Communications

It’s a sign of the times when the speed of electrons moving through wires is seen as pedestrian, but that’s increasingly the case as technology moves towards the new world of optical communication and computing. Optical communication systems that use the speed of light as the signal are still controlled and limited by electrical signaling at the end. But physicists have now discovered a way to use a gallium arsenide nanodevice as a signal processor at “terahertz” speeds that could help end the bottleneck.  Read More

Passengers boarding either a Cathay Pacific Airways or Dragonair jet in 2012 will be able to make use of broadband connectivity. This week, the airline confirmed an agreement with Panasonic Avionics Corporation to provide broadband access across its entire fleet with download speeds of up to 50Mbps (to the aircraft – not individual passengers), as well as call and data access for cell phones.  Read More

Electrical engineers from University of California San Diego (UCSD) are building the foundations for wireless networks of the future. Hoping to bring mass access to the the kind of high capacity, extremely low power wireless networks found only in expensive defense and satellite applications, the researchers are merging silicon chip technologies with sophisticated wireless communications tools in the millimeter and microwave range. This work, according to UCSD, could result in personal wireless networks that make current high-speed wireless connections feel slower than the dial-up connections from the early 1990s.  Read More

Researchers at IBM have made important progress toward creating silicon circuits that communicate using pulses of light rather than electrical signals. This is thanks to a device called nanophotonic avalanche photodetector (NAP), which, as detailed on the journal Nature, is the fastest of its kind and is a major step toward achieving energy-efficient computing that will have significant implications for the future of electronics.  Read More

In a step that could see communication wires banished from homes and offices researchers have developed a miniature device capable of converting ultra-fast laser pulses into bursts of radio-frequency signals. The advance could enable all communications, from HDTV broadcasts to secure computer connections, to be transmitted from a single base station.  Read More

Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV’s) are at the forefront of new discoveries and important research in the ocean depths, but they are still hindered by cumbersome cables that connect them to their support ships at the surface. It brings back memories of the days before radio-controlled toys, when our remote-control cars had wires coming out of them that ran up to the controllers in our hands. Now, thanks to scientists and engineers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), ROV’s may soon be set free from their tethers. The researchers have developed an undersea optical communications system, which they describe as “a virtual revolution in high-speed undersea data collection and transmission.”  Read More

One of the issues of current chip design is the excessive power needed to transport and store ever increasing amounts of data. A possible solution is to use optics not just for sending data, but also to store information and perform calculations, which would reduce heat dissipation and increase operating speeds. Disproving previous beliefs in the matter, MIT researchers have demonstrated the first laser built from germanium which can perform optical communications... and it's also cheap to manufacture.  Read More

Google plans to roll-out an experimental trial of an ultra high-speed 1 gigabit per second (1Gbps) fiber-to-the-home (FFTH) broadband service that is around 100 times faster than most Americans experience today. Google says the service will be delivered to a number of cities or communities – 50,000 to 500,000 residents - somewhere of its choosing in the USA in a effort to investigate new ways of making Internet access better and faster for everyone.  Read More

Last December, the world was introduced to the Synaptics Fuse, a new concept in mobile communications. The prototype smartphone is the result of a collaboration between Synaptics, Texas Instruments, Immersion, TheAlloy and The Astonishing Tribe (TAT). What makes this phone so special is its user/phone interface. It takes Synaptics’ pioneering touchscreen technology to a whole new level, allowing people to use the phone one-handed, and without having to even see the screen.  Read More