To my taste the most beautiful Christmas tree I ever saw, right in the centre of Munich at a quite romantic square. It is garnished with 8000 tiny cold-light LEDs by Osram. A sign beside it boasts that it is till now the largest Christmas tree equipped with those LEDs. But today I learned that in Berlin, in front of the so called “red” town hall, they have one sporting 24,000 similar LEDs. Does size really matter when it comes down to romantic ambience? I guess hope so.
 

Anyway, wikipedia’s entry ↑LED really is enlightening [weak pun, I know—can’t do better today, you already may have guessed so much from the above]. For example, I didn’t know that the canopy of the ↑Fremont Street Experience in ↑fabulous Las Vegas [an old rant of mine on Vegas] uses LEDs. ↑Their website says that since 2004 there are 12.5 million [!] LEDs. Not by Osram, but by the LG company, though. The LEDs replace the 2.1 million “ordinary” lightbulbs that were there before.
 

So the technological development went from ↑incandescent light bulbs via ↑neon lamps to LEDs. I really wonder what comes next, and what “↑The Wizard of Menlo Park” would have to comment on that. I gather he simply would boast that he is world’s greatest and fight for the patent rights retroactively. Size matters in respect to patent portfolios, too—especially nowadays. Merry Christmas.