The next technology battle: Laser vs LED

The next technology battle: Laser vs LED

After the HD vs Blu-Ray disc format wars were over, Blu-ray emerge the clear winner, however soon to be replaced by HVD, but that’s another story.
Anywho, it seems we have another technology war upon us, also in the entertainment industry, but this time televisions.
The war this time is between Laser TV (currently backed by Mitsubishi, releasing their new LaserVue TV) and (O)LED, who’s currently being backed by mainly by Samsung (LUXIA), but other companies are heading this route as well like Sony, LG, Philips to name a few.
Mitsubishi LaserVue VS Samsung LUXIA
I’m probably just making more out of this than is warranted. LED TV has been out for a while now, and Laser TV is only just coming out now (that’s not to say the laser tv technology hasn’t been around for a long time, it has). However, now that Mitsubishi is pushing their LaserVue laser TV’s, will that spark enough interest to win over supporters for this technology. Will it be able to break into a market already tapped by LED TV technology?That’s yet to be seen. I think LED is definitely the future, so I don’t know where laser tv will find it’s place in a market against LED competition.
What do you think?
led

Read in the Dark LED Reading Glasses

Read in the Dark LED Reading Glasses
by Matthew on May 5, 2009

If you recently purchased a Kindle 2 and went to read it at night you will have quickly found out that you cannot see it. This is the problem with e-paper in that there is no backlight usually. For those of you who want to read at night these LED reading glasses might work for you. Of course they are compatible with e-books and regular books and what they do is provide light on the edges of the glasses so that you can read in the dark.
The reading glasses have super bright LED’s in each corner of the lenses and 4 batteries are held within the frames. The batteries are good for up to 30 hours of night time reading. The LED’s work with a switch built in to the hinges of the glasses and when the arms are opened the lights switch on.
The advantage of having LED’s built in to your specks is that you don’t have to faff around with a book light every time you turn the page.
In my book, the LED Reading Glasses are a winner! But there is one drawback: the glasses are only available with refractive lenses. In other words, you have to be presbyotic — nearsighted. They are available in 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5 diopter. From Hammacher Schlemmer with a lifetime guarantee.
Available from Hammacher Schlemmer costing $39.95.

Businesses Warm to LED Lighting

AMBIENCE The Chicago Center for Green Technology, which uses solar power, installed LED lighting in its resource center

THE architect Cass Gilbert’s vision for the United States Custom House in Lower Manhattan resulted in one of the city’s grand classical buildings. But until recently it has been difficult to appreciate the subtlety and majesty of the 102-year-old structure when viewing it at night.

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Go to Blog » At its base, huge fixtures produced scattered light that cast strong shadows on the windows, giving the facade the tired look of an insomniac. Aging light bulbs had shifted in color, throwing off an unwanted rainbow of green and pink.

“The lighting was atrocious,” said Patricia DiMaggio, who noticed the poor illumination when walking by the building. “It wasn’t doing the job.”

Unlike most passers-by, Ms. DiMaggio was prepared to take action. A lighting engineer for Osram Sylvania, she was introduced to the right people at the federal General Services Administration. Donating time and material, Ms. DiMaggio promised to relight the building both to restore its grandeur and save energy.

Combining warm-hued LED and metal-halide fixtures, Ms. DiMaggio lighted previously dark areas of the building and removed unsightly shadows cast by aging traditional lamps.

“One person said, ‘I feel like I’m in Paris when I walk by the building,’ ” Ms. DiMaggio recalled.

Using LED-based fixtures, Ms. DiMaggio said, she cut energy consumption for lighting by 43 percent, saving $6,654 a year. With an expected life of 50,000 hours, compared with the 2,000 hours typical of incandescent bulbs, the lights have also lowered maintenance costs.

Although they have yet to substantially influence the residential lighting market, light-emitting diode lamps are increasingly being introduced in commercial buildings. Manufacturers are creating lamps that are reliable, color-accurate and at least as efficient as incandescent or compact fluorescent lights.

LED fixtures still cost more than conventional ones, but the energy savings can help commercial projects to pay for themselves in as little as two years.

That said, the quickly evolving technology is still in its early stages. “In 2006, I had a really hard time to light well with just LEDs,” said Brad Koerner, a designer at Lam Partners, a Cambridge, Mass., lighting firm. “By 2008, there was no longer any problem.”

Mr. Koerner oversaw the relighting of Boston’s Custom House Tower, which is now a Marriott hotel. The building’s lighting had fallen into disrepair over the last 20 years, with much of the upper half remaining in darkness.

Mr. Koerner installed LED-based fixtures from Philips’s Color Kinetics division that resemble warm incandescent bulbs. He replaced the 90-watt halogen bulbs with 50-watt LED fixtures, cutting energy use in half.

