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Wireless Internet Access Uses Visible Light, Not Radio Waves
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that a company has demonstrated a new form of wireless communication that uses light instead of radio waves. "Its inventor, St. Cloud resident John Pederson, says visible-light embedded wireless data communication is the next step in the evolution of wireless communications, one that will expand the possibilities in phone and computer use. The connection provides Web access with almost no wiring, better security and with speeds more than eight times faster than cable."
Use Tempest for Eliza and it'll transmit radio at you for real rather than generating a minor html error :P
I read an article about this or similar technology several months ago. Sure, light doesn't do through walls, but that could be an advantage. You could setup a wireless network that asctually stops at the building perimiter.
The other article (not sure if this one does didn't read it) indicated that this technology could be incorporated into LED lighting. Basically your overhead lighting would become the access point. There would be recievers in the room as well that would pick up your transmissions and presumably put them on some sort of physical media (cat6, fibre). Pretty neat, but to me sound extremely finicky.
-- Snow.
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And here is GPL'd design: http://ronja.twibright.com/
839*929
Well now, that depends on both the wall and the light source. No one has said what wavelength of light is being used, at what power, and what frequency/modulation. While I'm sure his setup goes well beyond IRDA, using LEDs ("light") for data transmissions has been around for over 20 years. Both my cellphone and laptop have IR ports on them -- even used it for internet access once. (laptop doesn't have bluetooth and I don't have the 150$ (f*** you Ericson) USB cable for the phone.)
[Back in college, eons ago, "we" blinded remotes in other rooms through the cinder-block walls with a high output IR LED -- that we made insanely bright to the point of beginning to melt it.]