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FRIDAY REPORT OF 09/29/06

The Most Direct, Frequent Link to Knowledge Workers in the Eastern Forest Economy

“AN EVEN BRIGHTER IDEA”

Our quotes are from a 9/21/06 article in www.economist.com:

“…How long does it take to change a light bulb? According to iSuppli, a market-research company that specializes in technology trends, the answer is 131 years. That is the amount of time that will have elapsed between 1879, when Thomas Edison first demonstrated his incandescent light bulb, and 2010, when semiconductor-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are expected to have made significant inroads into general illumination, a market worth $15 billion…

…“LEDs have become popular because they have numerous advantages over conventional light bulbs. For one thing, they last much longer: they can endure up to a decade of non-stop use compared with a few months or less of incandescent bulbs. They also take up much less space (a typical LED is about the size of the rubber on the end of a pencil), are shock resistant and, perhaps most important of all, are extremely energy-efficient.

“An incandescent bulb, made of a wire filament encased in glass, emits only 5% of the energy it consumes as light; the rest is wasted as heat. Fluorescent lights, which consist of tubes filled with mercury vapor, are roughly four times more efficient. LEDs, however, contain no mercury and already rival fluorescents in efficiency. Upfront costs make them too expensive for most general lighting applications, but experts expect that to change over the next five years as prices come down and efficiencies go up..

“Besides being environmentally friendly, LEDs allow unprecedented control over lighting. Unlike incandescent or fluorescent lamps, which spew light in all directions, LEDs generate directional light, making them ideal for selectively illuminating areas. Moreover, the ability to mix and match the output of red, green and blue LEDs makes it possible to produce any desired color. Lighting designers are already using LEDs to illuminate monuments, restaurants and even famous paintings, such as Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa.’ Because LEDs emit monochromatic light, any potentially harmful or unwanted radiation, such as ultraviolet or infra-red light, can be eliminated…

“To compete with the light output of a single 60-watt incandescent bulb that emits about 800 lumens (a measure of light power as perceived by the human eye), companies such as LED Lighting Fixtures and Permlight of Southern California are designing lamps based on clusters of white LEDs that achieve a similar lumen output, but consume a fraction of the power. Initial costs are still higher for such fixtures than for traditional bulbs, but lower electricity bills could make up the difference within a year or two, says Dr. Hunter.

“The size of LEDs allows far greater choice in fixture design, thought people disagree on how receptive consumers will be to such possibilities. ‘The shape of lamps will change,’ believes James Brodnick, who manages America’s solid-state lighting research programme for the Department of Energy. Color Kinetics, a firm based in Boston, already makes LED fixtures resembling large tiles that can be mounted on walls to create checkerboard-like effects or morphing colours.

“LEDs made of organic materials, called OLEDs, promise even more revolutionary design possibilities. Since they were first commercialized a few years ago, they have mostly appeared in small portable devices, such as mobile phones and digital music-players. Based on ultra-thin, lightweight plastic sheets, OLEDs emit a softer, more distributed light than conventional LEDs and might eventually be turned into softly glowing wallpaper or curtains.

“Because OLEDs are not as reliable and long-lasting as conventional LEDs, some scientists have been tempted to belittle their importance, just as LEDs themselves were originally underestimated in their early years. That could be a mistake, says Fred Schubert, an engineering professor at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, who heads the university’s Future Chips Constellation laboratory. ‘As researchers,’ he says, ‘we always have to be ready for surprises.’

“Those in the field may disagree about the prospects of OLEDs, but they do seem to agree on one thing: the days of the incandescent bulb are numbered. Conventional light bulbs are among the last devices that use vacuum tubes, an old technology that has long been replaced in radio and most televisions, notes Sandia’s Dr. Simmons. ‘Ultimately, incandescent light bulbs will end up in a museum, just like vacuum tubes did for electronics,’ he says.”

To access one source for LEDs, click on http://www.permlight.com/

“WELCOME TO NICHE NATION
by Nick Gillespie, Editor-in-Chief, REASON

“When Chris Anderson became editor-in-chief of WIRED in 2001, he took over an eight-year-old San Francisco-based magazine that had not only redefined print journalism in the 1990s but proved an invaluable guide to the exotic new worlds of mass personalized computing, cyberspace, digital culture, and much more that we now take for granted…

“More important than industry accolades, people were once again reading WIRED to learn about the next big technoculture thing. ‘Technology is the ability to empower individuals to change the world,’ says Anderson, who joined WIRED after stints at THE ECONOMIST, NATURE, and SCIENCE. Computer and related technologies, he argues, foster the ‘rise of individuals, often at the cost of institutions.’ Anderson’s visionary streak was on full display in his October 2004 WIRED story ‘The Long Tail,’ which quickly became the most cited article in the magazine’s history. An expanded book-length version – “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More” – is now climbing the upper reaches of the New York Times bestseller list…

“Amazon has an inventory of about 3.7 million. One percent of that is 37.000, more titles than most book stores have at all – and about half the inventory, or nearly half the inventory, of even a book superstore, so it sounds like a tiny little bit. But in absolute numbers, it’s a huge amount. So the problem with the percentage approach is that, if the denominator can grow infinitely large, what you find is that actually in percentage terms, these markets look more and more hit centered…”

To read the complete article, click on http://www.reason.com/links/links092206.shtml

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