Anyone walking into the new $1.3 billion stadium for the New York Yankees  is bound to be amazed by the size of the center field LED scoreboard, as the first photos of the screen reveal.

Taken by a local CBS affiliate in New York, the pics show early tests of the 103-by-58-foot, 1080p HDMitsubishi Diamond Vision LED display, which is six times larger than the screen at old Yankee Stadium. According to Mitsubishi, the display is embedded with 8,601,600 LED lamps (covering a total of 5,925 square feet), and can put up to four simultaneous images, with picture-in-picture capabilities.

Some fans are worried that the screen will overshadow the game itself. Since it’s located at the same height as the stadium’s second deck and seems to occupy a quarter of the whole outfield façade, this seems quite possible. That is prime viewing position for nearly everyone inside (including the players), and it’s only natural to continually glance over at a giant flickering thing rather than the serene pastoral slowness of the game.

So you’d think that with that enormous screen, umpires will be using it with the new replay system, right? Alas, no.

According to Major League Baseball, teams are forbidden from showing “a replay of any play that could incite either team or the fans.” Judgment calls will continue being made by the umps, as they always have. It’s possible that once a play has been decided, the scoreboard will show versions of disputed plays, but with a screen that size, any possible mistake by the umps could be compounded.

The giant screen is part of a big display tech development for the new Stadium, which also includes about 1,400 other video screens of all sizes, and about 550 of them are flat-panel Sony Bravias.

All displays will be managed by an IP-based network from Cisco Systems. Every one of those TVs will have a singular IP address that can be manipulated for specific MPEG-4 compressed video.

Expect the system to be used to sell ads within the stadium and to show awkward baseball-themed marriage proposals.

Last but not least, big-screen specialist Daktronics also built a video/scoring system that manages a 1,280-foot long color LED ribbon board mounted to the facade of the second deck and will be one of the longest continuous displays in sports. Just like the giant Times Square screen, the LED ribbon board is made out of hundreds of smaller LED ‘cubes.’ This one will show lineups and other team info and will occasionally show psychedelic light shows during the night. (see pic below)

LED lighting is the latest and greatest in eco-friendly lighting solutions.

Chestnut Ridge, NY- The Culinary Institute of America recently partnered with Millennium Visual Systems to change a large portion of their lighting fixtures to energy-efficient, LED technology in the Hyde Park, NY campus. The upgrade is estimated to reduce energy-consumption by 83% in all devices using the LED technology.

Millennium Visual Systems’ LED lamps are used in 4 different chandeliers on campus. The first is in the Conrad Hilton Library. There are 48 lamps within this chandelier alone that now contain LED bulbs. The other three chandeliers are in the main entrance to Roth Hall.  All four were previously expensive for the Institution to maintain, considering the cost of manpower to change incandescent bulbs as well as paying the high cost of electricity.

The switch to LED technology is a part of the Culinary Institute’s major effort to light, heat and cool campus as efficiently as possible. In addition to converting lighting to LED technology, the facility now utilizes solar technology, low-flow fixtures and water-efficient landscaping to create one of the most innovative and green campuses in the United States.

Millennium Visual Systems, headquartered in Woodcliff Lake, NJ with Business Operations in Chestnut Ridge, NY, designs, produces, sells, and services electronic signs, programmable displays, and provides eco-friendly lighting solutions that are widely used in municipalities, restaurants, convenience stores, retail businesses, schools, hospitals, offices, factories and government facilities. Millennium Visual Systems is a 12 year-young company with expert staff that assists clients in all aspects of a project. From concept development, to installation, to follow-up, Millennium Visual Systems ensures customer satisfaction with ongoing hardware and software support and service. For more information please call (845) 356-4100, visit at www.millenniumvisuals.com, or find them on Facebook, Twitter (millenniumsmart),  and Linkedin.

A Disruptive Technology
Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are compound semiconductor devices that convert electricity to light. Invented by GE scientists in the 1960s, LEDs are vastly different from traditional incandescent, fluorescent and neon light sources.

