Harald Haas: Wireless data from every light bulb

http://www.ted.com What if every light bulb in the world could also transmit data? At TEDGlobal, Harald Haas demonstrates, for the first time, a device that could do exactly that. By flickering the light from a single LED, a change too quick for the human eye to detect, he can transmit far more data than a cellular tower -- and do it in a way that's more efficient, secure and widespread.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• TED
• TEDTalks
• TEDGlobal
• Harald Haas
• wireless data
• wireless
• data
• LED
• transmit data
• flickering light
• data transfer
• secure
• efficient
• technology

[MrChannnnnnnnnnnnnnn]

IF ONLY WE CAN HOOK IT ON THE SUN!

[I3L4NK]

Amazing. I'll be damned if this isn't the future of wireless internet.

[timoffex]

Huh, I guess that would work.

[RookOfOnyx]

The application of this is data and mobile internet, not replacing RF. And where are you driving, exactly, that you are traveling down roads that aren't even lit by street lights? Do you live in Detroit? OHHHHHHHH

[RookOfOnyx]

No, this guy is talking about download speeds in static situations. You could perhaps argue that it could evolve further from the initial idea into one that has other applications, but this idea would not help the powers that be at all.

[RookOfOnyx]

A space's illumination would contain several synced lifi bulbs, so the stream could come from any of several directions to avoid interrupted signal. It would probably end up being an auxillary system, like a way to download movies very rapidly to your phone in the nearest coffee shop or at the nearest lifi street. If you recorded a movie on your phone, you could approach a lifi port, point your phone at it, and upload your movie very quickly to the internet in a brief flash of light.

[RookOfOnyx]

Forget the lightbulb idea, it doesn't really work well. But how about dim lasers for both upload and download. Small enough to put on a phone, accurate, and transmits in color and intensity for extremely high bandwidth over very long distances. Every phone could have a laser and RF device to communicate with the nearest lifi port, sync up, and stream directly into the land grid at high bandwidth speeds.

[timoffex]

This is a great idea, but how would the whole system look? Does it work over very long distances, and would a connection be interrupted if something moves through it?

[timoffex]

My smartphone has a fleshlight? Sweet!

[ph00l1sh]

that's exactly what i was thinking!! UPLOAD! lol, computers would become some sort of flashlight...

[mukavelli]

Very nice idea, in some cases it would work, but it won't replace radio wave transmission data, the biggest issue that they don't mention it is how the light bulb is able to recive data, is not enough to just transmit data if you want to have a complete system for comunication. I apreciate all the people who invent new stuf, but they have to be a little bit more realist.

[TheTruthNothinMore]

So basically the light bulbs of the future will help the powers that be spy on you...