That title needed extra care taken to its creation…

So check this out - LED candles that respond to human “wind!”  FresHome had a link to ThinkGeek’s store where the candles are sold.  Here’s a video of these things in action - they’re actually pretty awesome!

Check out a blurb about the candles:

The LED Blow On-Off Candles are solid wax (except for some electronics) and feature a natural-looking, flickering light just like normal candles, but they have a couple of extra techno enhanced powers. Regular candles will blow out if you blow on the flame, but these LED candles will also blow on. All you have to do is use the master on/off switch on the bottom, and these candles will turn on and off with just a puff at the “flame”. Even better, each candle has a switch to select either a cool blue flame, or a more realistic yellowish flame. From the proper distance and height, these candles will fool everyone into thinking they are the real thing; they are a fantastic way to put candles where it is too dangerous to have open flames. And, they won’t drip wax all over your mithril armor either.

I love in the video when the guy uses an air cannon to turn them all off.  Lovely.

Designer Young Bok Kim has invented an hourglass type fixture that works to show time via light leaking form the top container to the bottom receptacle.  There are a lot of gimmick-y gadgets out there, but this one is pretty sweet!  You can adjust the time by twisting the unit - and as your time runs out, luminance increases at the bottom and decreases at the top, having replaced the typical sand with LEDs.

Cool.  I want to get one of these!  I don’t know if there is an alarm or anything that sounds once the unit has completely run your time, but I can imagine a slight bit of confusion with when the time is actually out, especially in a lit room.

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Thanks, Yanko Design!

A designer named Sang-Kyun Park has invented an umbrella with LED illumination. It’s called “LightDrops.”

“Well, that’s great,” you might be thinking.

Yeah, true.  It is great.  However, what makes it even greater is the use of a material called “PVDF” that acts as a piezoelectric polymer - so when rain hits Sang-Kyun Park’s umbrella, the beating of the rain down on the material gives it a charge to power the light.  So, the harder the rain, the more light you have.

How’s that for fantastic?  Any better in your eyes now?

Thanks, Yanko Design!

Osram Sylvania is going to be introducing a line of standardized LED modules in 2009, effectively (and affectionately) called the “Joule” System.  LEDs Mag has an article about the upcoming LED module, with all of its 50mm standardized automotive LED system glory.  An Osram spokesman, David Hulick, had this to say about the Ostar headlamp:

“The JFL2 is well suited for daytime running lights and fog lights, but very clearly also functions for  headlamp apps of the future. It’s amazingly compact. It has very long life. The quality of the light output - very crisp clear light - will also be very attractive.”

The Ostar system is a forward lighting system - basically replacing existing technology in headlamps and tail lights.  One of the main pieces of good news is that it cuts down on consumer cost - Hulick, in his conference, said that the average dealer price for a custom array LED rig for your rear lights runs about $300, whereas the Ostar rig will be around $174, or 71% less.

Cool.

It looks like GE is going to stop developing incandescent technology.  More specifically, they are ceasing development of their high-efficiency incandescent lamps (HEI’s).  We were going to be seeing an HEI lamp with no mercury and better light quality than that of a CFL, but bans that have been coming as close as 2012 from places like Australia, Canada, and some US states have made GE change their minds.

GE will now be focusing on LED lamps and their OLED brethren.  David Schuellerman from GE said, about their current plans:

GE Consumers & Industrial and GE Global Research have suspended the development of the high-efficiency incandescent lamp (HEI) to place greater focus and investment on what we believe will be the ultimate in energy efficient lighting — light emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). Research and development of these technologies is moving at an impressive pace and will be ready for general lighting in the near future. LEDs and OLEDs used in general lighting are now poised to surpass the projected efficiency levels of HEI, along with other energy-efficient technologies like fluorescent, and have the additional benefits of long life and durability.

Thanks, Clean Technica, for the article!

