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LED lightbulbs create wireless networks wherever they are installed
Engineers have devised a method of allowing almost any device fitted with standard LEDs to communicate with other equipment with similar lights (Credit: Shutterstock)
Various researchers have created ways to transmit wireless information from LED light fittings, to act as a form of enhancement to Wi-Fi based networks known as "Li-Fi." But now engineers at the University of Virginia (U.Va) have come up with a new twist on this theme – they claim to have created an algorithm that makes almost any device fitted with standard visible- light LEDs able to communicate with other equipment with similar LEDs. So, for example, the LED headlights in your car could communicate to the car in front of you through its LED taillights, or the LED display in your clock radio could tell the coffee maker to turn on via its indicator light.
Prof. Maite Brandt-Pearce and Mohammad Noshad, the latter formerly of U.Va but now a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, came up with a way for light from LED fixtures to transmit signals to wireless devices. Streaming data at around 300 Mbps from each light, any and all LED lights in the vicinity could be used as wireless access points without the limiting bandwidth problems of radio frequency (RF) wireless networks.
"We developed a modulation algorithm that increases the throughput of data in [visible light communications]," says Brandt-Pearce. "We can transmit more data without using any additional energy. As more light fixtures get replaced with LED lights, you can have different access points to the same network."
Unlike conventional RF Wi-Fi, the system could also be used in places where radio waves create problems or are not permitted, such as around medical equipment in hospitals, in electromagnetically-sensitive manufacturing environments, and in passenger aircraft cabins.
"The idea in this technology is to transmit the data using the lighting systems that are already used for the illumination of indoor environments. [Visible light communications] offer a compact, dual-use, energy-saving solution and can provide a high-speed secure network connection for a large number of users," says Noshad.
"You can use it any place that has lighting," adds Professor Brandt-Pearce. "In a stadium, in a parking lot, or from vehicle to vehicle if using LED headlights and taillights." This is the point of difference of the U.Va system.
Sure, it doesn't boast the claimed speeds of a system like the SiSoft Li-Fi (though it is three times faster than a similar "Wi-Fo" set up from Oregon State), but the possibility of transmitting data from anything that has LEDs to anything with LEDs turns things on their head. The Internet of Things (IoT), for example, could be enabled much more easily and cheaply than ever thought of before.
"[Visible light communications] has the potential to significantly increase the speed of internet connection in multiuser indoor environments due to the broad bandwidth of the visible light," says Noshad. "It will offer a huge energy saving for the nation since energy is already used for lighting, and thus does not need to be expended for communications."
The researchers have already been granted several patents in relation to their work and are now working on a Li-Fi enabled desk lamp to show to investors, along with investigating ways to increase the number of concurrent users on their devices.
Source: University of Virginia
Source: http://www.gizmag.com/led-lightbulbs-wireless-networks/38358/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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