CORK, Ireland--William Henry, an applications specialist at Ireland's Tyndall National Institute, can't tell you exactly how long one of the miniature LEDs the organization has developed will emit light. But it's a long time.
The micro LED--which is significantly smaller than conventional light-emitting diodes--requires only a few billionths of an amp to operate. Thus, it can survive for quite a while on a limited power source. One of the researchers on the project had one running constantly for two-and-a-half years on his desk. Then someone damaged it while moving it around. One member of the group calculated that it could last 80 years (assuming no accidents) on the power stored in a coin-size battery.
A microLED photographed under a microscope
"We can produce visible light from nanoamps," Henry said.
Miniature is the keyword in the FLAME project, which stands for "future lighting applications for miniature entities." The micro LED measures only 15 microns across, far smaller than the 300 microns of a conventional LED. (A micron is a millionth of a meter).
Smaller devices generally consume less power than larger ones. The device is also more efficient at extracting light from the power put into it than standard LEDs, which means that it also emits less heat. Although the light from LEDs tends to be cool, the back of diodes, which are chips, do get hot. Venture capitalists have been showering the LED industry with investments in the past few years because many believe the chips will replace conventional lights.
Tyndall will initially likely try to market the device as an alternative to lasers, particularly in medical equipment. Lasers are far from perfect. They wear out, they create safety problems for people handling them, and they can also produce heat, a problem when you are trying to harvest or examine fluid or tissue samples from a patient. By contrast, these micro LEDs could be placed at the tip of fiber-optic probes or used inside chips designed for examining blood samples without changing the state of the materials it is studying.
The small size could also open the door to some commercial applications. One idea floating around the lab is to embed these tiny devices into shoes or tickets to prevent counterfeiting. (Pink Floyd put an LED in a CD case once. It flickered on every few seconds to remind you that you own it.)
I asked if I could take a picture of one of the prototypes; instead, I received the official photograph of some of the pixels. A while back, the institute obtained a fancy camera to shoot a picture of a micro LED while it was turned off, but in all of the close-ups it got washed out in the background when it wasn't emitting light. Eventually, they just put it under a microscope and got the image from there.
I've always preferred prognostication to nostalgia, so rather than replay the best of 2007, I'll use these late December doldrums to make 10 predictions for the coming year. Some editors will warn you that this kind of list is suicide--it's too easy for everybody to look back a year later and see where you were wrong--but it hasn't hurt Cringely, so here goes. In no particular order.
DRM will die. The trendline is clear--Apple's been selling DRM-free tunes on iTunes since May, Amazon's DRM-free MP3 store has three of the four majors signed up, and eMusic has become the second-most-popular music download service (after iTunes) thanks in part to its longstanding insistence on selling DRM-free MP3s. A year from now, DRM will be irrelevant and hardly used in digital music. All four labels will agree sell their songs without DRM on Amazon. Nearly every iTunes audio (but not video) file will be DRM-free, and Apple will get rid of the "Plus" designation. Some music subscription services like Rhapsody and Microsoft's Zune Pass might retain DRM so that users can't cancel their subscriptions and keep the songs they've downloaded, but they'll be the last holdouts--and some of them might try eMusic's approach of limiting monthly downloads rather than limiting compatibility and usage with DRM.
3G iPhone and iTunes. A 3G iPhone is a fairly safe prediction, given that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson already let it slip, but I think there'll still be a small surprise embedded in the announcement: iTunes 3G, a service that will come with the phone and give users anytime-anywhere downloads of any audio content in the iTunes Music Store. Impulse buying will go through the roof.
No Zune phone. Microsoft won't release an iPhone competitor this year--at least not one with hardware designed by Microsoft. The company might release some sort of software update or client application that allows Windows Mobile users to play songs from the Zune Marketplace and transfer them from the Zune PC client software to their phones, but even that probably won't happen until 2009. And it'll sink like a lead balloon against v3 of the iPhone, at which point Microsoft will bend to the inevitable and start building its own phone from scratch.
GarageBand will win a Grammy. Not the program itself, but somebody will make a record using Apple's Garage Band--which comes included with every Macintosh sold--as their primary recording and mixing tool, and that record will win a Grammy award. There's already been a critically acclaimed movie, Tarnation, made exclusively with iMovie, so now it's time for all those bedroom musicians to get into the do-it-yourself spotlight.
