Slashdot Mirror
Organic LED Could Replace Light Bulbs?
egrinake writes to mention a BBC article about a 'natural' replacement for lightbulbs. From the article: "The organic light-emitting diode (OLED) emits a brilliant white light when attached to an electricity supply. The material, described in the journal Nature, can be printed in wafer thin sheets that could transform walls, ceilings or even furniture into lights. The OLEDs do not heat up like today's light bulbs and so are far more energy efficient and should last longer."
...but a wafer thin sheet of organic material shining above a cartoon character's head is never going to look as good...!
Optimist: The thumb drive is half empty! Pessimist: The thumb drive is half full...
It took me a while to get that image, but then the lights came on!
Drop a couple AAs into a pouch in a jacket or something, wire it up to strips of this: Suddenly drivers etc. can see you at night. I wonder if there's any feasible way to do this in a torch format....
The problem with your idea is that it makes sense.
I was debating repainting the bedroom, but no, this is much better.
And you thought a ceiling MIRROR was arrogant...
Math is math. Regular expression is regular expression. The tools are there. The future is now.
Well, I suppose the Tron Guy is going to have a field day with this stuff, so it's not all gloom and doom...
A-Bomb
Thank google for google..
It's a story of USC and UDC (Universal Display Corp. near Princeton U)
Though it seems they need to make sure it doesn't get wet, and looks like a target for thieves who want the platinum or iridium in every molecule..
Interesting that one article says current incadescents are 15 lumens/watt (true?) while OLED is now at 20 with potentially 60 l/w in near future. I thought those led/dry cell driven pocket torches produced 30 lumens though..
google keys: Professor Mark Thompson of the University of Southern California oled
What's so wrong about light bulbs or processors producing heat besides their natural purpose ?
It seems to me the more heat I produce from my bulb/processor, the less my temperature regulator will pull energy from my heating system (based on gas, which is becoming more expensive). What's wrong with this way of thinking ?
I have 10,000 light sources in my house... and I want to customize lighting scenes for every mood. Each OLED has its own IPv6 address, and I have a touch screen where I can paint different color lights.
Hmm, interesting possibilities...
Its already unberable. Perhaps we can create our own anti-ad campaign with them. "This space NOT for rent" sort of stuff.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
There's only one question every time. How much light/W does it produce (lm/W)? And what is the price for the 'OLED bulb'.
:)
h tmlu/lightdintro2.htmlh tmlu/lightdintro.html0 4_LED_Paper.pdf
And... do not compare it to traditional light bulbs. Traditional light bulbs are dead.
Of course, LEDs have achieved a lot in producing more and more light, but currently it is some 10s or 100s fold differends between the price of the
fluorescent light sources and a LED based one, and the fluorescent light source (mostly) produces more light than the LED.
Yes, I hope that OLEDs will be the ones who can reach the barrier, but until that this article is very-very optimistic
check
(figure:)
http://europa.eu.int/comm/energy_transport/atlas/
articles:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/energy_transport/atlas/
http://www.lumileds.com/pdfs/TP40_IESNA_July%2020
Why would they? I'm all for cynicism and conspiracy theories, but try to come up with something more plausible.
For instance, the *power companies* buying the patents and shelving them.
That's also bunk, but it at least has a hint of financial incentive to it.
TFA speculates that these oleds could become 100% efficient. Maybe these people should go to work on the perpetual motion machine. I'd bet the farm that they can't achieve 100%. "In this family we obey the laws of thermodynamics." etc. etc.
Because if they could do this, they'd have already done it for fluorescent tubes, which can be up to about 60% efficient (compared to 10% for incandescent bulbs)?
OLED's are nice for displays, but not enough lumen/watt efficiency for general illumination.w Article.jhtml?articleID=181503227/
LED's are improving much faster - 100Lm/W from Nichia to hit market soon:
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/technology/sho
I remember somewhere around 10 years ago i started seeing 'paper' products in the grocery stores made from cotton. Paper towles, TP that sort of stuff. i thought cool an alternative to wood. Sometime after that NPR did a story on the people who started the company and they talked about how popular the products were and how they were looking to expand, things were looking great. Then like six months later the cotton paper products were no longer available, anywhere. My guess is that the paper product manufacturers got together bought the rights and mothballed the idea?
