New Types of Lighting

LED lighting has continued taking the world by storm, especially as its costs plummet and its efficacy (its efficiency in turning watts into visible light, or lumens) improves. But even as more households and businesses convert to LED bulbs, inventors continue pushing the boundaries on how we might produce lighting in the future, and how it might be used. The future give us a very different experience of light.

One of the more obvious future lighting options is an evolution of LED, known as OLED, or "Organic Light Emitting Diodes (or Devices)." These are currently flat panel LEDs and are used in many TVs and computer screens. They don't currently boast the same efficiency of light output as other LED lights, but they're coming along and are now starting to be used as (high end) general lighting in some settings. If they continue developing as they are, we may well see more homes and offices moving away from fixtures and bulbs toward flat panels of light. (This would make a lot of sense for businesses with lighting troffers already in place.)

But other ideas are developing as well. For instance, Philips has talked about "Light Transmissive Carpeting," totally transforming the decorative and practical roles that carpeting could have in home or office. Take a look at this teaser video:

Beyond that, others are looking for entirely new lighting sources, and are taking inspiration from biology as in the case of this bioluminescent lamp. You can read about it through that link or take a look at this video:

So what do you think the future of lighting will look like? Will technology continue pushing costs toward zero now that lights are going digital or even alive? What other technologies are on the way, and how we will we use our lighting in the future?