“Every month LEDs get so much better it’s amazing,” Mr. Koerner said. “It’s changing that quickly.”

While Derry Berrigan, owner of Derry Berrigan Lighting Design in Rogers, Ark., is using LEDs, she said much of what was currently sold was “pure junk. It’s like the Wild West.”

Seeking out high-quality products, Ms. Berrigan used fixtures from Cree and Insight Lighting to relight a prototype KFC and Taco Bell restaurant in Northampton, Mass.

She placed LEDs in the interior, reducing energy consumption by 81 percent, while LEDs outside saved 77 percent. Installing LED parking lot fixtures, which spread wider beams than conventional lighting, allowed Ms. Berrigan to remove two poles.

Costs can even be cut when a building is receiving its energy off the grid. At the Chicago Center for Green Technology, which uses solar energy, Ms. Berrigan used LED track lighting from Journée Lighting in Westlake Village, Calif., to illuminate the walls in its resource center, along with fixtures from Color Kinetics, Cree, Insight and other companies to provide general illumination.

With a resulting 64 percent drop in energy use for lighting, 47 of the center’s 200 solar panels could provide electricity for purposes other than illumination.

LEDs can also create a look that would otherwise be unachievable. Focus Lighting, based in New York, illuminated Rock Sugar Pan Asian Kitchen, a restaurant prototype in Los Angeles owned by the Cheesecake Factory chain.

Faced with lighting rooms with 25- to 30-foot ceilings and intimate bar and dining areas, Christine Hope, Focus’s designer, said, “LEDs were the perfect solution.”

Fixtures included LED strips behind the bar and, in cubbyholes, dozens of candlelike LEDs using just one to three watts per unit. That “would have been impossible to do with incandescents,” Ms. Hope said.

Color-changing LEDs programmed to cycle through the hues of dawn to dusk were placed behind large Buddhas. LED lights drawing three or six watts were installed in 25 globes in the courtyard.

Needing omnidirectional light in the dining room, Ms. Hope used compact fluorescent bulbs in three fixtures, their yellow shades providing the proper color for the room.

The LEDs reduced energy consumption by at least half compared with traditional incandescent and halogen bulbs, Ms. Hope said. “This restaurant is such a great example of what you can achieve with LEDs,” she said.

LED Lighting Gaining Acceptance

April 30, 2009, 8:30 am
LED Lighting Gaining Acceptance (Sort Of)
By Eric A. Taub
The recent replacement of the incandescent lamps in Grand Central Terminal in New York with compact fluorescent bulbs notwithstanding, the lighting industry continues to believe that LEDs, not C.F.L.s, will eventually be the technology of choice for many lighting applications.

As I note in an article about the commercial use of LED lighting in today’s Business of Green special section, lighting designers who just one year ago were wary of recommending LED products now are much more confident in doing so.

That’s partly due to the move, spearheaded by the Department of Energy, to set Energy Star guidelines for the next generation of lighting to convince consumers and businesses that LED products will perform as claimed.

But it’s also due to the improvement of the lighting itself. LED lamps are becoming more efficient, producing warmer, more inviting colors at higher brightness levels.

On Tuesday, I was shown a new reflector lamp from Nexxus Lighting, similar to the type installed in many kitchen and office ceilings, that produced a warm, pleasing light. It weighs about one-third of a competing lamp and uses 8 watts to produce the light of a 50-watt bulb.

But how many homes and businesses are satisfied with 50-watt lamps? When the industry starts producing 75- and 100-watt equivalents, LEDs will begin to gain traction. (Cree, a lighting company, has announced a reflector lamp that it says produces a similar look to a halogen lamp, uses 12 watts, and can replace up to a 90-watt incandescent lamp.)

Are LED lamps ready for the consumer? Hardly. Most of the strange-looking LED products sold in home improvement stores remain below par. Many manufacturers make unsubstantiated claims about lamp life and brightness.

But for the well-heeled set, there are plenty of highly regarded products that use a fraction of the power of an incandescent bulb. But they come at a high initial price. I recently visited a home in the tony Brentwood section of Los Angeles that was entirely lit with LED “downlights” made by Cree, and I couldn’t tell the difference between the light from those fixtures and standard bulbs. And Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway scooter, has lighted the home he owns on a small island only with Color Kinetics LED products.

The Department of Energy is conducting a seminar in a few weeks to discuss the state of LED lamps that can replace standard incandescents. And more commercial buildings, including a wing of the Pentagon and even a KFC/Taco Bell restaurant, have switched over to the new technology.

