LEDinside Research Manager Duff Lu (呂理舜) said on Dec. 22 that the total revenue for car-use LED may reach US$2.5 billion by 2018.

“The worldwide automotive-use LED market is projected to reach US$2.5 billion by 2018, with a compounded growth rate of 9% from the period between 2014 and 2018,” Lu said. “In particular the automotive LED market value in before market is projected to reach US$1.9 billion and the automotive LED market value in after market is also forecasted to reach US$620 million.”

Quoting the latest research, Lu said that LED automotive lighting has a relatively higher gross margin, compared with other traditional LED applications, that also attracted many Taiwanese LED makers to start planning to enter the field of manufacturing car-use LED equipment.

Also, with the growing demand for GPS, dashboard and other panels to be used on vehicles, LEDinside forecasted that the LED market for car-use equipment will also grow from US$71 million in 2014 to US$130 million by 2018.

“In 2014, worldwide new vehicles with standard equipment included car-use panels, have already reached 9%, and is expected to hit 14% by 2018,” Lu said.

The post Car-use LED Equipment Market Continues to Grow: Research appeared first on VR World.

The field of gaming peripherals is an ever growing mass of hardware that has a large number of keyboards for gamers to choose from.  Gaming keyboards can range from just ten dollars to hundreds of dollars for customized mechanical keyboards.

The entry level is a place that many users start at and Tt eSports is hoping that its new Challenger Prime will sway many users to give it a try.  The Challenger Prime is the newest ikeyboard in Tt eSport’s Challenger lineup, and it also happens to be the lowest costing model as well.  The board which retails for only $29.99 doesn’t skimp on features though even at that low price point. The keyboard has an anti-spill design with drain holes in case something does ever spill on it. It aslo features backlit membrane keys, with dedicated media and macro keys.  With the stylish keyboard users can switch between blue, red, and purple for the backlight color to help it match the user’s color scheme.

Specifications

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Specifications

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Here is the daily roundup from Japanese consumer tech and tech business websites for Dec. 12, 2014.

Obayashi further tests new HAL exoskeletal robots

Major Japanese construction company Obayashi Corporation will be conducting further testing of Cyberdyne’s newest HAL exoskeletal robots in actual applications. The work load will be increased two-fold, as part of the company’s campaign to promote its updated features.

Officially introduced last month, the new industry assistant-type HAL exoskeletal robots are specifically designed as augmentation tools, to provide extra lifting power to workers. Obayashi Corporation has already introduced the new HAL robot to a considerable number of construction sites for quite some time, and had proven its practicality in many applications. This time, the company plans to prove its practicality even further by doubling the workload given to its users, promoting the exoskeletal robot as a possible industry standard tool.

Panasonic extends light scanning technology to smartphones

Panasonic (TYO:6752) has developed its LED-based light scanning technology for mobile devices, soon enabling smartphones to read specific LED blinking signs to download data and provide other functions.

First developed way back in 2012, Panasonic’s visible light communication system was conceptualized as a new method of transferring minute information from one device to another. The version developed for mobile devices uses the same principle, having a function not too different from QR codes, but is designed to be more convenient. The LED signs will act as “Hikari IDs” (light IDs), transmitting data from as far as a few meters away, and sending it at speeds comparable to standard wireless technologies.

Panasonic expects the technology to become commercially available in 2016.

Fujitsu showcases new geographic analyzer tool

Fujitsu Labs has recently presented to the public its new open data analysis tool, which is made to analyze and provide comprehensive visual data of any geographical spot within Japan.

Named as the EvaCva, the tool is capable of using retrieving various web data about any geographical spot in Japan, presenting it in a visual easy-to-understand form. It can check for different aspects about the area, regardless of whether the data required is meteorological, environmental, economical, social, industry-based, or purely geographical. The visual charts and graphs that the analyzer tool will automatically generate would give the user a more or less accurate representation of anything that a specific area may have.

The EvaCva geographical analysis tool will be available as a web application sometime around the end of 2015.

The post HAL Work Robots, LED QR, Web Geography: The Headlines in Tokyo for Dec. 12 appeared first on VR World.

The mechanical keyboard market got a little more crowded today with the addition of Cougar’s 600K mechanical gaming keyboard.

