800Mbps Wireless Network Made With LED Light Bulbs

Mark.JUK writes "German scientists working at Berlin's Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications have set a new world record for Visible Light Communication technology after they succeeded in using regular red, blue, green and white LED light bulbs as the basis for building a new 800Mbps capable ultrafast Wireless Local Area Network. Dr. Anagnostis Paraskevopoulos explained: 'With the aid of a special component, the modulator, we turn the LEDs off and on in very rapid succession and transfer the information as ones and zeros. The modulation of the light is imperceptible to the human eye. A simple photo diode on the laptop acts as a receiver. The diode catches the light, electronics decode the information and translate it into electrical impulses, meaning the language of the computer.' The solution, which could be installed on ceilings and would cover approximately 10 square meters, would be ideal for HD video streaming and inside Hospitals or Aircraft where traditional Wi-Fi is often banned. However visible light signals can easily be blocked, such as when a hand is passed in front of the transmitter."

Re:Summary designed for idiots...

[JustinOpinion]

Okay. But then the question becomes: "Why is such a dumbed-down article being posted to a technology site?"

I read TFA. It is terrible. It includes gems such as:

... have succeeded in developing an 800Mbps (Megabits per second) capable wireless network (WLAN - Wireless Local Area Network) by using nothing more than normal red, blue, green and white LED (Light-Emitting Diode) light bulbs. It apparently only takes "a few additional components" to turn regular LEDs ... into an affordable ultrafast wireless network.

Emphasis is added, to emphasize how these two sentences directly contradict each other. Did the author even read what they wrote?

More importantly, the article nowhere actually mentions what is new or different about this technology/process (or what the "additional components" might be). There is no way to discern if this is a breakthrough/innovation, or simply a standard configuration of off-the-shelf components. No indication about why tech-geeks should care. They claim a world record on data transfer, but don't provide any explanation, graphs, technical details... or, you know, evidence.

I'm not normally the Slashdotter who complains about this site going down the tubes. As far as I'm concerned this site has always had a mix of good and bad posts, and continues to have both good and bad posts. This particular article is ... terrible.