Mashups will go mainstream. Have mashups already jumped the shark? The controversy about The Grey Album, in which DJ Danger Mouse combined lyrics from Jay-Z's Black Album and The Beatles' untitled white album, is almost four years old. There was a burst of experimentation from big-time artists like David Bowie and Beck around the same time, but not much since 2005. Nonetheless, I predict that artists and even some labels will begin re-releasing their back catalogs as standalone instrumental and vocal tracks, and fans will recombine like crazy using programs like Garage Band and Splice. At least one mashup will get significant radio play, with the complete approval of the original artists. (Although you might say that Puff Daddy accomplished this 10 years ago.) They might even be incorporated into video games like Rock Band--imagine the challenge of having to sing Abba while the rest of the band plays Judas Priest. By the end of 2008, putting a mere song on your social-networking profile will seem hopelessly old-fashioned.
The campaign--don't call it "marketing"--that preceded Nine Inch Nails' Year Zero release will become the gold standard for building audience engagement for tours, albums, or new artists.
Year Zero will become the precedent. On the plane trip home from visiting family over Christmas, I read Eric Davis's analysis of Led Zeppelin's fourth album, part of the 33 1/3 book series. While a lot of it seemed like a stretch--as is the case with any highly intellectualized deconstruction of rock music--it did remind me of a certain sensation created by certain artists and albums, a sense that the listener is more than a mere consumer, but is in fact an active member in a secret club that only other members fully understand, a sort of musical Masonic society. Think of that Zeppelin album, the Grateful Dead, the Residents, or Secret Chiefs 3. In 2007, Trent Reznor, working with 42 Entertainment, took this kind of mystical clubbishness and updated it for the digital era. USB drives with leaked tracks from the upcoming Year Zero record were surreptitiously placed in bathroom stalls at concert venues. Phone numbers with frightening secret messages were encoded in bursts of static or out-of-phase audio signals. Cell phones were distributed to fans who figured out some of the clues; a phone call placed to those phones summoned them to a secret concert. In 2008, we'll see more of these kinds of musical events that use digital technology to break down the wall between audience and artist.
The world's best offline record store will go online. There's nothing else like Amoeba Records. Its three locations in Berkeley, San Francisco, and Los Angeles offer unsurpassed selection--including cellophane-packaged vinyl I've never seen anywhere else--and seem to be curated by music fans with amazing depth and breadth of knowledge. In 2007, Amoeba took its first tentative steps into digital distribution, releasing exclusive recordings from Gram Parsons and Brandi Shearer in both MP3 and CD formats. In 2008, I predict Amoeba will finally go online in a huge way, offering an unsurpassed quantity of MP3 downloads from every imaginable source: major labels (like Amazon MP3 and the other high-profile stores), independent labels (like eMusic), and do-it-yourselfers (like CDBaby). Look for the nascent Amoeba label to offer distribution on terms never before seen in the recording industry--more of a non-exclusive commission model like CD Baby than a typical all-inclusive marketing-recording-publishing-distribution deal like most labels have favored--and for several high-profile artists who've recently quit their labels to sign on.
The loudness wars will end. It's been repeated so many times, it's become a cliche: today's recordings are mastered too loud, eliminating dynamic range and making it hard to listen to a complete album. In 2008, artists and producers will finally begin to demand a return to proper mastering, and radio stations and record execs will be in no position to contradict them.
The concert business will follow the recorded music business down. It's a bad time to be a big rock concert promoter like Live Nation. According to a recent story in Pollstar, the concert business actually declined in 2007, despite high-profile reunion tours by The Police and Van Halen and David Lee Roth--two acts with so much internal strife that nobody expected to see them on stage again. I say the 15 percent drop in ticket revenues from 2006 to 2007 will be followed by the same or greater drop next year. Music fans are fed up with exorbitant ticket prices, false scarcity, and quasi-legal scalpers, and there are only so many more nostalgia acts to trot out. Where are the young bands that can sell out 20,000-seat arenas for the next 5, 10, 20 years? (And before you call me out on the Arctic Monkeys, let me just counter with Oasis. Huge in the U.K., briefly popular in the U.S., and irrelevant to all but the die-hardest of fans 10 years later.) In other words, the concert business is about to suffer from the main problem that's hurting the recording industry--not MP3s, not piracy, but lack of interest and investment in artists with long-term (as opposed to instant) commercial potential.
