The idea behind Green Footprint is simple. When a fire is detected, a special ceiling fixture releases a glowing flourescent liquid into hallways and offices. As people move around the room, the dye leaves a trail of glowing footprints wherever they walked. In theory, this would lead firefighters to see exactly where people made their exit or if they were trapped along the way.

If you’re wondering how the stuff would glow – the fixture would actually have lights inside of it, charging up the glow-in-the-dark goo all day long until a fire comes along and triggers a temperature sensor.

I know there are already fancy infrared cameras which let firefighters see the heat signatures of humans (and flames), but this seems like a nice low-tech solution which could definitely save lives – assuming that you can actually see the glowy footprints through the smoke.

Green Footprint was an entrant (and winner) of a Red Dot design concept award, and was conceptualized by Chen Hongyu, Tang Ruoqing, Wang Sheng, Zhu Baixuan and Bian Jing.

The glowing blue stick you see in the tweezers is a new sensor that the team has been working on that glows to show the mouse’s blood sugar. The sensor uses glucose-responsive fluorescent hydrogels inside and is 1mm in diameter. It is designed to be easily injected under the skin and can be removed with tweezers like a splinter.

The sensor has shown to be accurate and durable enough to stay inside the body for up to 140 days in mice. The team is working on calibrating and testing the sensor further to improve the accuracy and duration of the sensor. Eventually the hope is that the sensor can be used in humans to allow blood sugar monitoring without having to prick the finger to draw blood for conventional testing.

[via MedGadget]

Behold! Evil Iron Man:

I didn’t know there was such a thing as glow in the dark thread until I saw this piece.

It’s a shame there’s no orange or yellow glow in the dark thread. You can view larger versions of the Iron Man cross-stitch at Stitchfight’s Flickr page.

[via Time Travel and Rocket-Powered Apes]

This great hoody was designed by Rolf Nelson. He’s come up with a few different designs, including t-shirts, that will really make you pop in the night since they all glow in the dark.

The hoody is available in two different designs, one for those of you working for the MCP and one for the rebels. The Evil Sark Hoody glows red like in the original Tron.

Still need a reason to buy one? I figure that Tron Legacy will be released on December 17th, so you’ll definitely need to wear some extra layers to the premiere that time of year.

[via Wired]

Once fully charged with black light, Thretris‘ modded NES really comes to life, glowing with a brightness that could only be bested if it were electroluminescent. For added effect, Thretris added some cool blue LEDs behind the power switches. The mod also has a pair of 1/4″ audio jacks so you can hook the console up to a stereo system (even though the sound is still mono).

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The glowy stuff used to create the TRON circuit design not just reactive to UV and black light, it keeps glowing for quite some time after the light source has been removed.

Too bad they never made a TRON game  for the NES. Thretris, you’d better get working on that glowing Intellivision.

[via GoNintendo]

Organic Light Emitting Diodes are starting to emerge not only in flat-panel displays, but numerous prototypes of OLED lighting fixtures are starting to rear their heads. The great thing about OLED is not only that it is self-illuminating and eco-friendly, but that it’s not a point-source of light. Instead, OLED can be built into flexible panels and produced in specialized shapes, sizes and colors – providing a wonderful ambient glow. There are even transparent oled panels that you can see through, but that can still generate bright ambient lighting. Philips has even made some amazing interactive lighting fixtures using their new Lumiblade OLED technology.

Check out the gallery below to see a variety of prototype fixtures that use OLEDs to generate light.

In addition to Philips, there are many companies working on OLED lighting concepts, including GE, OSRAM, Siemens, Visionox, Samsung, and others – and it’s only a matter of time before we start to see mass-produced commercial lighting fixtures that use the technology. I see a bright future ahead of us.

[via OLED Info]

The Ice Tube clock ($70 USD) gets its brilliant blue display thanks to an old-school Russian-issued VFD (vacuum fluorescent display) tube. It’s set inside of a spiffy clear acrylic shell, which lets you see its internal circuitry whenever you want. Each tube has 8 glowy blue digits, as well as a dot indicator for PM and an alarm on/off indicator.

While the Ice Cube kit includes everything you need to build a standard alarm clock with day/date functionality, both hardware and software are open source, so you can mod this to do something else if you want – say display text messages or run the time backwards.

Keep in mind that the circuit generates very high voltages (up to 70 VDC), so you’ll need significant electronics, soldering and kit-building experience if you want one of these sitting on your bookshelf (and not catching your house on fire). If you’re up to the build challenge, head on over to Adafruit and place your order.

[via LadyAda]

These little spherical lamps sure look like some sort of retro spacecraft to me, especially the glowing green part, and the tripod legs.

Created by Japan’s IDEA Label, each light stands about 3 feet tall, and has a bright LED that gets its juice from solar energy. As an added bonus, they’re waterproof, so you can actually line up a bunch of these in your front yard and they’ll be convinced the aliens have landed when the sun goes down. In addition to the bright green one, they’re also available in pink, orange and clear – but seriously, what’s the last time you saw a pink alien spaceship? What sort of fools do they take us for?

