（001）2015/2/11：走进灯的新时代

Leaves译 完成时间：2015/2/11 原文来源：纽约时报
AFTER the joy of the birth itself, parenthood sometimes brings the unwelcome news that a newborn has jaundice and must wear goggles and be placed under special lights. Imagine how different this experience might be if there were no goggles, just a warm blanket covering the tiny body, a healing frequency of blue light emanating from its folds.
在经历了生育本身的欢乐之后，为人父母的人有时也会迎来噩耗：刚出生的宝宝有黄疸病，必须要戴眼罩，并且要放置在特殊的灯光下。想像一下，不需要眼罩，只用一块暖和的毯子盖着小宝宝，一束蓝色光线从毯子的褶皱处射出来，其光频具有治愈效果。这种体验该有多么不同？
That comforting scene, already a reality in some hospitals, is evidence of the fundamental rethinking of lighting now under way in research labs, executive offices and investor conferences. Digital revolutionaries have Edison’s 130-year-old industry, and its $100 billion in worldwide revenue, in their sights. Color, control and function are all being reassessed, and new players have emerged like a wave of Silicon Valley start-ups.
这种令人欣慰的场景已经在一些医院成为现实，亦是现在研究实验室、公司高管的办公室和投资人会议上对灯光根本性反思的明证。电子革命使得灯光产业进入了他们的视野。爱迪生130年前开创的这个产业现在在全球范围内创收达到1000亿美元。如今，灯的色彩、控制和功能都在重新接受评估，新参与者已经像硅谷的创业者那样涌现。
“This is the move from the last industrial-age analog technology to a digital technology,” said Fred Maxik, the chief technology officer with the Lighting Science Group Corporation, one of many newer players in the field.
该领域新参与者之一、照明科学集团公司首席技术执行官弗雷德•马克西克说：“这是从过去工业时代模拟技术向电子技术跨越的一步。”
The efforts start with energy efficiency and cost savings but go far beyond replacing inefficient incandescent bulbs. Light’s potential to heal, soothe, invigorate or safeguard people is being exploited to introduce products like the blanket, versions of which are offered by General Electric and in development at Philips, the Dutch electronics giant.
这些工作最初的目的是节省能源和节约成本，但后来远远不至于替换低效的白炽灯。灯光在治疗、安抚、激励和保护人方面的潜力被开发了出来，产生了像上述蓝光治疗毯这样的产品——通用电气已经出品了几种版本，荷兰电子巨头飞利浦也在进行相关的开发。
Innovations on the horizon range from smart lampposts that can sense gas hazards to lights harnessed for office productivity or even to cure jet lag. Digital lighting based on light-emitting diodes — LEDs — offers the opportunity to flit beams delicately across stages like the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge — creating a light sculpture more elegant than the garish marketers’ light shows on display in Times Square, Piccadilly Circus and the Shibuya district in Tokyo.
革新近在眼前：可以探测气体危害的智能灯柱，用于提升办公室效率的灯，甚至是治疗时差反应的灯。基于发光二极管制造的LED电子灯可以将柔和的灯光射过像旧金山奥克兰海湾大桥这样的桥梁，形成的光雕作品比庸俗的营销人员在时代广场、皮卡迪利广场和东京涉谷的搞的灯光秀汇演更为高雅。
“Up till now we only thought — do I have enough light to see, to clean my room, to cut a diamond?” said Ed Crawford, a senior vice president of Philips Lighting Americas. “Now it impacts what I do, how I feel, in emotional ways.”
“以前我们考虑的仅仅是：用来照明、打扫房间，以及切割钻石的灯光够不够？”飞利浦照明公司美国分部资深副总裁埃德•克劳福德说，“现在，灯光以情感的方式影响着我的所行所感。”
In the United States, lighting consumes more than 20 percent of electric power generated each year; the Energy Department says LEDs can cut consumption by up to 80 percent. LEDs — also called solid-state lighting — are already a $12.5 billion business worldwide, according to analysts at the research firm Strategies Unlimited in Mountain View, Calif. A 2012 McKinsey report estimates LEDs will be an $84 billion business by 2020.