Led Zeppelin will play again, but not tour. Speaking of nostalgia, it won't be 1973, but the reunited Led Zeppelin will play a handful of shows in the U.S., focusing on a multi-night stand at New York's Madison Square Garden timed around Robert Plant's 60th birthday on August 20.
So Warner Music isn't as petty as I thought it was. According to this story in Billboard, Warner didn't ask for YouTube to remove videos of the recent Led Zeppelin show from YouTube. Rather, it was a company called GrayZone, which has been authorized to issue takedown notices on behalf of Warner. In this case, GrayZone acted on presumption, and YouTube's automated system inaccurately attributed the notices to Warner.
This makes an interesting point: under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the copyright owner is responsible for policing each violation and requesting its takedown. (I'm not a lawyer, but the relevant section in the act seems to be: "The burden of providing written notice of design protection shall be on the owner of the design.") So it's not enough for Warner to say "remove all videos of any band signed to Warner" or even "remove all videos of Led Zeppelin's December 10 concert." Rather, they have to point out each copyrighted work individually. That's a lot of work, which is why they've apparently outsourced the job to GrayZone.
No word on whether YouTube will automatically restore the videos, but I think not--users probably will have to repost them. And of course it's still possible that another party--the show's promoters, the owner of the venue, the band, or its management, even Warner (for real this time)--might ask for them to be taken down. In the meantime, LiveLeak has a few videos (thanks to Wired's Listening Post and Salon's Machinist blogs for the tip).
As a longtime Led Zeppelin fan, I was excited to tune into last night's reunion show in London. Strangely, the show wasn't broadcast anywhere--not even on LedZeppelin.com. Surely somebody could have sold some advertising for such a popular event, and if the promoters objected, they could have donated the proceeds to the Ahmet Ertegun Educational Fund (where funds from ticket sales went).
Screenshot from a YouTube video of last night's Led Zeppelin reunion show. How long before it's taken down?
(Credit: YouTube)Fortunately, that's what YouTube is for. Unfortunately, as quickly as fans post their videos (taken on cellphones?) on YouTube, Warner Music Group asks for them to be taken down.
This is completely incomprehensible to me. The YouTube videos aren't competing against anything--there's no DVD or recording to satisfy the approximately 24.98 million of us who applied for tickets and didn't get them. And even if there were an official recording, these amateur YouTube clips would serve to whet our appetite for the real thing. And it's not like the band sucked--every review I've read so far has been surprisingly positive, with a few naysayers racing to point out the obvious. (Zeppelin? Playing long, downbeat blues rock songs? No way! I wonder if Johnny Rotten's heard.) So if there's actually going to be a tour, why not build excitement further by giving fans a few glimpses of what might be in store?
Zeppelin fans and curiosity seekers: head over to The Daily Swarm and check out the 2nd video on this page quickly, before Warner asks for it to be taken down. (I'd insert it myself, but if it's in fact a copyright infringement, I'm sure CNET won't approve.) If it's already gone when you get there, here's what you wanted to know: it's a suprisingly half-decent recording of "Stairway to Heaven," Jimmy Page is playing it like the original (he's dropped those annoying extra riffs you can hear on official live Zeppelin recordings like The Song Remains The Same), and Robert Plant did not ask "does anyone remember laughter?" Presumably, he figured out the answer on his own.
Relatedly, I enjoy reading Bob Lefsetz, even when I disagree with him, but today's post just seems like sour grapes. I was eight years old the last time Zeppelin came to town, yet they were just as much a part of my life in high school as they were in yours. So why shouldn't I get a chance to see them? If you don't like it, stay home. Please. That'll be one less guy yelling "down in front" through the whole show.
Incandescent bulbs are getting it from all sides these days.