Rag paper has been around for a very long time. US currency is printed on rag paper. Wood is a popular raw material for paper products because it is cheap. No conspiracies needed, it's just economics.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Everything they're saying about OLEDs, people have said about regular LEDs for some time. Sure, they're efficient and cool, but they've never become a primary lighting source for a couple important reasons:
#1, they're too expensive. Compact fluorescents - which are are a 4x efficiency gain over incandescents - are only just starting to catch on now that they're under $2.
#2, the color rendering sucks. You know how old fluorescents used to made you look undead? LED's suck even more.
So, instead of addressing either of those hard issues, they give us an article full of: "The researchers believe that eventually", "Before this becomes a reality", "If that barrier can be overcome", etc. Thanks for the fluff.
Also, I'm not normally a grammar nazi, but for the love of god, 23 sentences:21 paragraphs is a ratio to be ashamed of.
Fuck off, I'm full!
Yeah, you don't want to fuck with the light bulb makers.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
You are right. Heating is the one thing that can be done at 100% efficiency. On the other hand I think it is a huge waste to use any energy specifically dedicated to heating.
If you use other devices, such as computers, light bulbs, etc, for heating, you convert them all to work at the efficiency of the powerplant+transmission - which is the best one can do - for electrically powered devices. (and 100% if you generate your electricity at home). Why are some people heating their home, while others run computers in centers, and then have to use airconditioners to cool down the server rooms? Just put computers in people's homes, and give them free heating!
But for a consumer, all that matters is the cost of energy: if 1W from electricity costs the same as 1W from gas, and you heat your house (i.e. outside temp is lower than temperature thermostat is set to), then all your electical devices are magically converted to run at 100% efficiency.
(if the cost of 1W of gas is 1/2 that of 1W electricity, then the conversion is easy - a 70% effcient device runs at 70+30*1/2=85% efficiency)
"Before this becomes a reality, the scientists need to work out a way to seal the OLEDs from moisture which can contaminate the sensitive material, causing it to no longer work."
...bulb... of some kind.
If only they could put it into an airtight package, something small and convenient, maybe a
I'm also worried about this, based on this sentence from TFA:
I've had a closer look at some fluorescents and they have something like 7 or 8 different dyes. You can look at the spectrum by reflection from a CD, for example. There's a clear difference between the continuous spectrum of incandescent bulbs and the discrete one of fluorescents. This three-component LED sounds even worse; on the other hand, the component spectra might be relatively wide.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Imagine the Christmas Light competitions with those suckers
IF all of those things are true, then let a bunch of lightbulb manufacturers conspire not to produce it! All it takes is one who's willing to produce it, who can then start reeping huge market share (to meet the assumed customer demand). Heck, it could be you. If all of the above things are true, then you could come in and make a killing on this thing even if every single lightbulb manufacturer chooses not to. And as soon as you do, every manufacturer who "conspired" not to produce this will be forced to in order to chase after those profits that you're getting.
If any one of those assumptions above is false, then it does not require a conspiracy to prevent widespread production of this product. The most likely assumption that's false is #4, but it could be any of them. In any case, if we don't see OLEDs dominating the lighting market, will you simply conclude that it was a secret conspiracy or that maybe one of your upfront assumptions was false? My recommendation would be to apply occam's razor.
$.02
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
I work for an electronics company with a world leading lighting divsion, and I can tell you we're moving to solid state lighting (of which OLED is a form) as fast we can. It's clearly the way of the future.
Obviously we're worried somebody else will take away our lighting market share by bringing out the killer-led-app. However, there's no question of "buying up IP and sitting on it". This playing field is as open as it gets in the industry.
I know OLED displays are currently in research stage, but why isn't anyone making displays out of normal LEDs? LEDs being semiconductor components like transistors, shouldn't it be easy enough to miniaturize them to be small enough to be pixels? Or don't they emit enough light at such small sizes? Why do you need them to be organic to be suitable for displays?
