Light Fidelity — Communications At The Speed Of Light

Last night I watched this video from a July 2011 TED Talk. My jaw is still on the floor.

In July 2011, Dr. Harald Haas, Professor of Mobile Communications at the University of Edinburgh School of Engineering/Institute of Digital Communications, for the first time publically demonstrated Light Fidelity (Li-Fi), a method of Visible Light Communication (VLC) technology.

Haas’ explanation and demonstration are fascinating.

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaoSp4NpkGg’]

New Scientist Magazine has more. Li-Fi performance has already been demonstrated at levels that put WiFi and even broadband to shame:

Li-Fi, as it has been dubbed, has already achieved blisteringly high speeds in the lab. Researchers at the Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin, Germany, have reached data rates of over 500 megabytes per second using a standard white-light LED. Haas has set up a spin-off firm to sell a consumer VLC transmitter that is due for launch next year. It is capable of transmitting data at 100 MB/s – faster than most UK broadband connections.

The implications of this are beyond imagination. It’s still early in the Li-Fi’s development, but just the idea of leveraging a massive existing world-wide infrastructure (lighting technology) to perform a secondary function (extremely high-quality communication) many times more efficiently than the secondary technology currently allows, and at a net financial gain…

Like I said, my jaw’s still on the floor. Safe, reliable, secure data transfer at 30 Gigabytes per minute is insane.

Can you think of some possible applications for Li-Fi? How do you think companies and governments should use this infant technology? Let us know in the comments section!