As is the case with many of the offbeat products from Japan, they’re not currently available elsewhere. For now, I guess you’ll have to admire them from afar over on the IDEA shop for ¥1575 (appx. $17 USD) each.

Not much, I say. This USB critter is based on the namesake of the offbeat Seamour Sheep comic series, which follows the misadventures of Seamour and his anipal, Marty the Mole. Just plug him into your USB port, turn down the lights, and bask in the glow of electric sheep.

Seamour radiates an otherworldly green, presumably after he ate some radioactive waste, and Marty hit him up with the appropriate warning label in this particular episode.

There’s no word if Seamour actually will expose you to a high dose of radiation, or if he’s really powered by a bunch of green LEDs. Guess you’ll just have to find out for yourself. You can get your hands on this limited-edition (only 500 sheep) Seamour collectible over at Chicago’s (my hometown) awesome Rotofugi toy store for $69 USD.

[photos via Flickr]

The Multi Color Magic Cat clock displays the current time and date inside a pair of glowing LCD eyeballs. As it gazes into your eyes with a strange numeric stare, it fiendishly plots to wake you from your sleep with its glowing multi-colored skull and one of the most irritating alarm beeps this side of the french fry timer at McDonald’s.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I suppose if you’re a really big cat fanatic, you might want one of these oddball alarm clocks by the side of your bed, but for me, I’ve got enough feline troubles. You can find the Magic Cat alarm clock over on eBay for $18 bucks.

The case replaces the entire exterior of your 360 to produce an out-of-this-world green glow when placed in a darkened room. When the lights come on, it still looks pretty cool, letting you peer inside the guts of your console through a pearly see-through outer layer.

You’ll be able to pick up the XCM Pearl Glow Case for the 360 over at Extreme Mods very shortly for $59.99.

[BTW: The Extreme Mods guys will soon be setting up the U.S. website for XCM over at XCM-USA.com, be sure to bookmark it and come back soon].

The XCM Magic Night Glow face plate attaches onto the front of your Sony PSP (slim model only), and look totally different when the lights are off than on. Take this one for instance. In the daylight, it gives your PSP a nice tomato red finish.

But shut off the lights, and it has an orangy-yellow glow. Cool.

The face plates come in a variety of colors, including pearl, yellow, blue, red, green, and pink — most of which glow in a surprisingly different hue when in the dark.

I couldn’t find a price for these suckers yet, but I’m betting they’ll be around $25 each. You should be able pre-order XCM Magic Night Glow covers for the PSP from our friends over at Extreme-Mods any day now.

Just like those brilliant yellow stars in the Super Mario series, simply activate the star, and you’ll instantly feel invincible (even if your office-mates think you’re a complete dork). With a flip of the switch, the star glows and plays the familiar invincibility tune from the SMB games.

The way my typical work day goes, I think I’ll need to line up about a dozen of these to keep me safe from bureaucrats, whiners, brown-nosers and the other general annoyances of the day.

The star measures 5.75 inches and can be mounted on a wall or placed on your desk thanks to an included stand. It’s powered pair of AAA batteries, so you can take your invincibility on the road too.

The Super Mario Singing Glow Star is available from ThinkGeek for $17.99.

[via GeekAlerts]

Designed by Shigenori Ichimura and Tetsu Miyazawa of Japan’s &design, the clock draws its inspiration from the segments of an LED display. The analog hands get their bright glow from electroluminescent backlighting.

The clock is currently just in the prototype stage, but I’d definitely buy one of these cool timepieces if they ever manage to produce them.

[via Generate Pipeline]

Litrospheres are tiny self-luminous particles which can be injection molded or embedded into paints. Brightness is said to be about the same as that of a 20-watt light bulb, but I’d imagine that would depend on how much surface area is covered with the particles. The material is extremely cost-effective, covering an 8.5 x 11 surface for about 35 cents. The particles can even be customized to give off just about any light color. There’s a good description of how the technology works over on PESWiki.

MPK, the company that manufactures this glowing goodness expects Litrospheres to make their first appearance in safety gear, but I’d love to coat all kinds of surfaces with this stuff. Can you imagine how cool it would be to drive down the street in a luminescent car?

[via Treehugger via Neatorama]

Just like those lights you see under pimpmobiles, this saucer-shaped light source slides beneath your bed frame and casts a dreamy blue light in all directions. The 14 super-bright LEDs should last for countless nights of passion. You can grab one from from BoysStuff for £19.95 (appx. $36 USD).

Now all you need is a girlfriend, and you’ll be set.

The brilliantly named “Glowing Scary Deaths-Head Toy” looks like your average, everyday metal-headed, Skeletor-robot-zombie until you flip the switch. Once powered up, the skull lights up with a pair of mighty evil looking red eyeballs, sure to give your haunted house visitors a fright.

The cool thing is that they’re only $2.85 each, so you could easily buy a hundred of these things and have your very own freaky skull army. Cool.