Taiwan may soon join the list of national and state governments to impose regulations that lead to the demise of traditional incandescent bulbs. Neal Hunter, CEO of LED Lighting Fixtures (LLF), says there are rumors in the lighting world that Taiwan will pass legislation that would phase out incandescents by 2011 or 2012. Sporadic reports in Taiwanese papers have come out saying that the Ministry of Economic Affairs wants to get rid of incandescents too.
Taiwan will also promote LEDs as the light source of choice for the future, he added during a presentation at the ThinkEquity ThinkGreen conference.
While Hunter said he hasn't been able to confirm the status of any bills, it makes sense. Incandescents consume quite a bit of energy. Close to 95 percent of the power gets converted into heat, rather than light. Taiwan, like other Asian nations, is struggling with ways to get consumers to cut down on electrical consumption. LEDs and compact fluorescent bulbs use considerably less energy and last longer, although they cost more.
Taiwan also plays a key role in the LED market. LEDs are chips, after all, and Taiwan remains one of the chief centers of semiconductor design and manufacturing. Supporting LEDs would be another of the country's job and export creation measures.
LLF, by the way, is a company worth keeping an eye on. It makes light fixtures based around LEDs. It has installed LED lights at McDonald's, Denny's, Starbucks, Marriott, Best Western, and Microsoft.
At $75, LED light fixtures cost more than standard light figures, but they use a lot less power. LLF just came out with a fixture that puts out the same amount of light a 65 incandescent bulb would, but it only uses 5.8 watts.
"Last year the best we could do was 11 watts," he said.
The quality of light is getting better, as well. "The current perception is a bunch of little lights shining through a fixture," he said. "The only way to make it (commercially) is so that people don't know the difference."
To take the sting out of the cost of the fixtures, utilities have begun to issue rebates to customers to encourage them to buy LED lamps. One is offering commercial building owners a little over $22 for each LED lamp they install. LLF also has LED lamps for the residential market, but the market will take a little longer to take off.
The company is also staffed and run by LED veterans. Hunter himself used to be the CEO of Cree, a large LED manufacturer.
I used to love her...
(Credit: CNET Networks Inc.)It was bound to happen--I just didn't expect it so soon. I plunked down for a MacBook on Black Friday and now, not a week after receiving it, rumors are circulating that new and improved models are on the way. DigiTimes reports today that two Taiwanese manufactures, Kenmos Technology and Taiwan Nano Electro-Optical Technology (Nano-Op), have signed on to supply Apple and Dell with LED-backlit displays. LCDs that use LED backlights instead of traditional fluorescent lamps are thinner and more energy efficient.
Here I am, still in the honeymoon phase with my MacBook--we stayed up late last night for a torrid iMovie session--and now I'm wishing she was thinner and ran longer. Yikes, this post is starting to sound a bit off color. Let us return to the story. Apple has reportedly validated Nano-Op's 13.3 LED backlit unit (BLUs), and Nano-Op has already begun shipping 12.1-inch BLUs to Dell (for an updated XPS M1210?). While this report wouldn't appear to bring about the return of a 12-inch Apple laptop that many have been pining for, a 13-inch MacBook that shed a pound or so from its 5-pound weight and come in under an inch thick would certainly be a highly (if not ultra-) portable laptop. MacBook Pros got LED backlights earlier this year; the 15-inch model delivered awesome battery life and weighs only 5.3 pounds.
Both Nano-Op and Kenmos expect an increase in their BLU shipments by the end of the year and in Q1 of next year. Sounds like the timing is just right for Steve to take the stage on January 15 with a new MacBook under this arm. Until then, I'll enjoy these next six weeks with my state-of-the-art MacBook.
[Via AppleInsider]
North Carolina's LED Lighting Fixtures has received a $16.5 million injection as the push to bring light-emitting diodes to the home gains momentum.
The company makes light fixtures for commercial buildings and homes around LEDs. LEDs consume far less energy than incandescent bulbs--LED Lighting Fixtures, for instance, sells a lighting unit, the LR6, that puts out 650 lumens but only consumes 12 watts. One or more LEDs can be combined into a single light fixture as well.