LEDs stand out because unlike lamps that can shatter, they are robust and highly resistant to shock and vibration. Due to the solid-state nature of LEDs (see Figure 1 and 2), there are no filaments to break, no moving parts to fail and no glass components of any kind. With LEDs, breakage during transportation, installation or operation – a common problem of traditional light sources – is virtually eliminated. This robustness speeds installation times and installer training.

Figure 1: LED Semiconductor Chip	Figure 2: Complete LED Package

The benefits of using LEDs vary depending on the application, but typical technology features include:

• Up to 90 percent energy-cost savings
• A long life of up to 50,000 hours
• Minimized maintenance hassles and costs
• Low-voltage operation
• Excellent cold-weather performance

Environmental friendliness is also a factor, as LEDs do not contain mercury.

Applications Then and Now
Years ago, small size, ruggedness, fast-switching capability, low power consumption and compatibility with integrated circuitry made LEDs a great choice for indicator-light applications. Today, these same attributes and other benefits such as increased light output, long life that’s measured in years and dramatic energy savings have inspired a variety of innovative LED solutions that serve as viable alternatives to traditional neon, incandescent and fluorescent light sources.

Common applications of LEDs include: automotive taillights, cell phone display, keypad backlighting, full motion video displays, traffic signals, illuminated signage, camera flash and architectural accent lighting.

A Systems Focus
Getting the most value from an LED solution involves more than just a great LED. It requires a great system design. An LED solution is only as good as its weakest link. At GE Lumination, we’ve developed an expertise in designing and building highly advanced LED systems. Our world-class engineers combine the best available components with innovative optical, electrical and thermal management designs to create “complete” LED systems that are optimized for superior performance.

A Bright Future
The emergence of white LED solutions, from GE Lumination and others shows progress toward a new “general illumination” era for LEDs. Over the next several years, continued improvements in white LED color quality and performance are expected to push LEDs into more applications – directly competing with traditional lighting technologies for a share of the “general illumination” market.

Where’s This Growing?
According to industry sources, the LED industry grew nearly 50 percent year-over-year between 1995 and 2004, and its growth trajectory between 2004 and 2009 is expected to nearly double, from $3.7 billion to $7.3 billion.

Many industry observers would attribute these high-growth forecasts to the low penetration of LEDs in general illumination (1 percent), signage (5 percent) and transportation (25 percent) applications. At GE Lumination, we are superbly positioned to continue as an industry-leading innovator for years to come.

Copyright 2009 Lumination, LLC

New bulbs and controls are coming your way. Here is what to expect.

Lighting. Admit it, you’ve never found it that interesting. It’s one of the underlying reasons that the incandescent still accounts for around 80 percent of the bulbs sold to consumers in the U.S. Consumers just grab and go when it comes to lights, just like how they buy toothpaste. Traditional light bulbs have had a remarkable run, if you think about it. The Edison bulb, invented in 1879, turns 130 on Dec. 31, 2009. During the same year the bulb was invented, the Anglo-Zulu War broke out and Rutherford B. Hayes was in the White House. The lighting market, though, will undergo a radical realignment over the next three to seven years. And here’s why.

1. Regulation: Australia plans to phase out incandescent bulbs next year and the European Union will follow in 2012. The U.S. has imposed efficiency regulations that will ultimately push the incandescent to the margins by 2014. Canada, the Philippines, and others have similar plans. Despite some strong objections, incandescents in all likelihood will fade away.

2. Inefficiency: The Incandescent only uses around 5 percent of its power to produce light. The rest goes to heat. That’s why pet stores stick them inside of their lizard terrariums. Fluorescents are much better. A 15-watt fluorescent can produce as much light as a 60-watt bulb. But fluorescents contain mercury – LEDs don’t. And LEDs last far longer (40,000 hours versus 15,000 hours) and consume half the power.

Lighting consumes 25 percent of the energy in commercial buildings and 12 percent in homes, according to the DOE’s Buildings Energy Data Book for 2008. Computers only account for 4 percent of the energy in commercial buildings and 1 percent in homes.

