David Shiller

  Wireless Electricity: Nikola Tesla’s Century-old Dream Coming to Life  The concept of wireless electricity—a vision championed by Nikola Tesla in 1901—is on the brink of transforming modern energy distribution. Tesla’s early ideas involved transmitting electricity through the Earth’s ionosphere. Although those ambitions never materialized, they inspired generations of researchers. The field saw pivotal breakthroughs [...]

  Toroidal propellers have potential to impact the fan, ceiling fan, wind turbine, and aerospace industries. They have made the most progress in the marine propulsion market, to-date. Sharrow Engineering, through its marine division Sharrow Marine, is undergoing major expansion in 2025 after introducing new versions of its proprietary propeller in 2024. This expansion includes [...]

  Cornell University researchers have pioneered a groundbreaking method to watermark videos using light, addressing the urgent problem of video manipulation in an era dominated by generative artificial intelligence and rapidly spreading misinformation. Their innovation, named “Noise-Coded Illumination for Forensic and Photometric Video,” involves embedding a secret, unique code directly into the light emitted by [...]

  The American Lighting Association (ALA) put out a great tariff update, last week. Republished with the permission of ALA: Pause on China Tariffs Extended for 90 Days This week, President Trump signed an Executive Order extending the ongoing tariff truce with China by 90 days, pushing the new expiration date to November 10, 2025. Before [...]

  Sengled, once a prominent name in smart lighting, is facing significant turmoil, as of Summer, 2025: Critical outages: Starting in June and recurring through July, Sengled’s Wi-Fi-enabled smart bulbs and app suffered major outages, leaving users unable to control their lights via the Sengled app, Alexa, or Google Home. Complaints flooded forums as users [...]

  UC Davis researchers at The Color Lab have discovered that amber lighting has significant soothing effects on stress and anxiety, and they are now working on implementing human-centric lighting designs aimed at optimizing well-being in real-world settings. This innovative research is the product of an interdisciplinary collaboration between the California Lighting Technology Center (CLTC) [...]

  Researchers have developed a low-cost visual microphone that listens using light rather than sound, advancing remote audio capture by turning tiny surface vibrations into audible signals. This innovation applies single-pixel imaging to sound detection, marking the first time the technique has been used for this purpose. Unlike traditional microphones, which rely on mechanical diaphragms [...]

  Every business wants to grow sales and revenue, but far fewer businesses do the planning and execution to grow their email distribution lists as a way to grow sales. This simple strategy expands email marketing reach, can generate more hot sales leads, and significantly increase your company’s brand awareness. To build your company’s B2B [...]

The House Appropriations Committee recently approved the Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, a critical legislative measure that sets federal spending priorities for agencies like the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This bill attempts to save the popular ENERGY STAR program within the EPA—an initiative long [...]