New Pillow promises to wake us up with LED Light, instead of Annoying sounds.
I for one am greatful for this concept we found today over at technabob.. looks very interesting, i’d love to test one out.
Who among us really likes being awakened from a deep slumber by a jarring alarm buzzer? Sure, you could get yourself a clock radio or MP3 alarm clock and play some Enya or Kenny G to ease into the day, but who really wants to listen to that? This concept for a visual alarm clock could very well revolutionize the way we wake up.
This simple, yet brilliant pillow alarm clock is designed to gently wake you by exposing your eyes to a glowing cloud of illumination, gradually increasing in brightness over a 40 minute period. Created by Ian Walton of embryo, in collaboration with Eoin McNally, the glo Pillow uses a cutting-edge LED fabric substrate below the pillow’s surface to work its magic.
Once you’ve been roused from your sleep, just lift your head, and the pillow displays the current time using an easy-to-read dot-matrix display that lives beneath the pillow case. The design also incorporates convenient controls built into a soft flap on the side of the pillow.
At this point, the glo Pillow is only a concept design, but I’m hoping that embryo eventually manages to gear up production for these.
The Simpsons Ride Takes Green to New Heights
Last year, I covered a press conference touting GE’s ecomagination initiative, which detailed the progress that the corporate giant had made in its new lines of business. It was exciting to see “green” applied across the board in so many varied areas, including entertainment division Universal Studios. And though the event had a Hollywood feel (even the Governator was there) I would never have expected Bart Simpson to get into the act.
Well, not Bart exactly, but his theme park counterpart, “The Simpsons Ride” at Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Orlando Resort. The first of its kind, the new rides use a variety of technological innovations in their design and construction to reduce their environmental impact. Ay, carumba!
New 13W LED Bulb could replace 100W incandescent
Found this over on metaefficient.. looking really forward to these in stores near us, we only have expensive LED technologies available at Home Depot/Canadian Tire.
This 13 watt bulb, the Evolux by EarthLED, is said to be first LED light to be able to replace a 100 watt incandescent. The lifetime of this bulb is rated at over 50,000 hours — which is five times longer than a compact fluorescent bulb. Other advantages of LED bulbs is their ability to brighten instantly, and be switched off and on rapidly without problems. They also contain no mercury. LED-based bulbs do, however, require more energy to manufacture that CFL or incandescents.
The Evolux uses a CREE light engine, and it contains a small fan to cool the circuit board. EarthLED has a video of the bulb in action, and also some photos showing the type of the light it renders. The Evolux bulb sells about $90 right now. If you are serious about energy efficiency, or if you’re using solar power, this might be the bulb for you.
Via: EcoGeek
Ladies and Gentlemen, we now have a functional OLED lamp for Home use from Ingo Maurer
Found this over on Inhabitat today via Ecogeek.com. This is very cool, I for one am looking forward to more technology like this before I think about building a house so I can have solar/wind/water power instead of using hydro.
Exciting times.. read on..
It’s an exciting time for OLED technology as it finally begins to integrate into the home and designers start to realize its potential for efficient and inexpensive lighting solutions in a variety of stunning new applications. Resembling a tiny tree blossoming with lucent leaves, Ingo Maurer’s Early Future lamp is the world’s first to pack energy efficient OLED lighting into a tabletop form factor.
Organic light emitting diodes are incredibly energy efficient, long lasting, and can be produced on the cheap as evinced by GE’s recently rolled out OLED printing system. The two-dimensional panels emit broad swathes of diffuse light that is perfect for interior lighting applications, and they can even be rendered in a flexible format.
Ingo Maurer states: “They have a totally different look than traditional light sources. They neither require reflectors directing the light into the right direction nor large sockets. Their lightness allows the realisation of long-standing visions of mine”.
