The soft glow of a burning-hot wire in an incandescent lightbulb, and the bluish tinge from the screaming electrical plasma storm in a fluorescent tube may soon become largely things of the past. LED lighting has arrived to beat them both.

Ever since British inventor Humphry Davy passed current through a platinum strip in 1802, electrical lighting based on incandescent technology in vacuum-sealed glass bulbs has lighted up our lives. Edison didn’t invent the things, despite what you may have heard, but he did perfect an early design that made the lightbulb a practical commodity. Since Edison’s experiments, the tech has been tweaked and polished, to the point that we’re no longer amazed by the instant availability of electrical light, seeing it as merely “normal.”

And don’t forget fluorescent systems either–decades of effort by Brits, Germans, French and Americans starting in the mid-1800’s resulted in those long tubes lighting up practically every office space everywhere, as well as the curling glass tubes that glow over the door of your favorite diner. As concerns about the environmental impact of incandescent bulbs grew, compact plug-in fluorescent (CFL) tech even seemed briefly like it could be the future of lighting.

And all of these innovations will remain with us for some time–the differing benefits of the technologies will mean they retain a grip on niche markets in the lighting industry (in stage lighting, and sign writing for example). But for mainstream lighting, the CFL and the hot lightbulb are doomed. Doomed faster than you may imagine, actually–thanks to the LED.

At the Light+Building trade show in Frankfurt last month, this quiet revolution in lighting technology couldn’t be more blindingly obvious. Where events like this had remained pretty stagnant and uninteresting for years, L+B was filled with drama. Seemingly every company’s exhibition stand was featuring LED technology with jazzy demos and snazzy music and, yes, pretty young female stand promotional teams (LED Ladies?). The stand for Royal Philips Electronics more than every other: The company had taken the bold step to light the entire sweeping exhibition hall with LED tech, and the only lighting gear made by the company (which started out as an early pioneer in incandescent bulbs) that was being promoted was LED-based from consumer practical and “fun” lighting to LED street lamps that could save authorities millions of dollars in energy bills.

The CEO of Philips Lighting, Rudy Provost, explained why at the beginning of his press conference: “This Light + Building is not about 2010 – it is about a new decade, a new era of growth, powered by innovation. A decade of opportunity, driven by a fundamental transformation of our industry.” Explaining more to us, Provost noted that LED’s are just a “means to an end” for delivering new lighting systems to people, while acknowledging that the arrival of the small, white, super-efficient LEDs has completely turned the industry on its head–“A few years ago we would call ourselves a ballast and bulb company, and today we’re talking about being a lighting solutions company … but of course LED allows you to do things you couldn’t do before.”