Launched back in November 2009, Christie is selling an innovative back-lit display system called MicroTiles that combine DLP + LED technologies in a unitized 12″ high x 16″ wide x 10″ deep block.

The benefits?  Far higher resolution and pixel density than current direct-view LED display systems, while being substantially brighter than LCD or Plasma screens.   Christie emphasizes how these are readily viewable in environments with high-ambient light levels.  Plus a few other nice features, such as automatic color calibration, a very small 1mm total gap between tiles, and wide viewing angle (inherent to the projection system).

Products like this really start to bring home the notion of digital media enhanced architectural “materials” and building systems.

I just picked this up from Foscarini’s website:  As part of their “Inside” installation for Milan Design Week back in April, Foscarini created a tunnel with digital projections on the walls and ceiling.  Check out the videos on their site.

It is difficult to pick out the actual projector locations from the images and video on the site, but I did notice in the video that the tunnel was visible from both the inside and the outside.  If you imagine a future with transparent OLED screens, this is how architectural spaces may look.  In the image below you can see the partial area of transparency:

“Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.”

If lighting reps (or better yet, the actual manufacturers) simply posted lighting costs and markups openly, poof…no more reps.

If lighting manufacturers simply took money directly from…OMG…the actual customer, there would be no more need for wholesale distributors.

The NY Times has a piece on the resurgance in popularity over the past decade of Ye Olde Filament Bulb.

I especially love that the conclusion of the article is to use candles!  I often remind people that LED hotshot Color Kinetics, right before being acquired by Philips for $700m+, made only $65m in revenue, while Yankee Candle Co. makes well over $600m a year in revenue. 

People would still be buring whale oil to light their homes if it wasn’t illegal…

Ecouterre posted a very interesting piece on Sony’s development efforts for flexible OLED.  Such “wearable” concepts for OLED screens have, frankly, been around forever and are getting quite tired, but what is notable is the embedded video finally showing an actual, flexible thin-film video screen in operation.