'Never seen before' Fraunhofer wireless breakthrough... seen before
Many Hans make light work?
Pity Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute. The research organisation best known for devising the MP3 music format seems to be running short of projects to puff.
This week it published an item of “research news” about the work of Fraunhofer boffin Frank Deicke, who is employed at Fraunhofer’s photonics lab in Dresden. Herr Deicke is undoubtedly a clever, conscientious researcher. A few weeks ago, according to Fraunhofer, he “presented an infrared module the like of which has never been seen before”.
Fraunhofer photonics researcher hard at work in October 2012...
What makes the module so outstanding? It can transmit data at a rate of one billion bits per second which, the organisation was quick to stress, is “46 times faster than conventional Wi-Fi and 1430 times faster than a Bluetooth connection”.
You’ll undoubtedly be seeing, if you haven’t already, some dropped-jaw coverage on any number of hardware blogs.
Less breathlessly, the Institute added: “Deicke has already been able to show that the transfer rate of his current model can be raised to 3Gb/s.”
Can be raised? Already has been, folks - and... er... Frank Deike, no less.
...and February 2012
Back in February, the Fraunhofer Institute told us: “Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems (IPMS), Dresden, has developed an optical wireless communication (OWC) link with up to 3Gb/s data rate.”
The module “supports 512Mb/s and 1Gb/s Giga-IR compliant communication and can be tuned up to 3Gb/s”.
Is it “the like of which has never been seen before” too?
Actually, no - as this video from 2009 showing a KDDI 1Gb/s demo shows:
COMMENTS
*never seen before
I see no problem here.
*as defined by Apple
The light in the photo.
There are 2 light sources being used to achieve that look in the photo - there is a tightly gridded light from up high camera right, pointing down at the device. It's clipping the side of his face and casting the shadow you can see under his chin.
There's another gridded light from low camera left pointing just at his face. It's casting the shadow you can see behind his ear. A grid on a light is modifier used to give you a very tight beam of light with a soft(ish) falloff at the edges and no spill light.
I'd guess they're both small flashes (speedlights) with strong orange gels (2xCTO?) and the camera is set to a tungsten white balance which makes the daylight coming in appear blue.
</photonerd>
I would like to take this opportunity...
to apologize for the Fraunhofer institute. I know it makes us Germans look like a laughing stock. From the me-too MP3 codec to this hilariously bad idea.
... never seen before
Hey it completely worked for me. I had never before seen the device. That photo is good for another dozen press releases before everybody will have seen it.
Go easy on poor Deicke, he has a tough job holding still for 8 month. Thats another feat I have never seen before!