Most lights also illuminate indiscriminately. Look up at an urban skyline. Many of those lit-up offices are empty. The shape of North America, Asia and Europe are somewhat clearly defined by night lighting. That’s great if you’re planning a bombing raid from Neptune, but doesn’t do much for humans.

3. Age: Light bulbs remain the last vestige of the vacuum-tube era. Tube TVs and stereos are gone. Computers went digital in the 1950s. Other amusing light anniversaries: Georges Claude invented the neon light in 1911 while the fluorescent was invented in 1927 in Germany. The compact fluorescent, invented by former GE engineer Ed Hammer, came to light in 1976. GE loved it – many thought it would be impossible – but initially balked at building it because of the cost of a factory. (White light LEDs came around in the early 1990s courtesy of Shuji Nakamura.)

4. Ubiquity: Fluorescent tube lights account for 85 percent of the lights in U.S. commercial office buildings and most of them can’t be dimmed to save power, according to Mike D’Amour, CEO of Lumenergi, which has come up with a networked controlled dimmer for fluorescents and LEDs. Adura Technologies has something similar.

The average U.S. home has 52 light sockets, according to stats from Philips Lighting, and European homes have 40.

5. LEDs Have Come a Long Way: A year ago, LED bulbs cost close to $100. This year, Panasonic, Sharp and others plan to sell 60-watt equivalent bulbs for $40. In two years, LED bulbs that could replace conventional bulbs could cost around $25, say executives from U.S. companies like Bridgelux and Luminus Devices. LED bulbs can save anywhere from $2 to $10 more than incandescent or CFLs, depending on how and when you need light (Figure four to six hours a day with some peak period pricing thrown in where electricity costs more than the 11 cent per kilowatt hour figure.) Payoff, therefore, will become more palatable.

Perhaps more importantly, the color tone has improved. The latest bulbs don’t sport that blue, harsh “E.T.’s Finger” tone as much anymore. Since the start of 2008, VCs have invested $290 million into lighting and large part of the total has gone to LEDs.

6. Governments and Commercial Establishments Are Already Converting: The lower maintenance costs are the real appeal here. Anchorage, Alaska installed 16,000 LED streetlights. The city estimates it saves $360,000 in power and $350,000 in not having to send maintenance crews out. Upscale food stores also claim that LED light, which doesn’t generate heat, doesn’t prematurely age produce or wine.

Other companies to keep an eye on: Renaissance Lighting, Osram, General Electric, Kaai, Soraa, Numentix, D.Light Design, AgiLight, Albeo, Cree.

7. The Plasmas Are Coming: High-intensity and low-intensity plasmas work like plasma TVs. An electrical current excites chemicals and produces light. Luxim, which originally sold its tiny bulb as a light for projection TVs, entered the market for public lighting last year. A single bulb puts out as much light as a street light. Topanga Technologies, a stealthy Khosla Ventures startup founded in part by Luxim alumni, has something similar.

Eden Park Illumination, meanwhile, wants to make a plasma bulb for homes. Founded by two University of Illinois professors, it has been showing prototypes for the last year and a half. The bulb is completely recyclable, contains no harmful chemicals like mercury, and is almost perfectly flat. Ultimately, you could make tables out of this.

8. OLEDs and Light-Emitting Capacitors: Think big sheets of plastic that emit light. General Electric, Kodak, Universal Display, Rohm and others have invested huge amounts of money into OLEDs. Potentially, OLEDs can use 100 percent of the power inserted into them to create light. Transparent OLEDs also make it possible to convert windows into light sources. Manufacturing and pricing remain challenges. Osram came out with an OLED lamp last year. It costs $10,000.

CeeLite has already started marketing light emitting capacitors, which are thicker but generally do the same thing. Some casinos have made staircases out of them. But, again, the price remains high.

