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NTT's Cool - Human Area Networking Technology

Posted by timothy on from the closer-to-fruition-since-last-mention dept.

kvsnut writes "I4U is reporting about NTT's research project called RedTacton - It 'safely turns the surface of the human body into a data transmission path at speeds up to 10 Mbps between any two points on the body.' There is a pretty interesting site (uses flash) setup to showcase the technology. If you want to jump to a non-flash overview, try here. It be cool if I could sync my Treo (I'm saving for) by just touching a cradle (or heck the PC)."

7 of 248 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This sounds awesome... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/index.html

    Synergy is a kind of software KVM that lets you link your mouse, keyboard, and even the clipboard across multiple machines and OSes over any network including the internet.

  2. News Article on RedTacton by Sundroid · · Score: 2, Informative

    TechWorld.com has a fairly detailed article on RedTacton, in which it says this about the concern of electric shocks: "The transceivers, which require a PCMCIA card to connect with an electronic device, use several hundred milliwatts of power and are insulated to avoid electric shocks. As with many items of household electrical equipment, like TVs and kettles, the transceivers do emit very weak electromagnetic fields, but the levels are in compliance with guidelines issued by Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, NTT said." Interesting Read. I have the link to the article on my blog at: http://sundroid.blogspot.com/.

    --
    Sun and Fun
  3. Re:So not new tech by bscott · · Score: 2, Informative

    And here - IBM Research - PAN
    And I'm pretty sure I read about it on Slashdot at the time, too, but darned if I can find it in a search now.

    Is NTT just sooo big that they can take on IBM in a patent fight; or is it a cross-licensing deal?

    I can think of a lot of applications for this if they can get it to fit into a Java Ring...

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    Perfectly Normal Industries
  4. Re:"safely"... by RabidChicken · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hate to break it to you, but you have thousands of "radio waves" (actually consisting of many different frequencies, there's nothing magic about radio) going through your body like it or not. If you can prove there's something wrong, then by all means, tell us, with a link, to a peer-reviewed source.

  5. Not new by lma · · Score: 3, Informative
    Using human skin as the medium to conduct signals for communications is a concept that has been around for years. See for example this computer.org article (PDF).

    Someone else mentioned the Microsoft patent.

    The interesting thing about Microsft's patent is that it includes power, not just data.

    Larry

  6. Re:Well... by Entropius · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not for its given bandwidth at its given range, however.

    Contact across the skin implies a range of ~1 meter; at that range the required emitted power for a clear wifi signal is on the order of microwatts.

  7. Here's some links by SirSnapperHead · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, some of them are not peer-reviewed, they're inconclusive but they're still food for thought.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4113989.stm
    http://www.mindfully.org/Health/2002/Mobile-Phone- Radiation20jun02.htm
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/11/08/link_betwe en_mobile_phones/
    http://www.microwavenews.com/clearerpicture.html
    http://www.emrnetwork.org/schools/macopinion.htm

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