Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Li-Fi has just been tested in the real world, and it's 100 times faster than Wi-Fi

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

Just in case you thought technology was slowing down for a bit, along comes LiFi - it's like WiFi, except it uses visible light instead of radio waves. It has two advantages. First, it provides network speeds many times faster than WiFi - up to a gigabit per second. And second, it can be installed in lights, meaning that everywhere we have a light bulb, we could have internet access. Oh sure, there are many things that could go wrong - remember WiMax? - but the existence of the possibility should suggests that the speed of connectivity will continue to increase. "Li-Fi was invented by Harald Haas from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland back in 2011, when he demonstrated for the first time that by flickering the light from a single LED, he could transmit far more data than a cellular tower." See also this TED talk and more in Wikipedia.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Apr 25, 2024 09:11 a.m.

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