No one can question the impact that LED sources are having in general illumination. The market has transformed into a solid-state lighting (SSL) arena. But what is increasingly obvious is that we can't guess at what the full impact of LEDs will be across new applications. Take horticultural lighting, for instance. As our cover story in this issue details, LEDs promise to bring economical indoor commercial farms close to urban population bases. And the spectral control of LEDs will allow growers to alter the look and taste of vegetables as the industry develops more knowledge about light recipes.

The horticultural lighting market potential has led us to create a one-day conference on the topic. The inaugural LEDs MagazineHorticultural Lighting Conference will be held on Oct. 12 in Chicago, IL at the Palmer House Hilton hotel. The outstanding program is led by a keynote presentation from Cary Mitchell, who manages the Plant Physiology program at Purdue University and who has worked on projects as diverse as helping NASA research horticulture in space

One of the topics covered in the feature is the need for new metrics to characterize the performance of lighting products intended for horticulture. There will be more discussion at the conference. But Colangelo made another point about metrics on farms. He said the horticultural industry needs a standard such as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). Various LEED levels are awarded to companies that design and build commercial buildings in a way that minimally impacts the environment. The elements of the program range from water management to electrical energy efficiency and more

The UV LED sector also holds much promise. We are moving closer to the point where LEDs in the UV-C band can bring cost-effective disinfection to third-world water supplies. We have had projections from speakers at our Strategies in Light conferences that suggest a UV-C LED in a mobile phone would allow you to sterilize your surroundings in the future.

Hope our company could find our best way to make a great progress. And learning experience from any good innovation.

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