EU Scientists Use Tech Found In iPhone X To Create ‘Lightspeed’ Internet - Another Thing We’ll Miss Out On When Brexit Happens
Need another reason to hate Brexit beyond all the normal reasons - from the lie about NHS re-investment to the fact that the Army may need to handle food and medicine shortages in the event of a ‘no deal?’
Well, you’re in luck, because it turns out we will miss out on a super fast internet powered by ruddy lasers. A group of EU scientists, known as PASSION, are embracing the same photon technology used in the iPhone X’s Face ID technology and creating a new, faster internet with the higher capacity to remove data bottlenecks.
I assume you have some questions… