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Scientists Twist Radio Beams To Send Data At 32 Gigabits Per Second
concertina226 writes Scientists from three international universities have succeeded in twisting radio beams in order to transfer data at the speed of 32 gigabits per second, which is 30 times faster than 4G LTE wireless technology in use today. The researchers, led by Alan Willner, an electrical engineering professor with the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, successfully demonstrated data transmission rates of 32 gigabits per second across 2.5m of free space in a basement laboratory.
Yeah, I could do with one of those office-space meme's right now.
If all the nay-sayers faux-gasping at the extreme length of 2.5m could shut up, that'd be great.
I'm not sure what people expect these days - this is a major achievement - whether it *can* be extended, or whether it *will* be extended would be different achievements. You could almost apply Jackson's rules of optimisation to this (refresher below) - in that first you *do* it, and only then (if you're an expert) do you try to do it *well*.
Simon
Jackson's rules of optimisation: "The First Rule of Program Optimization: Don't do it. The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!): Don't do it yet."
Physicists get Hadrons!
The reference to 4G limits has exactly what to do with this story? This was not 32Gb/s over a 4G network, it was 32Gb/s over an unknown protocol at a very short distance. I'm guessing that the basement was isolated from signal noise, which means this pretty much a non story or extremely premature.
There are many people that invent some batshit crazy things that simply don't work in the real world. Honestly that is not an insult directed at the inventors, because their work tends to lead to other developments down the road. It's more an insult at media which focuses on hyping everything possible.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The reference to 4G limits has exactly what to do with this story?
I suppose about as much as a Space Shuttle has to do with a person standing next to it. I took it as a scale-comparison, but I understand your point about the story creating a potentially false impression that this is an evolution of 4G.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Yeah, more politics! Less of that nerdy tech stuff! What do they think we are, a bunch of geeks who get excited by things like communications technologies and networking?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.