So today I'm delivering a rather interesting piece of news, namely that our internet now has the potential to reach even greater speeds...
So today I'm delivering a rather interesting piece of news, namely that our internet now has the potential to reach even greater speeds than previously imagined thanks to the efforts of photonics researchers in the University of California, San Diego.
No longer are the electric pulses sent through copper wires the forefront of information transfer. Today, we use optic fibre. Put simply, it's a cable with thousands of mirrors positioned to reflect light pulses in binary, the native language of all computers. These cables are laid all along the ocean floor and underground, allowing for rapid data transfer. It also allows for little to no signal loss and is much more secure, as light doesn't radiate signals.
However, it seems that the people at the University of California have found a way to bypass the previous power limitations on optic fibre. Previously, should too much power be used to transmit the light, the signal would become distorted.
"In lab experiments, the researchers at UC San Diego successfully deciphered information after it travelled a record-breaking 12,000 kilometers through fiber optic cables with standard amplifiers and no repeaters, which are electronic regenerators." - Science Daily
So for all the people out there who have optic fibre at the moment, look forward to this. For those of you who don't *cough* Australia *cough*, bad luck.
No longer are the electric pulses sent through copper wires the forefront of information transfer. Today, we use optic fibre. Put simply, it's a cable with thousands of mirrors positioned to reflect light pulses in binary, the native language of all computers. These cables are laid all along the ocean floor and underground, allowing for rapid data transfer. It also allows for little to no signal loss and is much more secure, as light doesn't radiate signals.
However, it seems that the people at the University of California have found a way to bypass the previous power limitations on optic fibre. Previously, should too much power be used to transmit the light, the signal would become distorted.
"In lab experiments, the researchers at UC San Diego successfully deciphered information after it travelled a record-breaking 12,000 kilometers through fiber optic cables with standard amplifiers and no repeaters, which are electronic regenerators." - Science Daily
So for all the people out there who have optic fibre at the moment, look forward to this. For those of you who don't *cough* Australia *cough*, bad luck.