But despite these successes, many engineers remain resistant to using LEDs. A major real estate developer in Los Angeles recently showed me correspondence from his engineering team questioning why anyone in his right mind would use LED lamps in a commercial project, citing high cost as a reason to eschew their use. For now, the lighting industry and the building industry often seem to be speaking different languages

Color changing Luxeed U5 LED keyboard is a rave at your fingertips

Color changing Luxeed U5 LED keyboard is a rave at your fingertips

Luxeed's got a fine history of making the keyboard a fantastical piece of wonder, and its newest offering is not exception. The U5 LED keyboard has pretty much everything one could ask for in a colorful peripheral -- programmable, patterned LEDs which are guaranteed to brighten up your day. It boasts support for Windows, Linux and Mac (previous versions were Windows only), so if it's ever made available outside of Korea, we can guarantee you we'll be getting one for every member of our dance posse. They're available for pre-order in Korea now for KRW 99,000 (about $77 USD). One more mountain-moving shot after the break.

Scrolling LED Name Badge V2

This name badge features a scrolling LED message that can be fully customised.

The message scrolled can say anything you want and can be changed on the fly by using 3 onboard control buttons. 6 messages can be saved on the badge and each badge can be configured for different scroll speeds and brightness. The badge is smaller then a credit card and weighs about an ounce. Battery life of the badge is about 18 hours.

Scrolling LED Name Badge Features
# Holds 6 messages at one time, each message 256 characters long
# Onboard speed and brightness adjustment (9 speed and 9 brightness settings)
# All functions can be programmed without a computer (using the onboard programming buttons)
# Message text can be easily programmed using the onboard programming buttons
# Badge dimensions: 3-1/4” by 1-3/4”
# Comes with battery, badge and magnetic holder
# The Blue name badge takes 2 batteries (CR2016) and the Red 1 battery (CR2032)

Available from ThinkGeek costing $29.99.

World's smallest - New NANO petrol engine

SCIENTISTS have built the smallest petrol engine - tiny enough to power a
WATCH.

The mini-motor, which runs for two years on a single squirt of lighter fuel, is set to
revolutionise world technology.
It produces 700 times more energy than a conventional battery despite being
less than a centimetre long - not even half an inch. It could be used to operate
laptops and mobile phones for months on end - doing away with the need for
recharging.
Experts believe it could be phasing out batteries in such items within just six
years.
Engineers at the University of Birmingham have produced the engine; minute
enough to be balanced on a fingertip. Dr Kyle Jiang, lead investigator from the
Department of Mechanical Engineering, said: “We are looking at an industrial
revolution happening in peoples’ pockets.
“The breakthrough is an enormous step forward. Devices which need re-
charging or new batteries are a problem but in six years will be a thing of the
past.”

Other applications for the engine could include medical and military uses, such
as running heart pacemakers or mini reconnaissance robots. At present,
charging an ordinary battery to deliver one unit of energy involves putting 2,000
units into it.
The little engine, because energy is produced locally, is far more effective.
One of the main problems faced by engineers who have tried to produce micro
motors in the past has been the level of heat produced.
The engines got so hot they burned themselves out and could not be re-used.
The Birmingham team overcame this by using heat-resistant materials such as
ceramic and silicon carbide.

Professor Graham Davies, head of the university’s engineering school, said:
“We’ve brought together all the engineering disciplines, both materials, chemical
engineering, civil engineering, and mechanical engineering.
“What better place to have the second industrial revolution - in nano-technology -
than where the first took place, in the heart of the West Midlands.”

Trendy Tunto LED Lamp

Out of more than 3,200 submissions from more than 49 countries, the Tunto LED Lamp won a 2009 Red Dot Design Award. This groundbreaking LED lamp has absolutely no visible switches, making it the ideal lamp for my cord-detesting husband, who is impatiently waiting for everything to become cordless, especially kitchen items such as toasters and blenders.
At least he can take comfort in Tunto’s award-winning lamp, available soon through Finnish Design Shop (April 2009).

The Tunto LED Lamp works by “gentle touch,” explains Tunto founder and designer Mikko Kärkkäinen. Based in Helsinki, Tunto produces “unique interior design products,” including Skede, a chair whose back is a reused skateboard, and Kukka, a birch veneer table with a colored underside. The Tunto LED Lamp measures 300 mm H x 370 mm W x 170 mm D. Made of laminated oak or walnut, the lamp will come in various color combinations, though Tunto won’t specifiy exactly which. If the company’s other products offer a clue, then the Tunto LED Lamp might come in green, red, light blue, pink, or black–colors common to various Tunto offerings. OR, the Tunto LED Lamp might only be available in wood and black, since the simple design is a bit of a departure for Tunto. A hidden, touch-sensitive switch “gives the user a true feel of the material.” The simple arc and varied width of the lamp remind me of a boomerang, another object users like to feel in their hands (as opposed to flying rapidly at their heads).