Replace the light switch with a dimmer and your bulb will last MUCH longer, even if you always use it to max. That's because the kick the filament receives when turned on is aliviated. Even if you turn it to maximum very fast, it's still a lot slower then the switch. I used to buy replacement bulbs every now and then. Since I put dimmers all around the house, and that was five years ago, just two bulbs died.
factor 966971: 966971
It's much more down to earth: there's a simple relationship between light yield and lifetime (from wikipedia:
- Light output is approximately proportional to V^3.4
- Power consumption is approximately proportional to V^1.6
- Lifetime is approximately inversely proportional to V^16
More light for your watt means the bulb burns out more quickly. They are now tuned for 1000 hours, which -mind you- means about $10 in electricity during the lifetime. If you want to increase the lifetime, put it on a dimmer.Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
the same manufactures doing a couple of things.
1. Putting out all sorts of products using OLEDs, expanding beyond what we conceive of light being used for
2. Putting out specialty incadescents/flourescents that fill the gaps in the first
If anything this expands their market and an innovative company will take off. Not all lighted items need to provide illumination that is bright enough to read by. A lot can be done with highlights, accenting areas with different shades and such. Accent lighting will be a big, replacing LEDs that are currently trying to edge into that market. All the business uses will help as well. It would be far much easier to use these for instore billboards than the flourescent lit displays so common today.
Now another area is backgrounds. Better for business use than home, though some may use it in homes. Can't imagine my home looking like 1999's moonbase but I can see walls in certain types of businesses where the whole area is covered and changed in color for events and such.
Lighting products are not all about letting you see things, some exist to be seen
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Sounds like Dave Bowman's bedroom in the last few minutes of 2001. (Too bad we can't post pictures here... thanks again "goatse.cx" commies for ruining things.)
I suggest you read Slashdot
... and these are going to be very expensive lightbuibs.
Now I realize costs of manufacturing in places like China will be much lower in the US, but the hole transport material we used had expensive catalyst requirements which wouldn't scale up over 10kgs. I think I solved that problem before getting laid off (thanks guys) but when all is said and done, this stuff sold for $20-$200 / gram. The dopants, which make the colours, sold for 10x that amount and were even MORE difficult to make (small scale chem lab and uniquely tailored equipment).
Biggest issue in the states? Environmental laws.
Anyways, a single water molecule would destroy an OLED device evntually. I have little hope for that ever being fixed.
Expensive lightbulbs... huh. Who'd figure.
There is a difference with Flourescent tubes: a lot of people hate them (I hate the attribution a lot of people... but hey).
Flourescent tubes give off a crappy light that makes a lot of people ill...
And I really think this is too hard on them re the qualifiers. "Eventually" they think they can hit 100% efficiency. And both the other qualifiers are on the last remaining problem: protection from water.
As for cost, I can think of a few reasons the cost on LED screens might drop faster than the discrete kind.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
how many OLEDs does it take to replace a lightbulb.
Q: How many marketing guys does it take to change a wafer-thin sheet of organic material coating your home's wall?
A: However many it takes to convince you that *this* is easier than just changing an ordinary incandescent bulb.
seriously though, i can't wait. i want my whole house to light up.
Sorry.. I'll go back to my work now..
Damnit, now I am going to be blinded even more at the lan parties I go to.
Read about Conservation of Energy. I remember learning about it in High School Science class. What it means in this context, essentially, is that any system for conversion of energy (for example the incandescant light bulb, which converts electricity to light and heat) is 100% efficient, no more, no less. However, if you only want the light, and don't care for the heat, this is less than 100% efficient for your purposes. But no energy is disappearing. The conversion of one form of energy to multiple other types is not necessarilly mandatory, however. The conversion of energy to undesirable heat in an incandescant light bulb is inherent in it's design, but this is not necessarilly true in all designs. It may be quite possible to create a device which converts electrical energy into only one, desirable form of energy. (Although, in reality, even the copper wires leading to the device will lose a small amount of energy)
Ahh... but a dimmer means the bulb is not running at it's most efficient point, and so you use more electricity per lumen.
