Crazy bright LED´s will be able to give us a good few nice gadgets. Torches to blind people, possibly take down airplanes, cinema grade projectors in iphone 3 or just energy efficient lighting, so that we may be able to save the earth, again...

Mr500

FINALLY!

daftrok

It's going to be sooo much cooler in my grow-op.

PastorDoodah

Osram have been been producing LEDs for quite some time so that's nothing special. And as a bit of a nerd I get annoyed at the picture used. We're not talking about LEDs in the standard 5mm package here.

BoinK

@BoinK:
A: It's a new development from that company, so it's germane.
B: Did you recognize the things in that picture as LEDs?
Because that's all they really need to do in the context of this story: Be a picture of LEDs to go with the LED story.

Of course they could have shopped them singing "we are the champions" or something.

THAT would be cool. (hint hint)

strider_mt2k

I wish they would make yellower and warmer LED's. The bulbs in my flashlights are bright but the blue tint they have really washes out detail. Human sight is optimized for yellower light (think sunset time) and it makes viewing easier.

SuperMacGuy

so i am the only one who thought OSRAM looked like something else....

zackthebuddha

@skittlzncombos: Really? Someone's gonna have to help me out here.

reckless_inoz

It should be cheaper.. those current bulbs are insanely priced.. an LED is 100x cheaper currently. I cant see these becoming super expensive

Tokae

I look foward to replacing projector lights with LEDs would be nice. Doubt it will be cheaper, but should last longer.

rurena

LED Nerdz.

Tokae

@zackthebuddha: You're not alone.

skittlzncombos

These LEDs (or any LEDs for that matter) should make the price of new gadgets that use them (like projectors) considerably cheaper. But, why is it they never are? It's billed as "new" technology and therefore comes with the higher pricetag. Sure, R&D costs are built in, but, component cost must also be cheaper so why not pass that on? Projectors and TV's, for example: My rear-projection lamp will be $300 when it comes time to replace! A similar LED based lamp I would imagine maybe be $30 at most...and that's only after 20 years of use.

I sure hope LEDs catch on more...they have some great potential in various markets!

ksat

That which burns twice as bright...

SigmundTheSeaMonster

Someone explain something to me: I have a big toolbox filled with different color LEDs that I bought on ebay about 8 years ago. I was big into case moding of not just computers, but xbox's, car interiors, etc. I bought those LEDs in 100 packs on ebay for less than $10 including shipping from hong kong.

I've got blue, yellow, white, red, and green and they are all either 1.5v, 3v or 5v... if LEDs are so expensive to make now, why were they so cheap back then?

TaitRT

They keep talking while consumers keep waiting for it to show up at Home Depot. All this talk is just vapor ware if they don't deliver stock to Home Depot.

Noobs-R-Us

@SuperMacGuy:

Actually, the human eye is tuned to pick out green most efficiently.

MasterShazbot

500 lumens is the equivalent of a ~30 watt bulb. That's a fair bit more than the dull glow you want out of the display LEDs in typical electronics.

guspaz

@TaitRT:
Can any of those LEDs in your toolbox kick out 500 Lumens?
Can they generate 136 Lumens/Watt?

Didn't think so.

Slartibartfast

@TaitRT:

low amperage LEDs ARE cheap

[search.digikey.com]

but high amperage LEDs are not

[search.digikey.com]

nutbastard

Didnt Giz already post about a brighter led based projector that is being developed?

[gizmodo.com]

From the website of the place that makes those:

Over 3,000 white lumens at 8000K color temperature from a single RGB chipset under continuous operation
[www.luminus.com]

Whats the difference, that the other one uses red green and blue diodes rather than just 1 white one?

capitolm94

@MasterShazbot: Actually it all depends. I think the "green" cones in your eye might have the highest sensitivity but there are a number of factors involved. Rods have a hard time seeing red at all. This is the reason that most low light situations use red lights. This lets your eyes adjust to the darkness and bring out your "night time vision" (the rods) while still allowing you to see a "little bit" with the red illumination.

Red also happens to be the color that is the "tightest" meaning that people associate only a very small portion of the spectrum with red. Most people have a very narrow range of color that they will actually call "red." If you move away from their "red" most people will start to call it something else very quickly (purple, maroon, pink, orange, umber, etc.)

Blue is the "loosest" color. Whereas people may have only a couple shades that they will actually call "red" they may have dozens of shades that they will still call "blue" before starting to call it something other than blue.

Most "sensitivity" numbers talk about peaks and lighting conditions and angle of entrance into the eye so it all gets pretty complicated. Green is usually considered to have the highest "sensitivity" but others put it closer to yellow. One major factor for explaining the sensitivity to yellow is that huge flaming yellow ball that streaks across the sky every day. If you are subjected to that for millions of years your eyes may become attuned to it just a bit. I think it also may be linked somehow to the fact that yellow is a mix of red and green? Our night time blind color and day time peak color? Can't remember if that's right but I'll try to look it up?

Oooo, this is a fun conversation.

ninjamurf

@MasterShazbot: incorrect. SuperMacGuy was right, light at higher frequencies tends to break up more in our corneal fluid (same reason sky is blue) and doesn't resolve as well in our retina. If you want to prove it just turn on a set of Christmas lights and stare at the red green and blue ones side by side from a good 40 feet at night. The blue one will be completely blurry and the green one will be smudgy but the red one will be quite clear.

CribbageLeft

@CribbageLeft: Wow, I'm going to have to see some data on that! Where did you get this info? (This is an honest inquiry. I'm not "calling you out". I'd just like to see this as well. Trust but verify you know ;) )

ninjamurf

@strider_mt2k: A: The comment in the post "(yes, the lightbulb people)" made it sound like "the guys that we thought only made lightbulbs".
B: It annoys me because a lot of the general public see those standard 5mm LEDs in products, see the "OMG LOOK LED INSIDE WOO!" marketing and assume it's new tech. That irks me. Yes, the regular LEDs have made strides as well but nothing that compares to the recent leaps in performance we've seen from companies like CREE.

BoinK

OK, I am hoping that some one here is nerdier than me and can actually answer this question. I am visually impaired and in need of decent omni-directional (360 degrees) lighting that is NOT florescent.

I have searched and searched for information on the web, but can not find a decent resource / retailer of LED lighting that will put something that works for me in my hands...

Cost is less of an issue on this one for me, so any suggestions will be great!

altgenetics

@ninjamurf & CribbageLeft, Mastershazbot was right; in very general terms, green light is picked up most efficiently by the human eye. Different light sources (LEDs, incandescent lamps, the sun, etc.) radiate different light frequencies (ie different colors in the visible)to varying extents, but the human eye does not perceive light equally. In photometrics, there is a luminosity function ([en.wikipedia.org]) for the human eye that mathematically describes how humans perceive light; the gaussian wave form peaks at 555nm, which happens to be green.

ang48137

I just want to be able to replace the lightbulb in my projector without having to take out a loan! This would be huge... put 5-10 LEDs on one bulb stand and never have to replace it again!

DssTrainer