在美国，每年灯消耗的电量占总发电量的20%；能源部称LED灯可以节约高达80%的电能消耗。据位于加州山景城的Strategies Unlimited研究公司分析师称，全球范围内LED灯（又称固态灯）的产业价值已达125亿美元。一份2012年的麦肯锡报告预计，到2020年，LED灯产业价值将达到840亿美元。
But there is an obstacle or two facing the LED revolutionaries. One is existing modes of lighting: Edison’s screw-based socket, the office’s fluorescent ceiling tubes, and metal halide or sodium lights in parking lots are not going away anytime soon.
但是，LED革命遭遇着一到两个问题。一是现存的照明方式：爱迪生式的螺口灯座、办公室荧光灯管、停车场使用的金属卤化灯或者钠素灯在短期内不会消失。
Another hurdle is public wariness after the environmental exhortations of the 2000s, which led to much-disputed federal legislation to phase out the old incandescents, often in favor of compact fluorescent bulbs. In pursuing their goals, advocates played down problems like the harshness of fluorescent light, and difficulties with dimming the bulbs and dealing with the toxic mercury they contain. Now, some lighting scientists say, both consumers and investors are leery of buying into something they suspect might be substandard.
另一个障碍在于：在本世纪前10年听取了关于环境的劝诫后，大众的态度非常谨慎。这导致联邦出台了极富争议的法案，淘汰旧式白炽灯，支持小巧的荧光灯泡。倡议者为了追求自己的目标，对一些问题轻描淡写：比如荧光光线的危害，以及降低灯泡亮度和处理灯泡中有毒汞的难度。一些照明科学家称，现在消费者和投资者都很担心他们购买或者投资的灯泡不合标准。
Another powerful force for continuity is the psychological legacy of light as we know it — from sun to candle to bulb. Isn’t the cartoon shorthand for a new idea a glowing bulb over the thinker’s head?
旧式灯泡继续存在，另一个强大推力来源于关于灯光的心理传统：从太阳到蜡烛再到灯泡。卡通片里产生新想法不就是思考者头上亮一个灯泡吗？
So some companies are selling the new digital lighting in forms that will fit into the prerevolutionary world, with its sockets and streetlamps — including familiar bulb shapes.
因此，一些公司出售的新型电子灯和电子革命前的世界相当契合，灯座还有街灯都是如此，包括我们熟悉的灯泡形状。
Philips is producing a bulb called Hue that fits into the old sockets and not only dims and brightens, but also changes colors on command. Mr. Crawford said that in his lamps division, 25 percent of sales income now comes from LEDs; he expects it to increase to 50 percent in two years. In 2008, that number was close to zero.
飞利浦正在生产一种叫作Hue的灯泡，适用于旧式灯座。不仅可以调节明暗，还能根据需求改变颜色。克劳福德说，现在他们公司灯部门25%的营收来自LED灯。他预计这一数字将在两年内达到50%。而在2008年，该数字几乎为零。
One reason adoption will speed up, Mr. Crawford believes, is that in recent years, consumers have been asked to compromise on quality to get energy savings. With the latest generation of LEDs, he said, “the consumer gets the energy savings without compromise.”
克劳福德认为，对电子灯的接受速度越来越快，原因在于近年来消费者被要求为了节能对质量作出妥协。他说，消费者使用最新一代LED，“既可以不将就，又可以节能。”
The cost barrier is getting lower. Until recently, it typically cost $30 to buy an LED that could replace a 60-watt glass incandescent bulb bought for less than a dollar. Now Cree, a semiconductor manufacturer, has 40-watt and 60-watt LED equivalents for $10 and $14.
价格障碍正在变低。直到不久前，买一个取代60瓦玻璃白炽灯泡的LED通常还需花30美元，而白炽灯泡不到1美元。现在，半导体生厂商科锐公司生产的40瓦和60瓦LED灯价格分别为10美元和14美元。
James Highgate, an expert on the new technology who runs an annual LED industry conference, sees a transition period ahead “for the next three to five years, until the eight billion sockets in the U.S. get filled” with LEDs. “Some people will never change,” he added. “They’ll be in the alleys buying 100-watt incandescents.”
詹姆斯•海盖特是这一新技术的专家，每年召开一次LED产业会议。他认为现在处于过渡时期，“直到3-5年后，美国80亿个灯座塞满LED灯”。“有些人永不改变。”他补充说，“将来他们要去小胡同里才买得到100瓦的白炽灯。”
But a new poll done by the lighting company Osram Sylvania showed that fewer consumers were listing “burned out or broken” as the main reason for switching bulb formats. According to a company news release, “68 percent of Americans say they have switched lighting for increased energy efficiency.”
