Well-intentioned journalists, for simplicity's sake, often frame soon-to-be-enacted efficiency standards as a "ban" on incandescent bulbs in favor of compact fluorescents, or CFLs. Michael Scott Moore is the latest to pick up this narrative, which, unfortunately, tends to sow more confusion than clarity. Specifically, we're referring to the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, which sets minimum efficiency standards for household light bulbs, standards similar to those for refrigerators, dishwashers and other appliances. While the law will, in effect, lead to the phasing out of the ... Read More
Last Charge of the (Incandescent) Light Brigade
September 7, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Over the weekend, like a lot of people in Europe, I stocked up on light bulbs. The European Union has been phasing out old-fashioned incandescent bulbs for a couple of years, and on Sept. 1 a ban on 60-watt bulbs — the most popular kind — came into effect. Now, no nation in the EU manufactures the filament style of bulb, the kind Edison patented in 1878, at least not at 60-watt strength. (Weaker incandescents will be produced until next year.) It's legal to sell off stock, but the plan is to cut carbon emissions by compelling Europeans to buy more durable, less wasteful, but initially ... Read More
Store’s Lighting Influences Perceptions of Quality
October 18, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Light is important to us both biologically and psychologically. Indoors, it is also relatively easy to change. At the recent 7th International Design and Emotion Conference in Chicago, Katelijn Quartier — a lecturer and doctoral student in the department of architecture at PHL University in Belgium and a consultant with Retailology — discussed ways stores can use light to influence and brand shopper experience. Quartier and her colleagues visited three grocery stores in Belgium — one high end, one a discounter and the third a deep discounter. At each, they took readings of the color ... Read More
Hotel Guests Become Pawns in LED Lighting Design
October 15, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Philips Electronics is stuffed with clever researchers, designers, engineers and marketers. Their efforts have resulted in an impressive array of lighting, health care, personal care, audio-visual and other products. In the presentation "Beyond the Switch" at the 7th International Design and Emotion Conference last week, Jon Mason and Dirk Engelen from the Philips office in the Netherlands shared some of their recent work on hotel lighting and light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. The task before the Philips team was to develop a way for guests to control the LEDs being used to light their hotel ... Read More
Shining a Light on Better Headlamps
September 24, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
You have seen them. Those piercing blue-white headlights from oncoming cars seem to bore into your skull like an icy dagger, threatening to blind you. OK, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. But nearly 6,000 people were so bothered by the glare from "high-intensity discharge" (HID) headlamps when they first appeared about a decade ago that they complained to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which commissioned research to figure out what was going on. That started John Bullough down a path that some day soon could yield "smart" headlamps capable of adjusting themselves ... Read More
