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Imagine if you could drive at night with your high beams on all the time, bathing the road ahead in bright light but without ever blinding other drivers. In Europe and Asia, many cars offer adaptive driving beam headlights that can do this. ADB is a lighting technology that has been available for many years in other parts of the world including Europe, China and Canada, but not in the United States. It can actually shape the light coming from headlights rather than scattering it all over the road. If there’s a car coming in the other direction, or one...

Not all of us have time to get a degree in electrical engineering to make sure our home doesn’t look like the inside of an alien spaceship... Aren’t LED lights supposed to outlast the heat death of the universe or some unbelievably long amount of time? Under this guise and the guise of energy efficiency, the Biden administration finally allowed a 2007 ban on incandescent light bulbs to go through at the end of July this year. The problem is that LED lights are not more efficient in a meaningful economic sense, and, as my story illustrates, they don't necessarily...

America’s ban on incandescent light bulbs, 16 years in the making, is finally a reality. Well, mostly. A rule issued in 2007, rolled back by the Trump administration, and updated last year by the Biden administration, effectively bans the sale of common incandescent light bulbs. The rule went fully into effect Tuesday, August 1. ... The rule passed by President Joe Biden’s Department of Energy in April 2022 states that light bulbs must emit a minimum of 45 lumens per watt. A lumen is a measure of brightness. That effectively outlaws the manufacture and sale of common incandescent bulbs, the...

LED light bulbs 'currently cost more than incandescent bulbs and are inferior,' consumer groups said in letter to U.S. Department of Energy The Biden administration is preparing to implement a sweeping nationwide ban on commonly used light bulbs as part of its energy efficiency and climate agenda. The regulations, which prohibit retailers from selling incandescent light bulbs, were finalized by the Department of Energy (DOE) in April 2022 and are slated to go into effect on Aug. 1, 2023. The DOE will begin full enforcement of the ban on that date, but it has already urged retailers to begin transitioning...

A research team from the UK's Nottingham Trent University, the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales Canberra has developed a proof-of-concept display technology that could replace the LCD panels common to many of today's big-screen TVs. Though some modern high-end televisions may sport quantum-dot displays or OLED panels, many of the cheaper models available will use LCD (liquid crystal display) technology, polarizing filters and LED backlighting. But the researchers say that the limit has been reached for development of this kind of technology. "The capability of conventional displays has reached its peak and is unlikely to...

My initial introduction to the CIA was through the medium of film and literature. The spy versus spy mystique was alluringly romantic, with a definite ‘good versus evil’ vibe. I grew up, after all, during the Cold War, where the ‘red menace’ permeated every fiber of American popular culture. I opted to serve my country in the military, and not as a spy, receiving a commission in the Marine Corps in 1984 as an intelligence officer. My specialty was combat, not espionage, and it seemed that my path and that of the premier American intelligence agency were never to cross....

Sean and the Sheep Pong

I was looking at some LED car light bulbs online (for a backup light application (personal vehicle) that takes a stock 921 bulb), and ran across a product with a "2020" SMD (surface mount) LED in it. I often take a look at LED specifications to see if the output claimed for a light or bulb is even possible, but in this case I could not find anything that seemed definitive, online. Most was confusing...

A new electrode that could free up 20% more light from organic light-emitting diodes has been developed at the University of Michigan. It could help extend the battery life of smartphones and laptops, or make next-gen televisions and displays much more energy efficient. The approach prevents light from being trapped in the light-emitting part of an OLED, enabling OLEDs to maintain brightness while using less power. In addition, the electrode is easy to fit into existing processes for making OLED displays and light fixtures. "With our approach, you can do it all in the same vacuum chamber," said L. Jay...

The United States led the entire world in reducing CO2 emissions last year while also experiencing solid economic growth, according to a newly released report.  “The United States saw the largest decline in energy-related CO2 emissions in 2019 on a country basis – a fall of 140 Mt, or 2.9%, to 4.8 Gt,” The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported on Tuesday. “US emissions are now down almost 1 Gt from their peak in the year 2000, the largest absolute decline by any country over that period.”“A 15% reduction in the use of coal for power generation underpinned the decline in overall US emissions...