但是，照明公司Osram Sylvania开展的一项民意调查显示，将“灯泡烧坏或破损”作为主要换灯泡理由的消费者不多。该公司一份新闻稿中称，“68%的美国人称自己换灯是为了节能”。
Energy efficiency is only the beginning, according to experts on the lighting innovations. Take communication between lights. At the University of California, Davis, a bike path illuminated at night with a “just in time” system has one light node alerting another and another down the line as a bicycle goes by, progressively lighting the rider’s way, then dimming back into an energy-saving mode.
照明创新专家称，节能仅仅是开始。以灯之间的通讯为例。在加利福尼亚大学戴维斯分校，夜间用一种“实时控制”系统照明自行车道，系统内放置光节点，有自行车经过时它会沿途一盏灯接一盏地发出讯息，逐渐照亮骑行者的路，然后灯光暗下去，回到节能模式。
Michael Siminovitch, director of the California Lighting Technology Center at the university, said that with the new technology “we’re going to be able to create a variety of control features in terms of how we introduce points of light in space, but we’re also going to be able to do it with planes and areas of light.” For example, he said, there could be light-generating ceilings or walls.
位于该校的加利福尼亚照明技术中心负责人迈克尔•西敏诺维奇说，通过这种新技术，“引入点光时可以就创造出大量的控制特征，而面光和区光我们同样可以做到。”他举了个例子说，以后可以发明出发光的天花板或墙壁。
Engineers like Mr. Maxik at Lighting Science are now imagining cities that light their streets as needed, without benefit of lampposts. He has created a fixture that could replace the reflective medians in highways south of the snow belt. Once installed along the road’s centerline, they provide as much illumination as streetlamps. The metal and wiring that go into the streetlamp would be unnecessary.
在照明科学公司，像马克西克这样的工程师正在构想城市可以满足照亮街道的需求，而无需借助灯柱。他发明了一种用于多雪地带以南高速公路上的装置，可以取代反光隔离带。这种装置装在路中央后，可以像街灯那样提供照明，但不需要连接街灯的金属和布线。
Lighting Science has teamed up with Google to develop a light bulb — soon to be available — that is controllable with an Android phone app.
照明科学公司已经和谷歌合作开发一种可以通过安卓手机应用操作的电灯泡，不久即可投入使用。
But just as it will take consumers a while to give up familiar light sockets for lights embedded in walls or ceilings, it is likely to take cities and their public works departments some time to give up their lampposts.
但是，要消费者放弃熟悉的灯座转而使用嵌在墙壁或天花板中的灯需要一点时间。同样地，要城市及其公共部门放弃路灯柱也需要一点时间。
Recognizing this, other companies, like the newly renamed Sensity Systems (formerly Xeralux) are reimagining lampposts as nodes in a smart network that illuminate spaces, visually monitor them, sense heat and communicate with other nodes and human monitors.
其它一些公司意识到了这一点，比如最近改名成Sensity Systems的前Xeralux公司，它们正在重新将路灯柱设想成节点，位于一个照亮空间的智能网络中。节点对空间进行视频监控、感知热量、以及与其它节点和监视员进行通讯。
In addition to such functions — which could raise privacy concerns, though perhaps less so after the Boston Marathon bombings — the new systems could sharply cut the cost of street lighting. The data could be sold to app developers who could create, say, an app to help find parking.
这些功能会引起隐私方面的担忧，但波士顿马拉松爆炸案后这种担忧可能会有所减轻。除此此外，该新系统会大幅度削减街面照明的成本。数据可以出售给应用开发者，由他们创造出相关应用，比如帮助寻找停车位的应用。
The idea, said the company’s chief executive, Hugh Martin, is “wherever there’s a light, there’s data being generated.”
Sensity Systems公司首席执行官休•马丁说，这个创意在于“只要有一盏灯，就能产生数据。”
Mr. Maxik said: “It’s the convergence of the light source, the novel controls we can apply to it and the ability to program it which makes solid-state lighting as a category unique. That becomes the enabler of the new forms and new functions.”