Aimed at the purists it shares the same lineage as the fully featured 700K, but strips away almost everything to deliver an essentially pure mechanical keyboard design.

Cougar’s newest mechanical keyboard has been designed for those who want the pure mechanical keyboard experience and strips away most of the fluffy features that are found on its flagship 700K model.

The board is outfitted with Cherry MX mechanical switches and should come in blue, brown, red, and black variants.  The features that did make it onto the 600K are a gold-plated USB connector, N-Key rollover, multimedia keys,  LED lighting on the WASD keys, and USB pass-through port.  The keyboard comes with two keyboard wrist rests, a full length and a 1/3 size that is used under the hand when using WASD keys for FPS games.  A nice feature that minimalists will appreciate is that the keyboard will not require any additional drivers to work and is straight plug and play.  There is no word on pricing or availability from Cougar but we expect that this should be a decent savings over the 700K due to the removal of many features.  The board looks like it will be a great choice for those who are wanting a standard mechanical keyboard without a lot of fluff, it should give other models in its price range a good fight.

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Japanese industrial tools company Union Tool is currently designing a new type of multi-function lighting. Named as the Radar Light, it is designed to provide standard illumination while tracking human activity around its detectable range.

With considerable similarities to various modern lighting systems with presence sensors, the Radar Light is capable of various tracking functions, such as motion detection and heat sensing. Though it may seem as a component for just another non-intrusive security system, it is actually built to be used for monitoring people in medical establishments. The Radar Light is designed to scan and read various vital signs of people within its detectable range.

It can for example, observe sleep levels, track a person’s breathing, check if there are any general abnormalities in a patient’s body, or even determine the body’s current position and posture. The design choice as a standard LED light was made to help patients under observation relax. Its non-intrusive aspect is especially considered to be useful in helping people feel less agitated or nervous, emotional responses which might significantly affect medical readings, accuracy of diagnoses, and efficiency of prescriptions.

The Radar Light communicates all of its tracking data via wireless LAN chip. Data is relayed continuously, and if there would be any negative signs, it can easily and instantly provide a warning to its entire system, enabling a medical staff to take a proper course of action immediately.

The concept that developed Radar Light was a collaborative project headed by Union Tool, supported by CQ-S Net and Japan’s Panasonic System LSI. It has earned a two-year contract support from the Robotic Devices for Nursing Care Project, and will soon be catered to nursing and elderly care facilities. Each unit will be commercially available for about $260.00, and an additional $1,750.00 will be required to set up its server system.

Union Tool is expecting Radar Light to be commercially available on September next year.

The post Radar Light Illuminates And Scans At The Same Time appeared first on VR World.

We caught wind of a pretty sweet backup battery deal on woot.com, a daily deal website now owned by Amazon. This is for the Gorilla Gadgets CHR-150 Uhuru! 16,800 mAh External Portable Battery Pack Charger with LED Screen. Why is this a great deal? Because Amazon is selling it right now for $70, but Woot.com is selling it for $40 and the suggested retail price is $140. But what makes this thing awesome? Well, other than the fact that it comes with three different charging connectors (microUSB, lightning and Apple 30-pin), it can also fully charge an iPad and an iPhone and probably still have some charge left (depending on whether the devices are on).

While Gorilla Gadgets may not necessarily have a very well recognized name, the online reviews appear to indicate that they make a pretty solid product. And while we haven’t reviewed one of these yet, we’ve reviewed similar products before from a multitude of other companies. These guys appear to make a pretty solid product and at $40 its really hard to beat that big of a battery. Unfortunately, even though it does have two USB ports, only one port is a 2A fast-charger port while the other is a 1A trickle-charger port. It would be nice if they had a 2.5A charger like some of the ones we’ve seen from Patriot, but at $40 its really hard to complain. With a 16,800 mAh battery you could theoretically charge something like 10 iPhones before you run out of juice.

So, with that in mind, we recommend you head on over to Woot.com and check out this charger because its a pretty good one and you’re not going to find a battery pack anywhere near that big for that price. And if you do, you probably should worry about whether or not its going to explode in your hand because that’s ridiculously cheap. Don’t forget, once Woot is out, they’re out and you probably won’t see this price ever again so make sure you buy one if you really need one.

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