9. Solar Lighting: Two types here. First, Sunlight Direct, which spun out of Oak Ridge National Labs, has created a dish that concentrates light on a roof and then shuttles it through offices with fiber optic cables. Electric lights fill in as the sun goes down, but the system can substantially reduce a company’s light bill. Sunlight also has a tremendous visual quality. But the price is high.

EnergyFocus has a similar system, but it links fiber optic cables up to high intensity discharge lights. It uses more power, but you don’t have to worry about synchronizing with lights. It has installed its fiber cables into freezer cases to replace fluorescents. Besides cutting light power, it reduced the load on the air conditioner because the fiber optic cables don’t give off heat.

Then there is passive solar – i.e., figuring out ways to exploit the light coming in from your window better. The California Lighting Technology Center at UC Davis is one of the premier centers for this. It has been experimenting with sensors that can better dim electric lights to match the mood of the sun.

Alcoa and others also actively market light shelves. These are boards with a white reflective surface that stick half on the outside of a building and half on the inside. Sunlight bounces off the surface and washes the ceiling in light. You’d be surprised how much light it can generate.

10. Old TVs: Old is new here. Lumiette is marketing a thin (4-millimeters thick), long-lasting fluorescent bulb that was created to be a light source for LCD TVs. VU1, meanwhile, has a bulb that technically resembles an old TV tube: a tiny electron gun shoots electrons at a phosphor-coated piece of glass. (And as stated above Luxim was invented for TVs.)

11. Networking Lights: If LEDs represent the biggest opportunity in lighting, networking is a close second. Only around one percent of commercial buildings in California come with networked lights. A recent test by PG&E showed that light power could be cut by 50 percent or more. Besides Adura and Lumenergi, expect to see news from Johnson Controls, Honeywell, large software vendors like Microsoft, HID Laboratories, MetroLight, Enocean and others in the future.

Streetlights glow along Moody Street.

WALTHAM —Cities across the country, from Anchorage to Los Angeles, are looking to cut energy consumption and trim costs by installing LED streetlights. Ward 8 City Councilor Stephen Rourke thinks Waltham should look at following their lead. Through a resolution to the council last week, Rourke asked Mayor Jeannette McCarthy and other city officials to study the cost benefits of putting in LED streetlights. Cities that have already installed the light emitting diodes include Anchorage, Alaska, New York City, Los Angeles and Ann Arbor, Mich. While they cost more than traditional streetlights, the LED bulbs last longer, require less maintenance and use less energy.

“You have to spend some money to save money,” Rourke said.

Rourke said given that Waltham would be using an increasingly popular green technology, the city could get a hold of federal dollars to purchase the LED lights.”Many (cities) are using federal stimulus money to get their programs under way,” he said. Rourke said hopefully if the city did decide on using LED lights, there wouldn’t be a need to switch the poles and fixtures, only the bulbs. He said he would like to see the city look into at least a five-year plan on switching over the lights, as the technology is likely to only improve with time.

“I would be willing to bet five years from now we will have even better options,” he said.
The council’s Public Works Committee is expected to take up Rourke’s resolution soon.

New York City has unveiled a trial of LED outdoor lighting products from 9 manufacturers, taking place in Central Park and FDR Drive.

Press conference to announce LED project

The New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) in partnership with international non-governmental organisation The Climate Group has launched its first LED lighting pilot tests in two of the City’s iconic urban settings, namely Central Park and the FDR Drive expressway.

Both locations are under evaluation by the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Gateway Solid-State Lighting Demonstration Program, whose purpose is to provide independent, third-party evaluation of LED products installed in real-world applications.

The LED pilot projects are part of NYC DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan’s continuing plan to develop “world class, sustainable streets” in the City of New York. With help from the Gateway program, the new LED pilot projects will quantify the financial savings and performance of LEDs while visibly demonstrating the improved illumination for Central Park’s 25 million visitors and FDR Drive’s 150,000 daily drivers.