Which gets us to the real reason light bulbs don't have drastically longer lives... tuning a light bulb so it has a longer life means that it has significantly lower energy efficiency. Those "long life" light bulbs you see in the supermarket usually end up costing you more in the long run. They do make some sense to use them in a situation where they are difficult or even dangerous to replace, but then you would be wise to consider compact flourescent as they last VASTLY longer and use significantly less energy. And that "bad light" and "flicker that makes people sick" is pretty much an artifact of the past. Newer tubes and bulbs have much cleaner light.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
I've had a closer look at some fluorescents and they have something like 7 or 8 different dyes. You can look at the spectrum by reflection from a CD, for example. There's a clear difference between the continuous spectrum of incandescent bulbs and the discrete one of fluorescents.
For one thing the latter is throwing off quite a bit of light energy you are never going to see.
This three-component LED sounds even worse; on the other hand, the component spectra might be relatively wide.
You do realise that the device you used to write this on uses "component spectra". Also that the human eye works in just this way...
For those of you that do not know what an OLED is, or want an better explanation of 'em: http://science.howstuffworks.com/oled.htm
you would be wise to consider compact flourescent as they last VASTLY longer and use significantly less energy. And that "bad light" and "flicker that makes people sick" is pretty much an artifact of the past. Newer tubes and bulbs have much cleaner light.
IIRC flourescent lamps are more efficent at producing light when run on RF AC compared with AF AC. You are also most unlikely to notice any flickering (or stroboscopic effect) at a few hundred kHz
Somone said similar about the transistor, so I am trying to repeat history, hoping I'll be proved wrong. I can remember all those years ago when we were promised laser home lighting, brighter than the mid-day sun, consuming very little power and everlasting. Obviously not an attractive business model when stacked against the under-rated fuses that pass for light bulbs. Here's hoping some startup can gain the finance to bring OLED lights to market in a big way.
The main reason is that the power supply can be much smaller when running at 10 kHz or so compared to 50 Hz. In the latter case, it is a ballast in series with the tube, consisting of a big and heavy induction coil. In the former, it is more like a switching power supply. More expensive components (at least if you only need to convert a few watts), but also much smaller. RF can mean anything between 3 Hz and 300 GHz.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
OLEDs are not going to replace light bulbs anytime soon. According to this article OLEDs are putting out about 25 lumens per watt of energy input. Compact fluorescent bulbs currently put out about 40 - 50 lumens per watt, and HID lighting (e.g., mercury vapor and metal halide) put out from 70 - 150 lumens per watt. So, if New Scientist is correct, HID lighting is up to 600% MORE efficient than OLED. The thing that makes OLED interesting is that it can be applied to any surface, but they are not more efficient than light sources we already have.
How many (insert name here) does it take to change an organic light-emitting diode?
Over to you for the punchline...
Old time lightbulbs might be expensive to use but they have a bunch of advantages compared to todays energy efficient bulbs. First of all the energy efficient bulbs and fluorescent lights, emits fever colors of light and it gets harder to see colors under their light. Second, they have a fast flicker that you do not see directly but that the brain can detect. Studies have shown that this light raises your stress level(both because of the color and flickering) and are really bad in an enviroment where you have to concentrate.
Since it is LEDs, it should be possible to make them flickerless. But I don't know about frequency of the light waves from LCDs. If they could use LEDs in different colors, it might be possible to limit the problem with not seeing the right colors.
Light-up outerwear is already easy and cheap. You can power 10 feet of EL wire with two AA batteries and a tiny portable inverter. That's more than enough to light up a jacket.
Usually with #4 it is because it is patented that inventions don't see the light of day, because the conspirators buy the patent or intimidate the patent owner into inaction, or the patent owner is frozen out of the market, or the patent owner is a little bit paranoid, etc. Then when the patent expires, people go, "If the patent was any good, the product would have been successful. Yet another flaw of the current patent system.
The OLEDs do not heat up like today's light bulbs and so are far more energy efficient and should last longer.
Yes, but does it create a nice black-body spectrum curve like conventional light bulbs?
Most people like warm cross-spectrum light because it resembles sunlight, I didn't RTA but 'a brilliant white light' sounds like fluorescent to me. Not a very 'natural' alternative.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
The article says that these lights should last significantly longer than traditional light bulbs. That language implies it doesn't last indefinitely, but how long does it last? Is it a huge task to replace the light? I mean--if the whole ceiling is a light... I mean, it just better last a really long time, if it's tough to replace.
Once they figure out how to produce this stuff cheaply, the bacteria will get hold of it and the whole planet will become brilliant.
Then we'll have to invent artificial darkness to get away from the everpresent glow.
I rather like flourescent light. It's not so harsh and yellow.
The sensitivity of the eye to R, G, or B is relatively wide-spectrum compared to LEDs. which are nearly monochromatic. For display purposes, tight spectra work well, but when used for lighting of objects which have narrow reflecivity spectra which do not match the spectra of the lights, the colors appear distorted, often severely. For example, an oil slick which appears as a continuous rainbow in sunlight will appear as a series of RGB bands under an RGB LED light. A more common case is poor color accuracy of items dyed with highly saturated non-primary color dyes: if a dye only reflects magenta, for instance, but not blue or red, it will appear grey under RGB light. (I'm glossing over complications with how different kinds of coloring agents and methods actually work which don't relly affect the essential concept.)
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
There is no patent protecting this invention
Wouldn't it make more sense if there was a patent protecting it? If the conspirators held the patent and buried it, nobody would be able to bring the product to market.
Granted, it would be less secret, assuming you knew where in the millions of patents to look to find it.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Hemp is even cheaper and more readily renewable than wood. Personally I think it makes higher quality paper. Why doesn't the US smarten up and start pushing this as an alternative to clear cutting acres and acres of land. It also makes an excellent rotation crop because of the lack of pests.
it is evil and green
You must be some kind of terrorist, to be putting down the War on Drugs like that. Why doesn't everyone understand that it's all for their own damn good? Do we have to beat it into them, or what?!
Because the paper companies did kill the commercial growing of hemp.
However, the environmental problem of "clear cutting forests" isn't as big as is typically let on by envirowackos. We have more forest in the US now than we've had since the 1930s, and that amount is still increasing. Even with all the logging going on, there's more forest now than for most of the previous century in fact. So we're not exactly going to run out of trees, they seem to be functioning as a pretty good renewable resource. In the US anyway.
Optimist: The thumb drive is half empty! Pessimist: The thumb drive is half full...
addition to sig:
Auditor: You've bought a thumbdrive that is twice as big as what you need...
The fluorescent light bulb is very old, with history reaching back to the late 19th century (along with the incandescent lamp / light bulb). And General Electric, Thomas Edison's company, bought the patent for the fluorescent light bulb in 1938.
If a company can say to its customers, "with our lights, you will pay [xx]% less in power and cooling costs, and by the way, our lights last longer and look more natural," do you think that knowledge will go away? I think it's in everyone's interest to continue to innovate, especially when that innovation reduces the need for power and natural resources -- hot topics today. And if the lights do look more natural than fluorescent, then people will be much happier in buildings. I know I hate the flickering oppressive light that comes from fluorescent bulbs.
Look at America Online: they make more money when people use their dial-up service, but do you think that they, even though they were the biggest name in internet access at one time, could have stopped broadband? In a free market economy, perhaps the lowest common denominator is greed, and in this case, it would work perfectly to bring us the technology regardless of who owns it. Companies buy up patents and technologies in order to sell them, all the time. And hopefully our laws against taking advantage of a monopoly would prevent a company from buying patents and sitting on them.
Okay, I'm just a cynical old coot with an "otaku" streak, but I'll believe this when I see OLED stands around the Akihabara train station. If Akihabara is still there by then...
OLEDs ARE MADE OF PEOPLE
The same is true for almost everything that I think organic semiconductors will be used in the future. Take solar cells for example. A silicon solar cell will propably have a much better efficency then organic for quite some time. But that won't matter once the organic cells are down to a fraction of the price per square meter.
