I caught that too.
This, folks, is what happens -- all the time -- when journalists write about technical subjects of which they know nothing.
While a four diode bridge is commonly used for low power rectification -- power circuits are now typically using IGBTs.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Igbt.jpg(Silicon Controlled Rectifiers (SCR) preceded them -- and are still in massive use.)
(Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors)
They've replaced SCRs in recent years -- pretty much in anything newly designed.
Unlike SCRs, IGBTs are strikingly efficient. They can also handle power voltages with aplomb, surviving overvoltages that would let the smoke out of an SCR.
IGBTs can switch AC or DC -- at blazing speed -- so they can generate 60Hz outputs via PWM on the load side of a low-pass filter circuit...
Or, they can function as more efficient SCRs as an element of the low-pass filter circuit. (They'd simply shut off the AC flow even better than a diode -- considering the voltages involved.)
Such IGBT modules are now being manufactured like Chicklets.
It's only a matter of time before IGBTs are integrated into conventional motor-contactors. The real switching will be done by the IGBT. The conventional relay will operate as a fail-safe back-up and indicator. Such a scheme will extend the life of current contacts up towards centuries, for most of the time the coils will be pulling in and out dead circuits. (IGBTs switch state in micro-seconds -- thousands of times faster than any mechanical system.)