Testing LED lights in Central Park Working with The Climate Group and Gateway, the City will gather reliable data on the lifespan, power consumption and lighting performance of 9 different LED products over a 12-month testing period. Products undergoing testing in Central Park include those from King Luminaire, Lumec, Sentry, Spring City and Sylvania, while the suppliers of products on the FDR include BetaLED, eLumen, LED Roadway Lighting and LSI.As part of The Climate Group’s global LED pilot program, a partnership of more than 10 major cities including London and Mumbai, the City of New York is the first participating city to begin pilot testing. “Energy-efficient lighting is a common-sense approach to tackling global climate change, and New York continues to lead the way as an internationally recognized leader in sustainability.” says Commissioner Sadik-Khan. LED lights on FDR Drive The City of New York is very active in the ‘greening’ of the Big Apple and in exploring opportunities that will achieve this mandate. Rohit Aggarwala, Director of NYC Mayor’s Office for Long-term Planning and Sustainability, said, “Achieving a greener, greater New York will require all City agencies and all New Yorkers to take those steps where they can cost-effectively improve efficiency and the environment in the areas they control.”DOE estimates that LED lighting can substantially reduce energy costs, by as much as 60 percent, compared with existing streetlights. The actual savings achieved always depends on the particulars of the individual installation, including what was installed previously, what product is replacing it and the site details. They also provide a whiter light than the high-pressure sodium (HPS) lights typically used that allows pedestrians and drivers to see more clearly at night. Additionally, as LEDs last longer than the existing lights, so fewer required bulb replacements on roadways like FDR mean fewer lane closures and improved convenience for drivers. The combined benefits of cost, convenience and safety are what the Central Park and FDR LED pilots aim to test. “The opportunity to reduce electricity use across the nation by implementing advanced street and outdoor area illumination technologies like solid-state lighting is tremendous,” stated James Brodrick, DOE’s Lighting Program Manager. “The deliberate, measured process being undertaken by the New York City Department of Transportation is exactly the approach we recommend for other cities considering similar lighting evaluation efforts. LED products are still in a relatively early stage of commercialization, so conscientious and thorough evaluation efforts such as these are essential to providing invaluable field experience and a current status check on product cost and energy performance.” Dasha Rettew, who leads The Climate Group’s US Cities & Technology Program said, “We are proud to partner with the City of New York on this groundbreaking new LED pilot project. By working with the world’s largest cities, we will establish a series of outdoor LED pilot tests that will unlock critical data, independent from manufacturers, to demonstrate the real-world return on investment, performance and carbon saving benefits of this transformative and scalable clean technology.” Phil Jessup, Global Cities and Technology Director, The Climate Group, said, “LED lighting and smart controls remain relatively untested outdoors for long periods. Our pilots will create a compelling body of verifiable information for cities and businesses looking to cut costs and carbon but still sceptical about how they perform. If LEDs and smart controls can achieve acceptance and scale in large cities, substantial carbon emissions reductions will follow.” Almost two-thirds of outdoor lighting is owned by municipal and regional governments, areas where the Climate Group’s city and state members can have a major impact by driving demand through scaled up LED projects. Founded in 2004, The Climate Group is an independent, not-for-profit organisation working internationally with government and business leaders to advance smart policies and technologies to cut global emissions and accelerate a low carbon economy. Relative to the NYC announcement, The Climate Group is coordinating a global series of pilot projects designed to demonstrate the business case for LED lighting to city decision makers, with the aim of scaling up the global market for the technology. The low carbon lighting program forms one key component of The Climate Group’s strategy on the Global Deployment of low carbon technologies that will have a large impact on reducing global emissions if brought to commercial scale. The LED programme is funded by the HSBC Climate Partnership. As one of its aims, the five-year, $100 million partnership works to realize cleaner, greener cities across the world.

About the Author

Brian Owen, a contributing editor of LEDs Magazine, is also the Program Advisor to greenTbiz, which facilitates the LED City Toronto initiative. He is actively involved in the development and operation of energy conservation programs for government, municipalities and utilities and specializes in capacity building, commercialization and market transformation. greenTbiz, an ENERGY STAR, Lighting Facts and L Prize Partner, provides energy conservation and environmental awareness programs to the small business sector in Toronto, Canada.

