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Improving Wireless Networks
FOE writes "Picked up this story from Eurekalert. Describes disco-ball like reflector to help IR networks. I really like the name: "chaos mirror" (grin). " Fairly straight-forward device: Takes the incoming beam and spreads it out over a wider range - but it's all IrDA, which has terrible range. I'll keep my ZoomAir, thanks.
Could you use one of these to sort of fire off a big burst of laser into the room, then intercept them all as they bounce back and get a kind of image of the room? This could be really useful in robot navigation. Let the robot map the entire room at once.
Then again, maybe they already do that...
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Get the smoke machine fired up and have a disco in your room as the computers and appliances fire information around the network.
Line-of-sight technology has no business in this increasingly-networked world. This disco ball idea is nothing more than a kludge to try to work around IR's primary limitation.
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Sure, IR was great when all you needed it to do was change channels on your TV set. But now you have two or three TV sets with VCRs and stereo components and every damn one (except Bose) uses the same crappy line-of-sight IR technology.
This idea, honestly, is nothing new. I'm only sorry I didn't patent it. For years I've been using mylar loops to accomplish the same results. Just goto a novelty supply store and pick up a roll of mylar film (its basically plastic with a mirror surface). Cut strips of this stuff and put it in corners around your house. Also try to put mylar on any surfaces surrounding the IR receiver.
By aiming my IR remote at the right corner, I can actually control my VCR or cable box from other rooms and even down a flight of stairs. But it's still a kludge.
I wish the FCC would open up more of the lower ranges for consumer use so that cheap RF remotes could finally be implemented. Apple, get your AirPort to work with a PCI or PC Card interface, puh-leeze!
Remember...IR is (in the most basic sense) heat...so IR networking is just a NIC having hot flashes. The technology is tired and I sure hope that it's not still around in ten years.
My $1.00 - $0.98 not necessarily yours...
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Sheesh. When will these people just get a clue and switch to RF?
One part of a system that I'm working on uses a 2 megabit RF network. It works well, the parts are all fairly cheap. The only real problem is that of power. Since these are PCMCIA cards mostly in laptops or handheld devices, they frequently don't have to power to transmit over a great distance or over a lot of noise. But fixing this is easy. You see, somewhere you have to have a central station that hooks into your wire network. So, you just massively overcover the area with these stations. They're small and cheap too. And practically no setup, although they can be administered remotely by telnetting to one of them.
It's beautiful. Total of maybe 100-120 RF devices in the plant, and 250-300 base stations to get total coverage of every place you just might happen to be. Note that this is a manufacturing plant with one whole hell of a lot of RF noise produced by the machinery, so this overcoverage is necessary. In my office, my laptop (along with about 30 other peoples) goes through one base station at 2 megabits, from anywhere in the building. Only problem is when the wire network goes down, or someone unplugs the base unit. In the plant, of course, the base stations are mounted high in the rafters, so you can't see them anyway and your workers aren't doing something stupid like unplugging them to plug in the coffee maker (which happened once). Plus, adding any new devices to the network (stationary or not) is easy. Just plug in a radio card.
Anyway, RF devices are not new. These cards have been around for a few years, and work fairly well with a little forethought and planning. IR is a clumsy hack whose only use is close range connections. Wiring an office or anything like that is just ugly. MIRRORS to transmit your data around the office? You must be insane.
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- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.