Individual LEDs are beginning to challenge compact florescent bulbs in lumens per watt. LEDs also last longer--some go as long as 50,000 hours before burning out--which reduces maintenance costs. You also don't have the messy mercury recycling problem you do with CFLs. Toronto, Ann Arbor, Mich., and Raleigh, N.C., have all launched initiatives to replace conventional light fixtures with LED fixtures and some builders are incorporating LED fixtures into new homes.
LEDs, however, are more expensive than CFLs or incandescent lamps. The price will go down over time because LEDs are chips and will take advantage of the economies of scale that come from mass manufacturing. Still, a five pack of LR6s goes for $130.
Other companies making LED lighting fixtures include Lemnis Lighting.
LED Lighting Fixtures gets its LEDs from Cree, which is also in North Carolina. The lead investor was Digital Power Capital.
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif.--So you've finally got your mitts on that 42-inch LCD TV you've been lusting after since last Christmas. Congratulations. The major television manufacturers would like to thank you for your business by finding ways to make your shiny new display look old and out of date very quickly.
SyntaxBrillian is making a 1080p LCD TV for mainstream consumers with the introduction of the Olevia 2 Series. Shown here at the DisplaySearch HDTV Conference is the 52-inch version, which will retail for $2,999.
(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET Networks)It's nothing personal, of course. But such is the nature of a commoditized and maturing industry like high-definition televisions. There are more than 70 TV brands on retail shelves competing for your dollars and eyeballs, and the only way to differentiate themselves is to keep tweaking the technology.
Lucky for consumers, this drive for innovation not only means better picture quality, thinner displays and lower power consumption, but potentially lower prices too.
OLED (organic light-emitting diodes) TVs are coming very soon. Sony made it official October 1 that its first OLED TV, measuring a mere 3 millimeters thick, will be available in Japan for approximately $1,739. The problem is that's the price for the 11-inch display, the only size available at first. The high price comes from the poor yields of OLED panels, according to Ross Young, president of DisplaySearch.
"With significant improvement in yields, they could get to the $1,000 price point next Christmas," he told attendees here at the DisplaySearch HDTV Conference. Because of Sony's leadership, Samsung, LG.Phillips and Toshiba are sure to follow using OLED technology in their televisions. But the market for these new sets won't actually experience real growth until 2009, and by 2011, the largest screen sizes will be hovering close to 32 inches at a price of $1,200, Young added. In contrast, LCDs should be below $500 by then.
Though it lacks a fun acronym like seemingly every other display technology, plasma technology is also making vast improvements. So much is made of high-def LCD sets that it may come as a surprise to some that plasma isn't a dead technology yet.
A plasma set from Panasonic, the world's largest supplier of plasma TVs, showcased at the DisplaySearch HDTV Conference.
(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET News.com)The best resolution available, 1080p, is moving to smaller sizes of plasma sets. The main area of interest in bettering the technology is in luminous efficiency, which is a fancy way of measuring of how much of the light your eye can see that the TV puts out. Right now, plasma sets are at about 2.5 lumens per watt. Eventually the goal is 10 lumens per watt, but 5 lumens is far more likely in the near future.
The benefit of a higher luminous efficiency is that there will be fewer components necessary to build plasma sets, which in turn reduces costs, Young said. It can also reduce power consumption by up to 50 percent and reduce the heat coming off the TV. "Plasma has done a great job cutting costs," and will continue to do so over the next five years, he said.
Another hope for creating better brightness while reducing costs is the use of LED (light-emitting diodes) as light sources. Both Dolby and Texas Instruments are working on the technology to replace the main lamp in HD televisions. LEDs can improve picture contrast because the lights can be individually "dimmed," unlike the single lamp in a standard LCD TV. Darkening individual pixels helps eliminate color bleed and motion blur.
Dolby has several LED-related patents in the area of local dimming technology and high dynamic range. Pictured here is a demo display unit utilizing Dolby Vision (which allows for increased brightness) and Dolby Contrast, featured at the DisplaySearch HDTV Conference.
(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET News.com)Thus far, the challenge of LED TVs has been the brightness factor, said Adam Kunzman, HDTV manager for Texas Instruments.
"We're just now getting to...a bright enough picture. (Brightness in LED TVs) will essentially double next year," said Kunzman. He says right now 15 percent of all TVs sold using TI's DLP (digital light processing) technology use LED as a light source.