马克西克说：“这个创意将几个方面融汇在一起：光资源，应用在它身上的新奇控制方式，以及相关的编程。如此固态灯就成为了一种独一无二的照明种类，还可以催生出新形态和新功能。”
Many of the elements of the nascent revolution seem in place. A host of relatively new entrants — Lighting Science, Eye Lighting, Ohm Lighting and TerraLUX among them — are moving into what had been a market dominated by large, established companies like General Electric, Philips and Osram Sylvania.
这场新生革命的许多元素看上去都适得其所。一批相对是初来乍到的新加入者——照明科学、眼照明、Ohm照明，TerraLUX以及其它公司——正在进入一个先前由通用电气、飞利浦和奥斯朗西尔瓦尼亚等著名大公司主导的市场。
In both the newer and older camps, researchers are trying to reimagine uses for light and ways of controlling it. What kinds of controls? Adjusting the intensity of a light between dim and bright, of course, has been done for decades — but not often in outdoor settings. Other options, indoors and out, include changing the frequency and color of the light, or having it pulsate — think of the multicolor displays atop the Empire State Building.
新老两个阵营的研究人员都在努力设想灯的新用途和控制它们的新方式。那么是什么样的控制方式呢？调节灯的明暗强度当然几十年前就实现了——但户外灯往往不能调节。其它计划包括改变室内和屋外灯光的频率和色彩，或者让它颤动——想象一下五颜六色的灯光展示在帝国大厦顶端的场景。
This color-changing capability has applications far beyond the theatrical. Consider sea turtle hatchlings leaving nests along the Florida coast that are led astray by bright white lights, luring them inland when they should head seaward. Lighting Science is one of several companies that offer a solution; its $29.99 amber “turtle lights” are on sale in Satellite Beach, Fla., near the most active turtle nesting area.
这种改变色彩的能力可以应用的地方远不止剧院。考虑一下福罗里达海岸沿岸的海龟。幼仔离开龟巢，被明亮的白色灯光引导得迷了路，本来应该朝海的方向游，结果被引诱上了岸。照明科学灯公司提出了一种解决方案；它在福罗里达卫星沙滩上出售一种29.99美元的琥珀色“海龟灯”，这个沙滩附近是海龟筑巢最活跃的地区。
For the workplace, Osram Sylvania’s researchers are looking to control light to improve office productivity. As Lori Brock, director of research and innovation at the company’s technology lab in Massachusetts, said: “It optimizes the illumination for the task you’re doing. If you sat at your desk to use the computer, maybe the overhead light would dim, increasing the contrast so you could see better. Other lights could go to an energy-saving hue.” Ideally, productivity increases while energy costs decrease.
奥斯朗西尔瓦尼亚的研究人员正在为工作场所研究一种控制灯，以提升办公室效率。位于马萨诸塞州该公司技术试验室研究和创新负责人罗瑞•布洛克说：“这种灯可以优化你工作照明环境。如果你坐在桌边使用电脑，那么头顶的灯可能会暗下来，这样对比度就会上升，你就能看得更清楚。其它灯则呈现出节能的色调。”从理论上来讲，能源成本下降就意味着工作效率上升。
As for health applications, the Lighting Research Center of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has focused its research on the physiological and psychological impacts of light. This might lead to light fixtures in hotel rooms and elsewhere that enhance sleep or restore the circadian rhythms of jet-lagged travelers.
至于健康方面的应用，瑞斯勒理工大学照明研究中心将研究重点放在了光的生理和心理影响上。可能会发明出安装在酒店房间和其它地方的灯，用来强化睡眠，或者帮助有时差反应的旅行者恢复昼夜生理节奏。
Philips’s lighting division is working on a product that allows people with psoriasis to have light treatments at home, not in the hospital. It has also introduced a blue-light-emitting poultice to relieve muscle pain by releasing the nitric oxide in the patient’s system, stimulating blood flow.
飞利浦的照明部门正在开发一款产品，可以让牛皮癣患者在家就能接受灯光治疗，而无需进医院。它还推行一种放射出蓝光的膏状物，可以在病人身体中释放一氧化氮模拟血液流动，从而缓解肌肉疼痛。
“This is where the promise is,” said Dr. Siminovitch of the U.C. Davis center. “The promise is going to be on well-being, wellness, biology — lighting starts doing something for us that is inherently different.”
加利福尼亚大学戴维斯分校的西敏诺维奇博士说：“灯的前景即在于此，这种前景是为了人类身体机能的幸福安康——灯光正在为我们做的事情和以前有着本质不同。”