Think mods are e not treating twitter as they should.

The Trump administration on Friday said it has finalized a decision to roll back a George W. Bush-era rule to phase out incandescent light bulbs, saying that requirements for energy efficient bulbs would be costly to consumers. The administration finalized a proposal made in September to roll back the standard that was to come into effect next year. The move has been challenged by 16 states including New York and California who say it would harm state efforts to fight climate change.

Fresh off a legislative victory for the billboard industry at Nationals Park, Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans’ attempt to preserve a loophole for digital sign companies doing business in the District seemed inevitable—especially given his close ties with the vendor that stands to benefit the most. Evans recently introduced an emergency bill that would provide a permit exemption in certain cases—a boon for Digi Media Communications LLC, which already has installed numerous signs in violation of city rules and is looking to install dozens more throughout the District.

From the “law of unintended consequences” department comes this finding, suggesting that the push for eco-friendly energy savings may be doing more harm to us than good. Study links night exposure to blue light with breast and prostate cancer Researchers used images taken by astronauts to evaluate outdoor lighting in Madrid and Barcelona A study performed by an international team led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the “la Caixa” Foundation, reports a link between exposure to blue light at night and higher risk of developing breast and prostate cancer. Blue light is a...

The American Medical Association (AMA) has adopted an official policy statement about street lighting color temperature : "minimize potential harmful human health and environmental effects."

So much of America's future is at stake in the 2016 presidential election. But let's focus for a moment on just one area--energy and the environment--where the Obama administration has made startling progress.... Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, arguably President Obama's best Cabinet appointment, has been leading a quiet revolution in clean-energy technology. Innovation is transforming this industry, costs are plummeting and entrepreneurs are devising radical new systems that create American jobs--in addition to protecting the planet.... Here's a suggestion for any fact-based, technology-respecting candidate in either party: Promise that, if elected, you'll try to persuade Moniz to remain in place.......

By the end of the year, GE will cease production and sales of compact fluorescent lights (CFLs), the manufacturer announced this morning. Moving forward, the company's focus will fall entirely on halogen incandescents and on high-efficiency LEDs. "CFL's kind of been the light bulb that everybody loves to hate," explained John Strainic, chief operating officer of GE Lighting, citing the history of complaints about CFL dimmer compatibility, brightness delay, and quality of light. Strainic says that the industry has come a long way, but admits that the perception of inferior performance lingers. "Ultimately, LED offers a better solution at a...

Ever since the EU restricted sales of traditional incandescent light bulbs, homeowners have complained about the shortcomings of their energy-efficient replacements. The clinical white beam of LEDs and frustrating time-delay of 'green' lighting has left many hankering after the instant, bright warm glow of traditional filament bulbs. But now scientists in the US believe they have come up with a solution which could see a reprieve for incandescent bulbs. Researchers at MIT have shown that by surrounding the filament with a special crystal structure in the glass they can bounce back the energy which is usually lost in heat, while...

Transcend Lighting, one of the more unconventional startups accepted into Y Combinator’s latest cohort, is launching out of beta today to bring its energy-saving LED lights to indoor farmers everywhere. Founder Brian Bennett, an optical engineer by training, invented the first Transcend prototype after his father challenged him to build some LED lights for the family farm in upstate New York. When the lights he designed were successful, Bennett entered a business plan competition at Columbia, won some money to continue developing the idea, and was accepted into Y Combinator’s Spring 2015 class. “Farms today, generally speaking, use high pressure...

The least expensive LED light of the bunch at $14.97 per bulb, Cree’s Wi-Fi enabled, soft white 60 watt-replacements cast a good glow over my kitchen table. In fact, when I installed the new web-connected Edison bulbs, they replaced older (by a year), non-Wi-Fi-enabled, 60 watt Cree LED bulbs — and these newer bulbs seemed even brighter, though they boasted the same 815 lumens. Luckily, I could dial back the Cree’s brightness through the Philips Hue app I used to control them, which is another feature worth mentioning. The Connected Cree bulbs are marketed as being Wink App compatible, which...