Products + Technology

I recently wrote an article for TED Magazine about extended-life linear 4-ft. fluorescent T8 lamps. Industry averages: * 20,000 hours at 3 hours/start on instant-start ballast (the most commonly installed electronic ballast) * 24,000 hours at 12 hours/start on instant-start ballast * 24,000 hours at 3 hours/start on a programmed-start ballast * 30,000 hours at [...]

Furniture designer SAAZS has collaborated with Saint-Gobain Innovations to produce Planilum technology, which enables light to be incorporated as a material into stylish objects and furniture. Planilum, a complex multi-layered special glass containing a plasma gas excited through transparent conductive layers, can light up a 40-sq.m. room for 100 input watts. The result is incredible. [...]

Since the launch of the blog I’ve been having to weed out comments for some of the posts where manufacturers or manufacturer sales reps are trying to promote their new products. I’m not against people doing this, not at all. It’s just that those posts were not the right place for promotional messages. To provide [...]

Neo by Se’lux, designed by Jan Kleiheus and a winner of the Good Design Award from the Athenaeum Museum in Chicago, is a system of luminaires available in 3- and 4-ft. nominal lengths in surface- and pendant-mounted configurations, creating numerous design possibilities with an attractive aesthetic. It’s one of the most interesting architectural lighting products [...]

Royal Philips Electronics’ “Transitions” 2008 road show throughout Europe, featuring exhibits designed by eight leading European architects and lighting designers and installed in containers, was staged to showcase the exciting new possibilities offered by a new generation of lighting technology. Italy’s contribution, “Post Digital” by Fabio Novembre, consists of a cube of 30,000 LEDs that [...]

In many schools, lighting eats up 30-40% of utility costs. As energy codes become more restrictive, can lighting satisfy the demands of the modern classroom, with horizontal and vertical workplanes, computers and A/V equipment? To test one approach, the California Energy Commission (CEC) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) engaged [...]

Core77 has partnered with Greener Gadgets again to produce a design competition aimed at generating outstanding design innovations for greener electronics. They published the top 50 for online voting, and then the Top 10 will be judged live Friday, February 27, at the Greener Gadgets Conference in New York City. Click here to see the [...]

Friend, colleague and fellow blogger Kevin Willmorth, principal of Lumenique, performed an interesting experiment recently to produce an LED PAR lamp with a light pattern somewhere between an R20 spot and a PAR20 flood, with an R20 flood’s light output. He produced his own LED lamp using spare parts from a halogen PAR20, CFL, 4W [...]

The Berkeley Lamp II is a multipurpose luminaire providing upper ambient, lower task or combined lighting. Designed for use in living areas, lobbies or lounges where the budget doesn’t allow for wiring of ceiling or wall mounted luminaires, the Berkeley Lamp II uses a patented dimming control for control of the dual 70W lamps. At [...]