LED technology - OLEDs (Organic light emitting diodes)

Organic light-emitting diodes - OLEDs - emit light when a current flows through them. Unlike conventional LEDs, OLEDs are made from layers of plastic and other organic (carbon-based) materials.

Examples are already in mass production for displays in MP3 players and phones.

Sheets of OLED material are proposed to replace light bulbs and fluorescent tubes for house and office lighting.

There are several reasons why OLEDs are causing so much excitement amongst makers of gadgets and lighting products:
The materials are deposited by industrial coating processes which are cheaper than the techniques required to make conventional LEDs.
They are inherently thin.
They can be made on flexible plastic substrates - which will almost certainly lead to full colour flexible displays less than 1mm thick.
All colours, and multi-colours, are possible
However, there are drawbacks:
OLEDs are not yet as efficient at making light as conventional LEDs, although they are getting closer and already beat ordinary light bulbs.
Certain materials in OLEDs are incredibly sensitive to moisture which leads to short life, particularly on plastic substrates. This is the main reasons holding back flexible OLED manufacture.
LED technology can be divided into two: 'small molecule' championed originally by Kodak, and Cambridge Display Technology's 'polymer' type sometimes called P-OLEDs.

Almost all displays in production are small molecule.

These materials have to be deposited in a vacuum, but this is of little inconvenience for small displays on glass substrates.

Polymer types can also be vacuum processed but, most importantly, can also be printed using standard printing techniques. This 'solution processing' is far cheaper than vacuum processing.

Like-for-like materials have tended to be less efficient at producing light when solution processed, but this may no longer be the case.

OLEDs are generally made of several layers. The following is a typical stack, although many variations are possible:
Anode
Electron donor
Electron transport
Emitter
Hole transport
Hole donor.
Cathode

Several of these can be moisture-sensitive, particularly the most effective cathode material: metallic calcium.

For all practical purposes, glass blocks all moisture, so displays made on a glass substrate and covered by a second glass sheet can have a long life, particularly if the edges are hermetically sealed.

Moisture passes fairly easily through plastics, leading to much reduced durability, but plastic substrates are essential for flexible displays.

This has lead to a quest for 'barrier layers' which can be coated on plastic to stop moisture getting through.

So far there is no effective barrier layer that is flexible and cheap enough for mass-production.

Quite good barrier layers exist, which are quite expensive because they are made with many layers of water-blocking metal oxides, separated by other layers that stop the oxide cracking.

The dream is to produce OLEDs, both full-colour displays and white lighting types, on flexible plastic.
Not necessarily because the products will be flexed in use, but because they will be far more robust than millimetre-thick glass sheets to handle, transport, and install.

Within the molecules that make OLEDs emit light, there are two different processes that can produce light: phosphorescence and fluorescence, also known as triples and singlet emission respectively.

The type of emission is directly dependent on the materials used in the OLED.

Phosphorescent processes produce more photons (light) for a given number of electrons (current), but are slower - more suited to lighting, less suited to displays.
Some researchers that argue fluorescence can be made to produce as many photons as phosphorescence.

OLED displays should not be confused with E Ink displays - E Ink displays only reflect light and emit no light of their own.

Death of a Commodity

Lighting is definitely one of the most interesting areas of the electronics industry at the moment. After hardly any major changes in the near century and a half since Swan/Edison/A N Other first commercialised the concept, the humble light bulb now seems doomed unless it can be made efficient enough to compete with other lighting technologies.

While there are efforts to make light bulbs more efficient, other technologies are trying hard to replace them. The most promising of these is LED technology which is now in a position to fill many of the roles that are traditionally filled by incandescent lighting.

Manufacturers such as Cree and Lumileds are battling to have the top performing power LED, with regular announcements claiming either the best performance, or that LEDs have proven themselves for another new application, dental lighting and street lighting being the latest according to Lumileds.
However, LEDs may not have everything their own way, other technologies may challenge their current superiority. The light bulb could make a resurgence using a new coating which reflects back the IR energy and allows the filament to burn hotter and more efficiently.

Another interesting technology on the horizon is OLED lighting. This type of lighting may take a few years to hit the mainstream market, but looks a good bet for domestic and commercial lighting. OLED has many advantages; a more natural colour than LEDs, it is attractive, very efficient and should be very cheap to produce when some problems are ironed out.

CFL lighting also deserves a mention, but it suffers many of the same drawbacks of incandescent lighting only to a lesser extent, and also contains mercury, which can make disposal after use complex.

I will take a look more thoroughly at these technologies in future blogs and hopefully have a chance to speak to some of the leading companies in the field for a first hand perspective.