As we enter the New Year IDTechEx look back and summarises some of the main global trends in 2009 and gives some predictions, and indeed areas of opportunity, for the New Year.

IDTechEx Printed Electronics USA Award Winners Announced This week the IDTechEx Printed Electronics USA event opened to more than 900 attendees from 28 countries - by far the World's largest event on the topic. Held in San Jose, CA, the event featured more end users than ever before and grew by almost 25% compared to the same event in 2008. The event featured the annual IDTechEx Printed Electronics USA Awards ceremony, aimed to recognize outstanding achievement.

Electronics and electrics are becoming ubiquitous, the devices appearing on and in higher and higher volume products including e-labels and e-packaging. This calls for different forms of battery, capacitor and other energy storage because priorities such as environmental credentials, thinness and compatibility with energy harvesting (eg. solar cells) come to the fore alongside life and cost.

The first day of the conference (attended by more than 290 attendees) was focused on presentations from end users of energy harvesting and wireless sensor networks technologies, with the first presentation given by IDTechEx CEO Raghu Das, giving an overview of needs for energy harvesting as well as the three generations of technologies (active RFID, RTLS and mesh & WSN) that have evolved into the current market for Wireless Sensor Networks, a market due to reach US$1.75 Billion by 2019.

This week the IDTechEx events Energy Harvesting & Storage and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) & RTLS took place in Denver, CO, USA. The event was attended by more than 290 attendees, with a brilliantly diverse spread of those through the value chain - from component suppliers to solution providers to many end users from different industries.

Active RFID will rise from 10% of the total RFID market this year to 24% in 2019, meaning a huge $6.74 billion market.

Plug in hybrid electric cars are now prioritised by most major car manufacturers. Pure electric on- road cars are prioritised by Nissan and a host of vibrant start up companies, they have one thing in common. The cleverest, most expensive part of their planned vehicles is increasingly the traction battery.

While materials for organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) are getting better and better, and encouraging news about record-breaking parameters in efficacy and luminance were published quite recently, one of the major problems in flexible lighting and display devices is still unsolved: the lifetime of such devices is too short, and hence, customers are not ready to pay, no matter how impressive and elegant the systems may look.

While some involved in OLEDs and OTFTs are moving out of the business of printed and potentially printed electronics, work on inorganic materials and compounds is increasing. The IDTechEx Printed Electronics Asia event in Tokyo will give a balanced view with many presentations being World firsts.

As forecasted by RFID Forecasts, Players, Opportunities 2009-2019, there has been a surge in orders for RFID in 2009. Despite the world's largest RFID project, the $6 billion China National ID card scheme, being completed a year earlier and now being just at replacement level, the global RFID market is rising 5% this year to $5.56 billion.

IDTechEx is seeking several exceptional sales candidates.

Speakers already confirmed include The US Navy SPAWAR, GE, Savi Technology, University of Michigan, Fisk University, Structural Graphics, MicroStrain, Axcess Technologies, The Facility, NREL and many others.

This year has already seen a huge increase in the choice of electronic components that can be printed or are compatible with printing in that they are thin, flexible and can support further printed circuitry on top.

As forecasted by IDTechEx, there has been a surge in orders for RFID in 2009. Despite the world's largest RFID project, the $6 billion China National ID card scheme, being completed a year earlier, the global RFID market is rising 5% this year to $5.56 billion, in the face of the global financial meltdown which has caused some car production, for example, to plummet by 50%. In many applicational sectors, RFID orders are up 10%.

In the last year, the burgeoning printed and thin film electronics industry has greatly enhanced its repertoire and changed its priorities, encompassing such things as rapid commercialisation of disposable and invisible electronics.

In these days of environmental consciousness, what are RFID's green credentials? Is RFID a net positive or negative contributor to the campaign to help the planet?

IDTechEx announces the new report RFID Forecasts, Players & Opportunities 2009-2019, which addresses the global RFID situation. Areas of growth, undersupply and oversupply and trends are given based on extensive new primary research. The report provides an unprecedented level of forecasts split in many ways. Here the primary author, Raghu Das, gives a summary of the report findings.

The annual IDTechEx Printed Electronics Europe conference and exhibition in Dresden, Germany, last week hosted the annual awards to recognise outstanding achievement in the industry. The Deputy Mayor of Dresden, Dirk Hilbert, opened the Awards.

The IDTechEx Printed Electronics Europe 2009 event opened this morning in Dresden, Germany. Over 760 attendees had pre-registered with many more registering on the morning of the event.

In the current recession, there are few sectors which are growing rapidly, but one of those is printed electronics. Pre-registered attendance at the IDTechEx Printed Electronics Europe conference, which will be held in Dresden, Germany, on April 7-8, is 20% higher than at the same time before the event last year.