You don't have to wait for OLED to be widely available. You can experiment with them now: http://mrsec.wisc.edu/Edetc/nanolab/oLED/index.htm l
-CF
1. There is no patent protecting this invention...
...AND
Yet. People try and often succeed in patenting stuff that has been around for decades. Until someone puts forward the effort ($$$$$$$$$$$$) to prove them wrong that party will hold the patent on the obvious and use it against people who only have this ($$).
2. The consumer demand for this invention will be high... BECAUSE
3. It can be effectively used as a substitute for normal lightbulbs
4. It's more cost effective than normal lightbulbs (e.g. initial cost + lifetime eneregy spend is less for OLEDs than normal lightbulbs)
Because look how compact flourescent lights have totally wiped the inferior incandescent out of the marketplace! Unless these OLED bulbs are going to be cheap (retail price, not retail devided by lifespan) compared to incandescent bulbs, people will just keep buying what they have been. And new hotness tech is never cheap, even if it is cheap to produce.
Although I don't think the anti-trust laws would protect against not using a patent, I do think that it is unlikely they would buy up the patent. OLED's are already being used in other areas, and power and lighting companies have taken part in the research. I have a feeling they would use the patent if they got it, because if I remember correctly, OLED's are cheaper to manufacture than light bulbs are.
20 - 19 processed people to make the sheet and 1 guy named Joe to install it.
I have nothing to say.
"... emits a brilliant white light when attached to an electricity supply."
Holly hell, noone has done THAT before!
what do you feed them?
_______
DIY Linux virus removal:
1) [root@localhost ~]# rm -rf /
Flourescent tubes give off a crappy light that makes a lot of people ill...
Indeed. I had a friend in college who could be induced to grand mal seizures by a flickering flourescent bulb.
There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
I'll be damned if I'm going to replace my office ceiling every few months.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Flourescent tubes give off a crappy light
This might have been the case at one time, but its pretty easy to get full-spectrum flourescent bulbs that put out light that is very similar to daylight, and easier to work under than incandescent.
You might know them better under their Supervillain name - "The Idea Men".
SPOOOOOOON!!!
Fluorescent bulbs that fit your regular lamps and such are kind of expensive, around $3-5 each for the ones that give off as much light as the old incandescent 100w bulbs. And about $2-3 for ones equale to 60w bulbs. Although you end up saving money later on your electricity bill and from buying new bulbs to make up for them.
I've already started replacing a lot of my old bulbs with the fluorescent spirally ones in the house. They don't give off as much heat either. I've seen regular LED lightbulbs for sale for regular fixtures but they are around $30+ each and I'm not even sure they have the same lumens a 100w bulb has.
However, the environmental problem of "clear cutting forests" isn't as big as is typically let on by envirowackos. We have more forest in the US now than we've had since the 1930s, and that amount is still increasing.
Note that "forest" is far too vague a word to be very meaningful -- untouched old-growth forest is a very different thing than, for instance a mono-culture of non-native trees planted at some absurdly high density. Which you prefer of course, depends on your values and goals (the most horrid examples I've seen were tree plantations in Scotland whose apparent purpose was to abuse the tax laws!).
We live, as we dream -- alone....
Modern displays (excluding most projectors) use spatial color mixing to make different colors. Take a magnifying glass to a CRT monitor, a TV, or an LCD monitor; you will notice that every color is made by displaying red, green, and blue dots with varying levels of brightness closely next to each other. Once you step back far enough, it looks like each color is represented by a single dot on the display, but this is not actually the case.
What kind of crazy geek would want that?
Staring at a white background [on a computer screen] while you read is like staring at a light bulb — Maddox
I have found that I particularly like certain varities of flourescent bulb over any other type of light source. I like those in the range of 5800-6300K best. There is a certain comfort when the light has a certain characteristic spectrum (and not one mimicing daylight, but more like "overcast sky").
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
A patent holder doesn't need any conspirators to prevent something from coming to market. The holder simply doesn't implement the patented thing and sues anyone who does... at least for the lifespan of the patent. No conspiracy needed.
... Maybe the standard lightbulb division even has a higher profit margin. What you lose in profit margin transferring one customer to OLEDs you gain back by getting a customer each from Sylvania and Phillips and ...
