104 multicolored programmable LEDs.  Read More

Humanscale's Symtra lamp, designed in partnership with light fixture and industrial designer Peter Stathis, reinvents the lampshade while doing away with the traditional light bulb.  Read More