leds

Build It

A Six-Pack of "Light" Beer

Recycle some used bottles into a powerful set of solar-charged lanterns

Al Gore and company have helped us to see that our planet is in peril. Lend a hand, make a toast, and help illuminate ways for saving Earth -- all at the same time! It's easy to do your part: recycle, refill, and recharge.

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Cheap Tricks

How to Make an LED Flashlight

Turn a regular flashlight into a powerful LED torch that will run for years

There’s an inherent dilemma in purchasing a flashlight: The really bright and long-lasting LED models are pretty expensive, and the heavy, cheap traditional ones always seem to be dead just when you need them the most. Good thing it’s possible to build your own superbright, reliable and inexpensive hybrid light.

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Undersea Intelligence

Robotic jellyfish just like the real thing, but without the sting

All Together Now: AquaJellies are an experiment to create autonomous robots that can work alone or cooperatively.  AP Photo; Kai-Uwe Knoth
Swimming around in their tank, these autonomous robotic jellyfish move alone or in a swarm and communicate with their brethren to avoid underwater collisions. Developed by German industrial-automation company Festo as an attention-grabbing experiment in cooperative robotics, each AquaJelly uses eight bendable “tentacles” to propel itself forward.

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Smaller, Cooler LEDs for Medical Devices

An ultra-long-lasting LED could prove the solution to problematic lasers

MicroLED:  Tyndall National Institute,
Scientists at the Tyndall National Institute in Ireland have developed smaller, cooler light emitting diodes that they say could be useful in medical devices such as fiber optic probes.

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Salmon Sperm’s Bright Future

DNA from fish parts could lead to better TVs and cellphone displays

Bright Future:  G. Brad Lewis/Getty; Sony; Jim McIsaac/Getty
The fishing industry discards thousands of tons of salmon sperm every year (it ruins the taste). Now Andrew Steckl, a photonics expert at the University of Cincinnati, has figured out how to use the refuse to get a 10-fold boost in the brightness of the organic light-emitting diodes used in cellphones, PDAs and some TVs.

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Top-Notch Persistence of Vision


Another image from the day-one slide show I couldn't let get buried: James Nick Sears and his dad's amazing "persistence of vision" project, called the ORB. The ORB is hundreds of computer-controlled LEDs soldered into a ring that spins at an impressive 1,600 rpm. A computer synchronizes the LEDs to project animated digital images in full 3-D. —John Mahoney

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