LEDs illuminate legendary cherry blossoms in TokyoINEX Corp. has supplied LED fixtures, designed with help from Future Lighting Solutions, to illuminate the trees in Chidorigafuchi Park.

Every spring, hundreds of thousands of Tokyo residents flock to Chidorigafuchi Park to witness the spectacle of well over 200 cherry trees exploding with baby pink blossoms. For years, the trees were illuminated at night with halogen lamps that not only consumed excessive energy but also damaged the flowers with heat and ultraviolet rays.

In 2009, many of the existing lights were replaced with more energy-efficient, flower-friendly solid-state floodlights built with Luxeon® K2 with TFFC (thin-film flip-chip) LEDs from Philips Lumileds.
Nagasaki-based lighting manufacturer INEX Corp. developed the new LED luminaires with engineering support from Luxeon supplier Future Lighting Solutions, slashing energy use and carbon emissions by over 90% while simultaneously advancing Tokyo’s efforts to become a model low-carbon city.

“Sakura” season

The Japanese custom of viewing cherry blossoms – known locally as sakura – dates back to before the eighth century. Sakura bloom all over Japan from mid-January to early May, typically flowering in Tokyo in late March or early April. Visitors to Chidorigafuchi Park during the one- or two-week-long cherry blossom season are treated to vast expanses of flowering trees that can be seen from land as well as from boats traversing the moat that used to be part of the Imperial Palace grounds.
Lighting the trees at night is essential to support the tradition of after-dark flower viewing parties as well as to take full advantage of the short-lived season, but the existing halogen lighting failed to fit with energy-saving initiatives launched by Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara to conserve natural resources and fight global warming.
When park officials decided to climb on the ‘green’ bandwagon by switching to LED floodlights, they were unable to find an off-the-shelf product that met their requirements. That’s when they turned to INEX.

Building a better floodlight

The park needed several different outdoor solid-state luminaires with light outputs as high as 2,800 lumens. Fixtures would be placed either on the ground or on a stone wall to light the trees from below. INEX developed the basic board design but sought outside expertise on several engineering issues related to thermal management. The company also wanted to explore their LED product options because of dissatisfaction over color inconsistencies in a previous project that utilized non-Luxeon light sources.

“We knew we had to drive whatever LED we chose at a high current to hit the park’s target brightness levels, but we didn’t have time for extensive prototyping. We also needed to find an LED that would support that level of current and a way to ensure color consistency from LED to LED,” said Mr. Youichi Oda, President of INEX. “Future had the tools, expertise and narrow color bin selection to help.”

Future engineers solved the prototyping problem with Future’s proprietary QLED thermal simulation software, enabling rapid modeling of heat distribution as well as luminous flux without lengthy trial-and-error design cycles. Future also recommended the use of Luxeon K2 with TFFC LEDs because of their ability to be driven at 1000mA and thereby produce the required light output.

The color challenge was addressed with Future’s binning program, which offers 19 color bins for cool white Luxeon LEDS alone to ensure color uniformity within each shipment as well as from order to order. Future was able to guarantee a supply of LEDs from several cool white color bins that met the project’s specific requirements, giving INEX assurance that the color of their new floodlights would not vary perceptibly.

90% energy savings

In early 2009, the collaboration between the two companies culminated in INEX’s SKY HIGHBEAM-X, a family of floodlights that utilizes Luxeon K2 with TFFC LEDs along with custom-designed heat sinks, optics and drivers. The fixtures are available in both 7- and 14-LED models, with special weatherproofing measures devised to protect the fixtures from rain and dust.

The finished floodlights were installed in Chidorigafuchi Park between March 27 and April 10 to coincide with the annual cherry blossom festival. The fixtures are illuminated for 4-1/2 hours every night during the annual hanami (flower viewing) season.

