Drive through a pounding thunderstorm or heavy snowfall at night and you’ll notice that your headlights illuminate the maelstrom of raindrops or flakes more than they shed light on the road ahead. This safety hazard can be greatly reduced by anticipating the movement and velocity of the drops or flakes and shining the headlights into [...]

For years manufacturers have tantalized consumers with the promise of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) televisions capable of delivering more brilliant colors (including deeper blacks), and greater levels of contrast and brightness than any other television screen—all with rapid video response rate. OLEDs are already in regular use to provide crystal-clear screens for smart phones, car [...]

For phosphor-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to continue their current trend of displacing incandescent and fluorescent bulbs, makers of these small semiconductor-based lights are looking to, among other things, continue improvements in energy efficiency, increase longevity and reduce glare. LEDs are illuminated by the movement of electrons in a semiconductor material, but the common practice of [...]

On Thursday, Philips announced that it has developed the world’s most efficient “warm white” LED lamp. Designed to replace the fluorescent tube lighting that is ubiquitous in offices and industrial facilities, the new TLED (tube-style light emitting diode) has the potential to reduce worldwide energy consumption by more than 7%. Innovation in the LED lighting [...]

I heard this story on NPR/PRI’s The World while driving home from yoga last night. Here’s the tl;dr of it: a Dutch company is perfecting ways to grow food indoors using LED lights and elaborate climate controls. By optimizing light levels and wavelengths, a range of crops can be grown. One could theoretically grow plants [...]

At the SciFoo conference last weekend, brain scientist and illusionmeister Steve Macknik elevated a basic principle of energy conservation—turn off the lights when you don’t need them—to a whole new level. He showed how you can turn off the lights in a way that no one will even notice. Right now, an AC light bulb [...]

This week, the lighting start-up company vu1 is beginning to ship a new type of lightbulb that could displace compact fluorescents and LED lamps as the energy-saving bulb of choice. The technology, known as cathodoluminescence or electron-stimulated luminescence (ESL), offers similar energy savings, but provides a more natural quality of light. My life in the [...]