The Early Future lamp is the crowning achievement of Maurer’s artistic innovation and Osram’s team of 50 research engineers dedicated to the development of OLED technology. It features an elegant array of ten small (132 x 33 mm) OLED panels, and Maurer states that it “represents an important stage in the transition from abstract object to functional designer lighting”. The designer’s name and artistic acclaim are bringing to bear a hefty price tag for the lamp, but it’s a striking proof of concept that will hopefully light the way towards future innovations.
+ Osram
Photo source: Ingo Maurer/OSRAM
Via ecogeek.com
Loop LED Desk Lamp by TRØKK16
Award-winning Norwegian design house TRØKK16 will be exhibiting their latest designs at this year’s Milan International Furniture Fair , but before we unveil their latest works, we’d like to highlight a few of their outstanding past projects. The Loop LED Lamp puts traditional desk lamps to shame. This stylish desk light uses LEDs and needs only 5 watts to light up your work space and, perhaps, inspire your own eco-creations.
In addition to being a sleek, functional desktop accessory, the Loop lamp shines with impressive energy efficiency. It produces 600 lumen with just 15 Watts of power and the light source has a long expected lifespan of more than 50,000 hours. Since Loop takes advantage LED, the color of the light can be changed to fit any mood or set any ambient lighting feel, making it a versatile design that goes from work to play easily.
We’re not surprised that The Loop Lamp’s stellar design was the winner of the Prixluxo Award at the 2007 Stockholm Furniture Fair.
We first discovered TRØKK16 last year at HauteGreen in 2007, and since then, the Norwegian design team has continually inspired us with elegant, intelligent, eco-friendly interior designs. TRØKK16 will be debuting a whole bunch of brand new sustainable designs at this year’s Milan Furniture Fair and we can’t wait – stay tuned!
Led Project By Pulsar – The Halation – Brings Outdoor Lighting to Historical Areas
Simon Watkinson’s Halation project provides 18-month visitor attraction at Southampton heritage site
Southampton City Council has launched its spectacular Halation project, illuminating the city’s historic 600 year-old High Arcades along Western Esplanade with colour-changing linear LED strips from Pulsar Light.
The initiative to highlight Southampton’s five medieval arches near the waterfront is the result of collaboration between lighting artist Simon Watkinson and Southampton City Council, under public arts officer Liz Smith. Costing £74,000 to stage, the project — part of the Southampton Public Art Strategy initiative — has been funded by the Area Investment Framework (AIF) and rubber-stamped by the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) and Southampton Partnership. Halation will run for a minimum of 18 months.
Tyneside-based Simon Watkinson’s work (largely within the Old Town walls) is already familiar to the Southampton community, and he has turned frequently in the past to the local branch of Stage Electrics to help realise his ambitions.
This time the challenge was to soften the arches using lighting strips fixed to metalwork — designed to simulate the timber frame construction that was a feature of Southampton’s Old Town. The metalwork ‘arms’ in turn create three ‘virtual’ arches within the five-arch superstructure, enabling the artist to mount a mesmerising stained-glass effect.
Acting as project manager, Stage Electrics’ Business Development Manager, Ed Gamble, considered how the artist’s concept might be implemented, and proposed 55 lengths of ChromaStrip X3, Pulsar’s IP65-rated RGB linear LED strips, driven over a 7-minute time cycle by a series Pulsar ChromaZone RMX3 operating under generic DMX control.
He said, “We went to Pulsar because we are familiar with the product, we know it is IP-rated and we know we can support it as the back-up is excellent. On top of that it has a very accurate beam angle of 45° so there is no overspill between the segments.”
Handling the DMX distribution from the master position in the central arcade is a concealed Swisson device — part of a range of DMX manipulation and sine-wave dimming products from the Swiss manufacturer which Stage Electrics represents in the UK.
The two criteria which the installation needed to meet were speed and sensitivity. In view of its heritage the work had to be carried out under the close scrutiny of English Heritage and be non-invasive. Thus it required its own ground support — the structure sitting on a 600mm x 600mm x 300mm concrete pad — covered by ballast, and had to be completely self-supporting.
