Tag: LIGHT

We come across a lot of 'interesting' gadgets here at Switched HQ, but the Sneezerbeam has us especially confused. Spring is here and you're probably suffering from allergies. Not anymore -- get yourself a Sneezerbeam and jam the device up into your nasal cavities; it will blast your sniffer's cells with beams of concentrated light to keep them from releasing histamines, which trigger allergy ...

If you haven't already, replace your household light bulbs with Compact Fluorescent versions. If every American home switched just one bulb, it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions the same as pulling 800,000 cars off the road. As opposed to incandescent bulbs, CFL's last up to 10 times longer, use about 75-percent less energy, and will save you around $30 over its lifetime. On the downside, ...

Philips has been hitting us with some out-there lighting concepts lately, but the company's Master LED light bulb is actually already on sale in Europe and is set to brighten up Stateside lives around July. The 40W-equivalent bulbs should run between $50 and $70, and expected lifetime is set at 45,000 hours -- just slightly more than a CFL's 10,000 or a standard bulb's 750 hours. The Master is ...

We've heard the excuse a gazillion times: "Yo, I want to go solar, but like, where do you even buy this stuff? Oh snap, 0 percent financing on a Hummer H2!" Finally, you can have a solid answer to that very quip (the first part, at least), as household megastore IKEA has begun stocking (in store; online is coming soon) a new series of solar-powered lighting supplies. The SOLIG series contains a ...

All of us here are young, beautiful, and vigorous, but we understand that time is not always as kind to everyone else as it has been to us -- that's why we're giving you the heads up that German scientists claim that they were able to reduce wrinkles by subjecting a test subject's skin to regular ol' LED lights daily over a period of several months. It seems that at a certain intensity the light ...

Maybe the incandescent light bulb has been sitting in its socket-shaped throne for too many years -- GE thinks so, anyway. GE R&D guys have produced a machine that prints OLED materials newspaper-style onto 8-inch sheets of metal foil in hopes that the sheets -- which can be pinned to just about any surface -- will start the process of home lighting biz regime change in 2010. Picture, if you ...

Far from being the first LED-infused floor we've seen hipsters and hippies break dance and boogie down on (respectively), Sensacell's latest contraption still manages to stand out by bringing back memories of when mouse trails really were the coolest thing about an operating system. Flashbacks aside, the installation -- which is currently at the entrance to the Comunitat Valenciana in Spain -- ...

This angry-looking skinned beast is the BMW GINA Light Visionary Model. GINA, which stands for Geometry and Functions in 'N' Adaptations -- whatever that means -- is shelled in a textile fabric wrapped around a carbon fiber and metal frame. This means that the skin and skeleton can bend and contract like, well, real skin and skeleton. For instance, the doors bend up, the headlights are exposed ...

Do you run at night? We've found the shoe for you. Down dark alleys and through the murky underbrush (are you sure you really want to run in such places), your way will be lit with this concept shoe from the folks at Pioneer. With each pavement pounding step, the shoes power up a small battery, which keeps a small light going, letting you see what's before your feet. The concept seems familiar ...

A company that sells glow-in-the-dark-paint has invented another way to combat the forces of darkness. MPK Company, while not in league with Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker, has conjured up a new light source called Litroenergy. These self-luminous, tiny particles, called Litrospheres, have a remarkable half-life of about 12 years and are encased in a microsphere container. In addition, they ...