Dolby is focusing on using LEDs to create very high contrast ratios, using patented technology called Dolby Contrast. It is a dimming technology that can create very dark blacks and pure whites by turning down individual pixels as needed. As Bharath Rajagopalan, business line director for Dolby put it, "It's not just about black and white, it's about shades of gray," which standard LCD TVs struggle with.
The use of lasers in rear-projection TVs has been anticipated since Mitsubishi first announced its intention to release a laser-based TV last year. (Though some might not be eager to stare at a device projecting a laser beam, it's not as dangerous as it sounds.)
Mitsubishi's first product likely won't debut until early next year. In the meantime, TI is also working on laser-based TV technology. The benefits will be better color (it shows 171 percent of possible colors that the human eye can detect, according to TI's Kunzman), wider viewing angles and is capable of working with TI's 3D technology for televisions.
CHIBA, Japan--Dolby, the sound company, is getting into TVs.
The company is at Ceatec, the large Japanese trade show taking place here this week, to promote Dolby Contrast and Dolby Vision, two technologies (one currently real, one on the drawing board) to extend its reach into digital TV and cinema.
Both Dolby Contrast and Dolby Vision are essentially ways to apply the dimmer switch concept to light emitting diodes. LEDs are being increasingly used as the backlight in flat panel LCD TVs. Dolby Contrast allows the TV to dynamically adjust. One LED could go completely black while its neighbor could be full or high, or the two could offer light that creates slightly different shades of tan. "You get much better blacks," said Gaven Wang, senior video product manager at Dolby.
Dolby Contrast can be used on current LEDs while Dolby Vision is more of a long-term technology that will apply to LEDs that emit more lumens, or light, per watt.
Black has always been a problem for LCDs. As a result, the Dolby technology could heighten the competition with plasma. Plasma TVs do well with black, unlike conventional LCDs.
The technology, according to analyst Richard Doherty of Envisioneering, could even create a third category of displays. Interestingly, NXP Semiconductor, formerly Philips Semiconductor, has come up with a technology that functions differently but with similar results.
The problem now lies in finding customers. Dolby has no signed contracts yet to announce but hopes TVs employing the technology will come out next year or in 2009. The fact that Dolby is at Ceatec, where many of the world's largest TV makers are showing off their latest goods, shows, however, that the company is seeking the right people.
Dolby didn't invent this technology itself. It acquired it from a company called Brightside that it bought. But Dolby is no stranger to video. Founder Ray Dolby started out by developing a system for removing noise and artifacts out of black-and-white video footage. The industry went to color and Dolby went to black and white.
Dolby also demonstrated its 3D cinema technology. Theater owners pay about $26,000 for the system, which revolves around doing a software upgrade to digital servers. That price tag is relatively cheap, according to Dolby. The company's 3D technology will get a full international airing when Beowulf premieres later this year. Many 3D theaters will use Dolby's tech.
The Russian government has agreed to shut down Web site AllofMP3, which offers downloadable MP3 songs for a significant discount--20 cents per song or less--compared with stores such as Apple's iTunes.
The site was controversial because it paid royalties to a Russian organization that was not recognized by the record industry. In 2005, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) filed suit in Russian court to shut the site down, but its request was denied by Russian prosecutors. Now, apparently under pressure from U.S. trade representatives, who are pressing for stricter copyright enforcement before agreeing to admit Russia to the World Trade Organization, the Russian government has stepped in.
According to the TorrentFreak blog, AllofMP3 had 6 million customers before the shutdown. A couple years ago, I considered downloading some music from the site--mainly Led Zeppelin songs that I was too lazy to digitize from my record collection, and which aren't available in most online music stores--but I balked at sending my credit card number to a Russian organization that I wasn't completely familiar with.
The shutdown appears to have taken effect--the site is timing out as of 10 a.m. (Pacific) on July 3. Or maybe that's just everybody rushing to get a last few downloads in. Regardless, fans will simply migrate to one of the other discount MP3 sites, or just continue using file-sharing networks or Google to download free files.
Once again, everybody: audio CDs aren't copy-protected. That root problem is not going away.
