1Gbps Wireless Network Made With Red and Green Laser Pointers 157
MrSeb writes "Back in the olden days, when WiFi and Bluetooth were just a glimmer in the eye of IEEE, another short-range wireless communications technology ruled supreme: Infrared Data Association, or IrDA for short. IrDA was awful; early versions were only capable of kilobit-per-second speeds, and only over a distance of a few feet. Trying to get my laptop and mobile phone to link up via IrDA was, to date, one of the worst tech experiences I've ever had. There's a lot to be said for light-based communications, though. For a start, visible (and invisible) light has a frequency of between 400 and 800THz (800 and 375nm), which is unlicensed spectrum worldwide. Second, in cases where you really don't want radio interference, such as hospitals, airplanes, and other sensitive environments, visible light communication (VLC), or free-space optical communication, is really rather desirable. Now researchers at the National Taipei University of Technology in Taiwan have transmitted data using lasers — not high-powered, laboratory-dwelling lasers; handheld, AAA-battery laser pointers. A red and green laser pointer were used, each transmitting a stream of data at 500Mbps, which is then multiplexed at the receiver for a grand total of 1Gbps."
Re:Is IrDA Korean? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I am still waiting for the day.. (Score:4, Insightful)
the one thing IrDa worked great for was using my HP Jornada with my HP 2100 printer .. was also nice to use the Jornada to print on campus because while they had the pay per page on lpr prints all the printers had an exposed IR port that would just blindly print what was sent. It was also useful to use my iPaq as an A/V Remote control.
what i never did understand is why it was a standard BUT placement and usable angle was never part of the standard.. I've got a 8525 that has it.. on the damn bottom of the phone... where it is completely useless.. and i remember a lot of laptops that put it on the side of the device and had no usable angle other than head on..
it wasn't a bad spec for the time and the proposed use (a wireless serial connection) but the implementations left a good bit to be desired..
Unlicensed Spectrum? Unbelievably Reckless!! (Score:5, Insightful)
For a start, visible (and invisible) light has a frequency of between 400 and 800THz (800 and 375nm), which is unlicensed spectrum worldwide.
My God! They're broadcasting my movies over an unlicensed, unregulated carrier! This MUST be stopped! This "visible" light will aid paedophiles, piracy, terrorists, drug dealers and all manner of criminality!
Re:Not new (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure that if you got the price down to about $50, people would find a lot more uses for this, including sharing network connections with friends (in particular in rural areas), secure communications, and distributing access points. Not everybody lives in cities with otherwise excellent coverage.