

The Future of Lighting - necubi
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/07/the-future-of-lighting.ars

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possibilistic
A group of colleagues and I planning an attempt to elucidate some of the
luciferin synthesis genes in our spare time. Much of the pathway is unknown at
present, and there would be interesting applications given a complete
understanding.

In the unlikely event that we manage to work out the entire system (which I
doubt we can in our little free time), I can see us switching to a full time
project trying to clone it into house plants or trees or something. I've got
decent experience with agrobacterium and callus culture protocols, and we
could use computational / systems biologic modelling to cut down the gene
expression and regulation search space given some initial in vivo data.

Do you think we would be able to get private funding if we made headway? I
haven't looked into that much, let alone biotech startups, but I would be very
interested in starting one. It's unfortunately pretty costly work...

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bh42222
The Founders Fund might be willing to fund you:

[http://www.crunchbase.com/financial-organization/founders-
fu...](http://www.crunchbase.com/financial-organization/founders-fund)

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cdcarter
OLEDs and LEDs however still don't have a CRI that matches that of a nice
incandescent light.

There is much to-do in the theater world about when LED light sources will be
able to take over the venerable HPL and other tungsten sources, and the
ability to accurately light color is a major stopping point.

~~~
apinstein
That's always been my issue, too. Even CFLs aren't great, and those don't dim.

I started following another technology a few years back called ESL (Electron
Stimulated Luminescence) which is basically a TV turned into a light bulb. The
company finally started shipping stuff earlier this year and I got my hands on
2 of them.

The light quality is really nice, and they dim quite well (although not as low
as I'd like). It only puts out ~30 lumens/Watt. That makes their 19W bulb
around 600 lumens and can reasonably replace 50-60W incandescent. Check out
<http://www.vu1corporation.com/> as far as I know they're the only company
making ESL. I am not sure if their tech has the ability to scale up in terms
of power or efficiency. It's a tiny company compared to the scale of those
working on LED/OLED.

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eande
A good written article about all the facets of the lighting industry including
some cost analysis. Two things I found missing. One is the LEP (Light Emitting
Plasma), which is a also a very promising lighting technology, but not often
covered in the media. Another point I think crucial for LED is the possible
control capability compared to fluorescent technology. With smart detection
and bi or tri-level light output settings for LED light solutions at the
current 100lm/W show savings at e.g parking is up to 60% alone.

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pimeys
It's quite interesting why nobody's talking about making the light bulbs
properly. For example the world's oldest still burning lightbulb in Livermore
[1], which represents the technology when the bulbs were made to last.

Here in north the energy efficiency is bit different than in south. The heat
the lights generate warm up the house and you cannot calculate the waste as
you would in the warmer parts of the continent.

[1] <http://www.centennialbulb.org/>

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starwed
Reading the bulb's wikipedia article, sounds like it is not really the bulb's
technology that's responsible -- it is very low power (4 watts!), and has a
dedicated steady power source. (I previously lived in an apartment with
erratic power, and incandescent bulbs only lasted a couple weeks until I got
the landlord to fix it.)

If you asked engineers today to come up with a long lasting 4 watt bulb,
they'd probably do just fine.

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pimeys
The site reminded me from a TV documentary which stated that there was a light
bulb cartel which enforced the manufacturers to build bulbs that lasted only
about 1000-2000 hours to get more sales. I'd like to link to the video, but I
saw it from finnish national television.

Edit: Oh yes it was linked on that site.
[http://www.catalanfilmsdb.cat/en/productions/documentary-
tel...](http://www.catalanfilmsdb.cat/en/productions/documentary-
television/the-light-bulb-conspiracy-ndash-the-untold-story-of-planned-
obsolescence/2749/)

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MikeCapone
I have some LED bulbs by Qnuru, Philips, and GE, and I like them all. Good
light quality, bright enough for my needs.

I did get them as review units, though, and retail they would be around $100
each. But in a couple years they should be quite inexpensive.

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riobard
Not sure if it is just me, but I feel LED lamps emit inferior quality of light
for reading. Hurts my eyes.

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tintin
Cheap LEDs do this. They lack a warm spectrum. They also give a lot of noise
on your electricity net.

But there are expensive LEDs emitting warm light. Perfect for reading. They
emit a much wider spectrum of light.

I think in the aquarium world there are a lot of innovations when it comes to
the light spectrum of LEDs. Especially in salt water aquariums.

~~~
lucian1900
For some reason I've always preferred cold light, even when reading.