With the control gear likewise concealed in metal boxes, the metal infrastructure was fabricated and installed by local company Scroll Gates, with 8 x 900mm 1W ChromaStrips and 3 x 600mm 1W strips affixed to the metalwork frame in each of the five arches.
This provides the capacity for a near infinite number of colour combinations which have been programmed into the seven-minute sequence by Steve Brown.
Simon Watkinson explained that the installation had to be carried out “at breakneck speed” — views echoed by Ed Gamble and Liz Smith. A project that would generally require at least six months to co-ordinate in the event was delivered in two and a half months, they said.
One of the biggest draws on both time and budget had been bringing the power to the site, enabling the feature to be activated nightly via photo-cell (a solar time clock) and switched off at 1am.
As for Simon Watkinson, he explained, “There was nothing psychological about the colour sequencing — although it is possibly thematic in relation to the sea, and also brings out the heraldic qualities. It is mostly based on the visual impression of stained glass and the shifting quality of the light.”
The structure itself had been derived from Southampton’s timber-frame heritage (particularly in the archaeologically-rich French Quarter) and this had provided the inspiration for the stained glass effect. “The walls have gone through a lot of permutations and I wanted Halation to emphasise these changes rather than be presented as a solid stone structure; the stained glass effect lessens the weight and creates new depths to the spaces. The idea was always to make it striking and simple, and I’m absolutely delighted with the result.”
Equally delighted is Liz Smith. “We had wanted to focus on the Old Town and its historic values, and this has become of huge heritage interest.
“I think it’s a credit to the project team that we were able to pull it off in such a short period of time. We are delighted with the result, and I must say it has been great working with Stage Electrics and our own ground crew, led by Allen Miles.”
Commission:
Southampton City Council Public Art Strategy – www.southampton.gov.uk
Lighting Design:
Simon Watkinson – simon@simonwatkinson.com
LED Lighting:
Stage Electrics – www.stage-electrics.co.uk
Lighting Equipment:
55 Pulsar ChromaStrip X3, 5 ChromaZone RMX3 – www.pulsarlight.com
For further information, please contact www.pulsarlight.com
LED and OLED Home Lighting Systems Almost Ready for Prime Time
Found on Tree Hugger
Photo credit: matthewvenn
Today’s New York Times has a special section on innovation in technology, and among the things they see in their crystal ball is LED and OLED lighting systems for the home. Just around the corner, just about within reach.
The technology has been on the horizon for awhile now — we’ve seen a sprinkling of LED bulbs and lamps, and have been tracking the development of OLEDs (that’s organic light emitting diodes) with interest — and, as with many technological innovations, they’re a little buggy and a little (or a lot) spendy early in their development. But they’re getting some help; according to the article, “the Department of Energy is financing projects to overcome technical and marketing problems that have prevented the technology from successfully challenging more conventional incandescent and fluorescent lighting.”
Among their charms, LEDs and OLEDs have a nearly unlimited ability to be fine-tuned, allowing for things like improved light quality and focused directional light, and, perhaps most notably, are much more energy efficient than their incandescent and compact fluorescent counterparts.
Still, there’s a ways to go before we can expect to have an LED bulb in every socket, or an OLED in every panel or light box. Cost and light diffusion are two obstacles keeping the technologies from flooding the market, but that’s slowly changing; LEDs are finding their place as a replacement for halogen bulbs, and better diffusers are making them more viable as incandescent and CFL replacements. When will this happen? The crystal ball is a bit murky on this one, but it appears that the future of LEDs and OLEDs is brighter than ever. ::New York Times
Let your Dog Speak to you using LED lighting and his or her tail! Wag-o-Led to the rescue!
From Engadget..
Not like we haven’t seen a similar idea passed around before, but James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau have apparently taken things one step further with their LED Dog Tail Communicator. As the title implies, the device would simply be affixed to your favorite canine’s tail, after which it could broadcast actual words based on the speed of the tail wag. There’s no telling just how many phrases the thing could spell out — and honestly, we have no idea how accurate the statements would actually be — but this may be just the thing to keep Rover quiet while still letting him get his point across.