The transition to solid-state lighting is saving the park an estimated 90% in energy usage and related costs for each replaced fixture, shrinking per-unit consumption from 150 to 15 kilowatt-hours. It is also reducing carbon dioxide emissions for all floodlights involved in the replacement program from 4.2 to just 0.2 metric tons during the cherry blossom festival alone, helping the park do its part to combat global climate change.

In addition, moving from halogen to LED floodlights with a far cooler beam and lower UV levels will help keep the cherry blossoms in peak bloom for as long as possible, maximizing park usage as well as the viewing pleasure of local residents. Saving energy and saving the flowers: that’s a big return on the park’s LED lighting investment.
At the same time, the SKY HIGHBEAM-X has become a staple of the INEX product line, offering high performance and an expected 40,000-hour or longer bulb life along with a low carbon footprint. The development work was inspired by cherry blossoms, but for INEX it is destined to bear fruit over and over – like the cherry trees themselves.

The Frankfurt Motor Show (also known as the IAA) took place this year on September 17-27, with exhibitors from 30 countries showing their newest and most innovative cars to an international audience.

Many brands chose LED displays from Barco to highlight their cars on display, as described in the Barco overview of the show. The Barco LED displays were represented via some of Barco’s worldwide rental partners.

Audi R8 Spyder 5.2 FSI Quattro

A new version of the Audi R8 was introduced, an open-top two-seater featuring LED headlamps as standard, that will be launched in Germany in the first quarter of 2010 with a base price of EUR 156,400 (about $228,000).

Audi describes the full-LED headlights as “technical works of art. Their reflectors resemble open mussel shells; the daytime running lights (DRLs) appear to be a homogeneous strip, but actually comprise 24 individual LEDs that form a curve at the lower edge of the headlight.

LEDs are used for the low beams, the high beams, the DRLs and the turn signals. With a color temperature of 6,000K, the LED light is very similar to daylight, making it easier on the eyes when driving at night. Additional strengths include excellent light distribution, long service life and extremely low energy consumption.”

Volkswagen L1 Concept

LED headlamps supplied by Osram were one of the energy-efficient features of the Volkswagen L1 concept car, a diesel-electric hybrid vehicle constructed from aluminum and carbon fibre weighing just 380 kg and capable of 189 mpg miles per gallon – see Volkswagen’s one-litre car shines with Osram LED systems.

Each of the headlights, which are only 5 cm in height, uses three Joule JFL2 LED modules from Osram. Two provide the ECE-compliant main light (low or dipped beam) and one the high beam.

Osram says that Joule JFL2 LED modules will be introduced in production in early 2010 and can then be included in new vehicle models easily and across multiple platforms.

Carlstadt, NJ– (October 2009) The Carlstadt, NJ Public School System has seen the light!  They have installed a high tech, LED programmable display in front of their newly built campus where students, parents and community residents can keep informed of the latest school news.  The project was designed and produced by Millennium Visual Systems of Chestnut Ridge, NY.

An ever-growing trend, LED programmable displays are the fastest way to communicate critical information to parents and students. They offer an energy-efficient and aesthetic vehicle for schools, towns, restaurants and retail businesses to exhibit real-time information. Carlstadt’s Board of Education updates the sign several times a week with messages about openings, closings, upcoming events, and general communications for parents and students.

The school’s Business Administrator, Stephen Imperato, said: “The entire Board of Education has expressed their feeling as to how the sign has exceeded our expectations.”  Mr. Imperato was enthusiastic about the high-tech additions to the campus and how Carlstadt is dedicated to raising the bar on public education.

Millennium Visual Systems, headquartered in Woodcliff Lake, NJ with Business Operations in Chestnut Ridge, NY, designs, produces, sells, and services electronic signs and programmable displays that are widely used in restaurants, convenience stores, retail businesses, schools, hospitals, offices, factories and government facilities. Millennium Visual Systems is a 12 year-young company with expert staff that assists clients in all aspects of a project. From concept development, to installation, to follow-up, Millennium Visual Systems ensures customer satisfaction with ongoing hardware and software support and service. For more information please call (845) 356-4100, visit at www.millenniumvisuals.com, or find them on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.