But this doesn't seem very likely to happen. Even if the OLED patent holder is a well entrenched company with many business units, some of which would lose out with the development of the new product. In the lighting business this might be GE. If OLEDs are great enough that they draw customers away from GE's primary lightbulb product, then they're also great enough to draw customers away from all of GE's competitor's products. For every customer that transfers from GE's standard lightbulb division, you gain a customer from each of Sylvania and Phillips and
I don't see much incentive for a patent holder to sit on a product in high demand by the market.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
The organic light-emitting diode (OLED) emits a brilliant white light when attached to an electricity supply. The material could transform walls, ceilings or even furniture into lights.
Yes, I definitally want my walls to have an electrical current.
Property is theft.
I am unfortunately not certain where you would research such a thing, but according to one of my friends the idea that there are more forests in the USA now than there were in the past is something of a half-truth. The reason why is because the old deciduous forests were cut down for wood, and when loggers etc. replant trees they plant the fast-growing pines instead. So, yes there are more sheer numbers of trees now than in the past, but it's questionable whether you can compare a fast-growing 20-year old pine tree with the hundred-plus year old oaks etc. that used to be there.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
There has to be Supply concurrent with demand. There is an amount of time between the time a patent becomes known and the time it can be supplied in which shenanigans can be played.
Increasing order always costs energy.
I can think of no system that converts energy from one form to another with 100% efficiency. There is always a loss
Unless your energy conversion decreases order.
Anyway, where does this "energy loss" go to and who says it's a loss wrt to light generation?
Hemp used for commercial fiber purposes has no narcotic value what so ever. A matter of fact it is likely to give you a ver bad headache and nothing else. To use the war on drugs as a reason not to commerially grow a very useful product is a ludicrous proposal. Canada has been doing it for years. The plants even look completely different when spotted from the air. If they use that as an excuse for not wanting it to be grown then I worry more about the federal agents who are supposed to be able to discern the difference and the education level of said federal agents.
There is no patent protecting this invention...
If anything the patent would make it easier to stifle. Just buy the patent and sit on it. The patent would prevent anyone from using the new competing format for many years. Actually this is an economically viable strategy in a case where the industry really would be hurt by new tech. In this case I'm not so sure that it will be disruptive. Generally patent protected new tech is so expensive as not to significantly effect the market for many, many years. This sounds like just a remarketing press release that says nothing new. LEDs of any breed are not likely to replace the flourescent/incandescent market for at least a decade. Nothing to see here.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
that the powercos hate having to expand capacity (high upfront cost that takes a LONG time to pay off) and they are often limited in how much they can push up prices to try and reduce demand by government regulation.
at least here in the uk some powercos seem to be actively pushing cfls
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
You do realise that the device you used to write this on uses "component spectra". Also that the human eye works in just this way...
the thing is while two lights may look the same under direct viewing that doesn't mean that surfaces will respond to them in the same way.
monitors are direct viewing so there is no reason to care about CRI
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
You'd be surprised how much traditional forest is growing back. A lot of what was farmland is no longer in use as such, and has simply gone back to forest. I live in the middle of such. 100 years ago this was all clearcut, tilled farmland with only a few trees. Now there are trees everywhere. Not pine either, but oak, poplar, red bud, and other such trees. And it's incredibly thick too.
The managed logging tree farms using pine generally are....well...static, they exist in particular areas which can be harvested again and again without worry because they can just be replanted. The other areas that are logged, are generally not clearcut, but instead had loggers only taking certain trees within the forest, leaving room for already growing trees that wouldn't have room to thrive to grow in and take their place. I live in an area with a fair amount of logging and this is the type that happens here, no clearcutting of forests, just managed cutting. Often of dying or dead trees.
You're right, of course, that owning the patent would make it easier to stifle. But as I've said before, I'm skeptical that any patent holder would do this. Owning a patent provides an incentive for reaping the rewards associated with a highly demanded idea.
I'm more likely to believe that low demand prevents widespread adoption of new ideas rather than patent holders sitting on them or industry conspiracies squelching them. But I'm open to examples where such a thing happened.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.