Elemental LED: The Evolution of Light

LED TVs...Are They Really?

Lately I've been seeing a lot of electronics stores advertising their inventory of "LED TVs." As someone who knows a little (not a lot mind you, but a little) about LEDs, this confused me. I mean, I know LEDs can do a lot, but can they actually make up the technological bulk of an entire television, enough to warrent the product being named for them? Apparently, other people have been asking this question too, wondering: "what exactly is an LED TV, and what do the LEDs in that TV do?" The answer is fairly straightforward. An LED TV is an LCD or plasma television that uses LEDs to back light the display. Traditional models of LCD screens used florescent tubes to light the screen, which could not achieve the deeper tones of black necessary to create a sharp image. For that reason, a lot of consumers were disappointed with the clarity of their LCD screens. And besides achieving blacker blacks, and therefore, more clarity, screens lit with LEDs also use less power than plasma TVs or LCD TVs lit with florescent tubes. According to a NY Times article about the subject, there are two ways to use LEDs to light a TV screen: "...either by placing LEDs across the entire back of the display, or by placing LEDs just around the perimeter, which is called an edge lit" display." There are pros and cons to both methods, though typically edge-lit TVs are less expensive and super-thin, while back-lit TVs can create deeper blacks through a technique called "local dimming." Either way, it looks like LEDs are once again leading the way by creating better, more efficient products. The same NY Times article said it best: "After all, %a0%93LED is the acronym du jour, a technology that%94%92s all the rage as a new,...

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A Creative LED Lighting Design...

LED lights are everywhere in the news these days. It seems the world is finally getting comfortable with the idea that LEDs are here to stay, and that they are in fact the best lighting option on the market. More and more consumers are buying LEDs, and more and more government bodies are making the switch to LEDs for civic applications across the country and the world. All of this change means that the lighting design community will have to keep up, and it is! In fact, I've noticed more and more lighting designers beginning to create fixtures and lighting housing options intended for LEDs. It's good to see the focus of lighting design switching to incorporate LEDs, because that means more and more consumers will be able to find aesthetically pleasing lighting fixtures that work with their LEDs. Seeing as how LED lighting fixtures can come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, it's easy to see how they are beginning to provide the design world with a whole new array of possibilities. One of my favorite LED designs that I've come across are these adorable LED pendant lights by Croatian designer Zoran Sunjic, which he calls "Ginkgo decorative lighting." The tiny, lightweight yet ultra-bright LEDs make fun, modern lighting like this possible, and effective. Look how bright they are! I think they'd be so cute in a kitchen or a bathroom! If you think about all of the LED lighting solutions available these days, including LED strip lighting, flexible LED lighting, full color LED products,