lumen

Watch high-powered flashlights cook a turkey

The art of roasting a bird with a flashlight requires much more than the typical yellow shiner found at your parent's house; in fact, you need something more than a hundred times more powerful.

While we don't know exactly how many exact lumens -- a standard of measurement used for lighting (where 1 lumen usually equals the power of one candle) -- you need accomplish the zany task, we do know through an informative YouTube video that cooking a turkey with a flashlight is possible.… Read more

Auto-dimming LED tech gives new meaning to daylight savings

Digital Lumens is using daylight to ratchet up the efficiency of its commercial LED light fixtures.

The company today is announcing a new product line that boosts the amount of light each fixture can give off and improves energy efficiency by up to 50 percent with an embedded daylight sensor.

Efficient LED lighting promises to bring significant energy savings to commercial and industrial customers because businesses tend to spend more money on lighting. But just like the consumer LED lightbulb market, the cost of LED fixtures is still higher than other lighting technologies.

Digital Lumens' fixture, which is about the … Read more

Digital Lumens rides Moore's Law to efficient LEDs

BOSTON--Many green-tech start-ups are formed with the hopes of bringing a scientific discovery from a university lab to market. Digital Lumens has taken a different tack: it's applying well-known computer technology to dramatically boost efficiency in lighting.

On Friday, I visited Digital Lumens' office here to get a closer look at its commercial LED light fixture, a rectangular-shaped spot light roughly the size of a desktop computer. On one side are three light bars blasting out light, on the other is the computing "horsepower" that allows it to be controlled like other equipment on a company network. … Read more

To save power, Digital Lumens networks LEDs

To create a more efficient light, you need to make it more like a computer, says Digital Lumens.

The LED lighting start-up disclosed on Tuesday details on its product, which it says dramatically reduces lighting costs. Tests with its first 16 industrial customers in warehouse-like spaces have cut costs by 90 percent over HID lights.

The Digital Lumens system creates a mesh network of fixtures which can be managed by software. Each lighting fixture is equipped with an on-board computer, Zigbee wireless networking chip, and sensors for detecting light levels and when a person enters a room.

The software lets … Read more

Sanyo beamer sets new lumens record

The latest Sanyo LP-XF1000 is hailed as the world's brightest projector, with a staggering 12,000 lumens output. This is easily four times the performance of an average multimedia model in the market. To achieve this ultra-high luminance for large-venue installations, the LP-XF1000 features an integrated dual-lamp system enhanced by its proprietary QuaDrive Engine technology.

With such an impressive projection credential, this 3LCD-based Sanyo is capable of rendering up to a whopping 600-inch image at a full 1.07 billion colors. Its modular design also enables optimum setup flexibility through a selection of 10 optional lenses of various throw … Read more

The flashlight as flamethrower

The Taser may soon have some competition as the personal safety device of choice, from an unlikely source: the flashlight.

We've already seen models capable of blinding an assailant, shooting 800,000 volts, and even resembling a Gatling machine gun. Now Wicked Lasers--the outfit that brought Blu-ray to the laser pointer--has outdone itself with the "Torch."

Though not the first to make fire-starter claims, this one is billed as "the world's brightest and most powerful flashlight," with the ability to "burn plastic, light paper, or even fry an egg or toast a … Read more