A Glimpse Of A Future In A New Kind Of Light

from the focus-on-the-LEDs dept

The NY Times is really interested in LEDs these days, as they've had a number of articles on the subject recently. The latest article is definitely worth reading, as it goes a bit beyond most articles about LEDs in describing some of the more radical ideas about LEDs, and how they may create an entirely new "lighting industry". The article refers to current lightbulb technology as "heaters that happen to give off visible light". LEDs, though, have potential well beyond just replacing lightbulbs, and already people are working on all sorts of new applications that only make sense in an LED-lit world. Some of these ideas aren't life changing - like a videogame system that changes the color of all the lights in a room in order to better simulate what's happening in the game. However, things like flexible, low power, long lasting displays have huge potential in many different areas. Even the small things are worth noting - like the idea that LED brakelights light up a fraction of a second faster, allowing people driving behind those brakelights to stop faster. When new technologies come along, too many articles are written about how they simply replace an old technology - without realizing how they can completely change many different things as well.
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  • identicon
    dorpus, 11 Feb 2003 @ 4:45am

    Anachronizing light bulbs

    This means the light bulb as an "idea" symbol is becoming obsolete. There's also a famous Picasso painting that shows a crowd of people around a light bulb in a Spanish village, and future generations will need explanations that the "light bulb" was a revolutionary new technology back then. And will it lead to Las Vegas and Times Square becoming less gaudy, less annoying places? Or the terrible rainbow strobes of nightclubs becoming more pleasant, I'm all for that. No more green faces under fluorescent lights in office buildings?



    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Don Marshall, 11 Feb 2003 @ 5:48am

    NY Times

    Has anyone noticed that if you search Google news, NY Times does not require a registration?

    I just typed in led light bulbs, first article, click, in.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Gene Hoffman, 11 Feb 2003 @ 3:16pm

    LEDs changing things

    Interestingly, LEDs are being adopted quickly by boat manufacturers and owners. Yachts are now coming with LED lighting that has no off switch since the voltage draw is so low.

    -Gene

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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