Gadgetory

Morse code DVD drives fiber optics that helicopter from Independence Day that got super wrecked by those aliens who weren't that friendly we've been using visible light to communicate with each other in a lot of different ways for a long time but imagine this for a second data flowing out of your living room light fixture like water from a showerhead it's real and it's called Wi-Fi the lie of course standing for lightest because I invented no just kidding I've standing for light but aside from the novelty of it how would this be better than existing standards like Wi-Fi that use radio waves great question well unlike the RF signals that make up a Wi-Fi connection which tend to spread out everywhere from the access point visible light is easier to focus and concentrate in one area I mean just go outside with a magnifying glass on a sunny day if you don't believe me this makes it possible to fit a lot more data into a life I signal but then it raises even more questions how would visible light transmit data anyway well Wi-Fi uses LED bulbs which can be switched on and off very very quickly they don't have that warm up time or that warm up time of an incandescent or a fluorescent so quickly can this be done in fact that the human eye cannot even detect it but special receivers that can connect to your computer or other device can translate this flickering into actual data and here's another cool thing visible light is also much less susceptible to interference than radio waves so you add all that up and you end up with a communication standard that could be much faster than Wi-Fi in fact researchers at Oxford achieved speeds of 224 gigabits per second in the laboratory that's over 200 times faster than even a Google Fiber internet connection and beyond just raw speeds life.i promises to offer a number of other advantages since it only uses visible light life by signals can't penetrate walls offering a higher degree of privacy a malicious user who wants to snoop on your network traffic would actually have to be physically in the same room or at the very least creeping outside your window making it nearly impossible for someone outside your home or office to eavesdrop on your wireless signal and since life I uses relatively inexpensive LED bulbs which consume less power than a Wi-Fi access point visible light networks could be deployed relatively cheaply using mostly existing technology the power savings also potentially could have significant implications for global energy consumption if life.i becomes as ubiquitous as Wi-Fi has one day especially as life.i transmitters can be dimmed to reduce bandwidth if you don't need to download 15 movies in one second but although the technology has great potential it is still very experimental and we probably won't be seeing it hit the mainstream market for several years at best and it isn't without its limitations either for example life.i offers greater privacy but the disadvantage of obviously not working in the next room over unless you've you know got your lightbulbs synched or whatever else and it could also be disrupted by excessive light pollution though maybe we're ignoring the biggest advantage of all not having to shop for routers and light bulbs in a separate aisle at the store anymore you guys should definitely check out the link in the video description to FreshBooks it's designed for freelance workers or small businesses and it's basically an online tool that makes invoicing getting paid and tracking your expenses easier all the little details about cash flow are in one place so you know where you stand it shows a full history of each invoice and allows you to check if your client has viewed the invoice and paid directly through fresh books by credit card and this is cool they actually just launched their deposits feature so if you're a house painter or a plumber or any kind of work where you might do you know a deposit and then half the work and then you know some more work and then they pay the rest at the end or whatever else those more complicated payment schemes are now support in pretty cool stuff so all you got to do to try out fresh books for free is head over to freshbooks dot-com slash tech quickie and don't forget to enter tech quickie and how did you hear about us section so thanks for watching guys if you liked this video hit that like button if you just liked it well whatever I guess you can't hit the dislike button too that's another reaction also check out our other channels of run Linus tech tips we've got a great video that just went up recently of Wow oh yeah Brandon reviewed a camera pretty sick the a7s mark 2 or 2 or R 2 or whatever it is Sony calls their second-generation follow ups we can never keep track of these things also leave a comment below if you have suggestions for future videos and don't forget to subscribe and follow tech wiki for more videos just like this one or maybe unlike this one maybe like the one you suggested