The inventor of the Segway - you know, the lean and go thing - has an island that has in its future a net zero energy badge.  North Dumpling, his 3 acre island is located off of the coast of Connecticut.  Net Zero means that Mr. Kamen’s island (or The Kingdom of North Dumpling) is 100% off-the-grid, per se.  He does not depend on services at all.

Fritz Morgan, the Chief Technology Officer for Philips/Color Kinetics has helped Kamen with this feat - as of the next year, Kamen’s island will be lit up in brilliant color and quality (and with 70% less energy consumption, apparently) by a bunch of gear from Philips/Color Kinetics.

Thanks to DesignBoom!

Also, here’s the press release by Philips.

A while ago, I wrote about a product called SpectraWOW+ - it’s an LED source, very small, with a very big output.  I was fortunate enough to run into the LDDE booth at LDI this year, and met Greg Fuller, the guy responsible for the USA getting to know the products.  SpectraWOW isn’t the only awesome thing that Greg’s team is working on, I guarantee.

Check out some images of LDI and European Dynamic Lighting, LLC from 2008:

SpectraWOW is just such a great product - low heat energy (well, really nearly no heat exchanged, it’s such a cool product to the touch), and the little rig that Greg had at LDI, which was basically a stand of 4 (from what I remember) with power and signal built in.  Very neat.  I am hoping to hear back from Greg about the lens that SpectraWOW uses to rid the fixture of multicolored shadows, and I will post an article dedicated to that lens, as it is spectacular.

European Dynamic Lighting also has a product - a color changing, fluorescent-esque LED product with a zero flicker on dim feature that Greg was telling me just got ordered for an opera in Europe - on demanded request from the designer working the show.  I hope to get more info on that ASAP.  I *think* it was Patrick Woodroofe, I *think* the product was the CYCLED 9, and I am pretty sure Patrick ordered about 400+ of the units for a show in Vienna.  Cool.  From what I understand from Greg, Cirque is testing some of his products as well.

I originally saw these two installations at Design Boom, but looked a little deeper into the meaning and interaction of the two pieces - Rabbit Wonderland and Beneath, both in Shanghai and both massive LED sculptures meant to put a little color and vibrancy into the streets of Shanghai.

Beneath

Beneath is a piece inspired by the world of underwater existence - from the SuperNature website:

Beneath is an indoor interactive installation inspired by the underwater world. It consists of a series of 5 visual elements: ‘Water Ray’, ‘Turbulence’, ‘Dropping Star’, ‘Water Cloud’ and ‘Flying Jellyfish’. The installation embraces communication in a silent world through gestures of interaction and visual abstraction. This installation was exhibited at the Shanghai International Science & Art Exposition, China.

The five visual elements represented in images below:

Flying Jellyfish

Dropping Star:

Water Cloud:

Water Ray:

Turbulence:

Rabbit Wonderland

The second installation, Rabbit Wonderland, is more upbeat and warm, and is not so monochromatic.  From the website:

Rabbit Wonderland is a series of innovative outdoor LED interactive sculptures that aims to bring color, laughter and warmth to the streets of Shanghai during the Shanghai eArts Festival 2008. It Is a crossover project with W+K Shanghai. The iconic symbol of “Rabbit Wonderland” is the friendly and lucky Rabbit, which traditionally enjoyed favour among the Chinese for its representation of auspice and peace.

The images of Rabbit Wonderland are below - in contrast to all of the amber streetlight, it’s almost as if a playground of light appeared in the middle of Shanghai.  Beautiful!

Make Mag has a purchasable kit for the HexPummer LED lantern - which is solar powered!  The little LEDs inside “pumm” when the levels of light go down, draining the batteries in the little device of the day’s rays.

These things are cool!  You know me and the nerdy stuff!

Have you ever checked out the “Maker’s Shed” at Make Magazine?  Do you like to put stuff together and build circuits?  Check out the Maker’s Shed.

I saw this product at LDI this year.  Traxon’s about to get some attention on JimOnLight.  Rina, I emailed you, will you put me in touch with a product specialist?

Check out iMagic Weave - accepts either DMX or DVI.  Cool stuff.