In a major win for LEDs, New York City has announced the bulbs may soon be used to power standard streetlights across the city.
A lighting design firm called the Office for Visual Interaction designed the streetlight, which contains 100 small LED bulbs in its head instead of a single large one.
The multitude of bulbs creates the flexibility for the light to illuminate certain objects on the ground—for NYC, different light patterns will be used for parks, street corners, and city blocks.
OVI's long, thin light has an energy savings of 30 percent compared to sodium lights and last twice as long. The streetlight's design also allows LED chips to be easily swapped as technology advances.
If all goes well during prototype testing next year, expect your next NYC trip to be illuminated by LEDs.