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To: Tom Clarke who wrote (442499)8/25/2011 6:44:11 AM
From: Tom Clarke1 Recommendation  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 793916
 
The light fantastic: Bulbs could soon be used to broadcast household broadband
By Daniel Bates

Light bulbs could be soon used to broadcast wireless Internet, a leading physicist has claimed.

Harald Hass said he has developed a technology which can broadcast data through the same connection as a normal lamp.

By simply turning on the light in the room you could also switch on your Internet connection, he said in a speech.

Other possibilities of the device - which he has dubbed ‘Li-fi’, or Light Fidelity - include sending wireless data from the ‘white space’ in your television spectrum or unused satellite signals.

Professor Hass, of the school of engineering at Edinburgh University in the UK, said that currently we use radio waves to transmit data which are inefficient.

With mobile phones there are 1.4 million base stations boosting the signal but most of the energy is used to cool it, making it only five per cent efficient.

By comparison there are 40 billion light bulbs in use across the world which are far more efficient.

By replacing old fashioned incandescent models with LED bulbs he claimed he could turn them all into Internet transmitters.

The invention, dubbed D-Light, can send data faster than 10 megabits per second, which is the speed of a typical broadband connection, by altering the frequency of the ambient light in the room.

It has new applications in hospitals, airplanes, military, and even underwater. Aeroplane passengers could in theory be able to surf the Internet from signals beamed out of the lights on board.

‘The way we transmit wireless data is inefficient electromagnetic waves, in particular radio waves which are limited, they are sparse, they are expensive and only have a certain range,’ Professor Hass said.

‘It is this limitation which does not cope with wireless data...and we are running out of efficiency.

‘Light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum...wouldn’t it be great to use it for wireless communications?’

He added that the visible light spectrum had 10,000 more times the space than radio waves, making it the ideal range to use.

During a lecture professor Hass showed off a desk lamp which had been fitted with an LED light bulb which transmitted data to a receiver on the table below it.

Whenever he put his hand in the beam of light the video, which was beamed onto a screen behind him, stopped playing as the signal was being blocked.

Professor Hass said the technology has not yet been integrated with smart phone but he hopes that soon it will be.

‘Everywhere that there is light, these are potential sources for data transmission,’ he said.

‘For me the applications of it are beyond imagination...all we need to do is to fit a small microchip to every potential illumination device and this would combine illumination and data transmission, and this could solve the problems facing us in wireless communication.’

dailymail.co.uk



To: Tom Clarke who wrote (442499)8/25/2011 7:05:27 AM
From: Tom Clarke  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 793916
 
Leaked cable: Sen. McCain promised to help Gaddafi obtain U.S. military hardware
By Stephen C. Webster
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 -- 12:27 pm

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) promised to help former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi obtain U.S. military hardware as one of the United States' partners in the war on terror, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released Wednesday by anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

The meeting, which took place just over a year ago on Aug. 14, 2009, included other influential Americans, such as Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Susan Collins (R-SC) and Senate Armed Services Committee staffer Richard Fontaine, the document explains.

McCain opened the meeting by characterizing Libya's relationship with the U.S. as "excellent," to which Liebermann added: "We never would have guessed ten years ago that we would be sitting in Tripoli, being welcomed by a son of Muammar al-Qadhafi."

"Lieberman called Libya an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends," the cable continues. "The Senators recognized Libya's cooperation on counterterrorism and conveyed that it was in the interest of both countries to make the relationship stronger."

Part and parcel to that relationship: military hardware, including helicopters and non-lethal weaponry, meant to ensure the security of Tripoli. In exchange for this and assisting the nation in rehabilitating its image with other lawmakers, Gaddafi pledged to send Libya's highly enriched uranium supplies to Russia for proper disposal.

The cable does not mention anything about the senators pressing Gaddafi for democratic reforms.

In a twist of fate, Gaddafi temporarily abandoned that agreement in dramatic form last November, leaving a large quantity of uranium in a poorly sealed container strewn on the side of an airport runway for weeks. The incident nearly caused massive quantities of nuclear radiation to leak into the atmosphere -- a nuclear disaster, by all accounts.

And it all stemmed from a spat Gaddafi had with U.S. billionaire Donald Trump.

Trump even bragged about the incident in a recent appearance on Fox News, telling the conservative television station he "screwed" the Libyan dictator out of a land deal. Gaddafi had paid Trump to pitch a tent on his property in New York ahead of a United Nations summit. Once the media began zeroing in on the bizarre structure erected on Trump's property, the billionaire revoked his permission and sent Gaddafi packing.

Gaddafi is quoted in other U.S. diplomatic cables as saying he felt "humiliated" by his treatment, inspiring him to back out of the deal.

A rapid response was made by Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, who had aides describe in detail what exactly a nuclear disaster in Libya would look like. After nearly a week of talks, Libyan officials finally allowed the uranium to be carted off to Russia, with the U.S. paying $800,000 to transport it.

Sen. McCain, who provided the impetus for the whole strange affair, later wrote on microblogging site Twitter that he'd shared an "interesting meeting with an interesting man" (Gaddafi) -- a comment that has haunted the Arizona Senator since the former dictator began slaughtering his own people.

Since that time, McCain has also come out in favor of arming Libya's rebels, saying: "I think we could do the same thing that we did in the Afghan struggle against the Russians. There are ways to get weapons in without direct U.S. supplying."

rawstory.com