HeinrichHertzInstitute
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German geniuses hit 800Mbps with light bulb WLAN
Last year, Chinese scientists showed off some new old-school tech, transmitting data with blue LEDs that flicker faster than the human eye can perceive. This throwback to the good ol' days of IR receivers was able to hit speeds of 2Mbps, but leave it to the fine folks at the Heinrich Hertz Institute to push the light bulb networking tech to the extremes. Earlier this year researchers hit 500Mbps with white LEDs; now, using a combination of white, green, blue, and red, the team ramped that up to 800Mbps, officially putting Ethernet on notice. The line-of-sight networking won't actually replace your standard Cat 5 line or WiFi router, but it could find a home in places like hospitals where radio-based wireless technology can cause problems for sensitive equipment. With any luck, we'll soon be bathing our homes in HD-streaming illumination.
Siemens gurus hit 500Mbps with white LED lights, dare you to blink
You know what's better than wireless power? Nothing, frankly. You know what comes darn close? Wicked fast transmissions through thin air. Researchers from Siemens have just shattered their own record for wireless data transfer using white LED light, hitting a whopping 500Mbps while working in collaboration with the Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin. The old record sat at "just" 200Mbps, but the new speeds are helping to take Visible Light Communication from a hopeful technology to a serious contender in the space. These same researchers were also able to show that a system using up to five LEDs is capable of beaming out data over long distances at up to 100Mbps. We're told that the IEEE has been toiling tirelessly since 2007 to standardize activities in this field, and while a late 2010 completion date is currently being penciled in, we're not holding our breath. Anyone remember how long it took 802.11n to escape "draft?"[Thanks, Mademoiselle Y]
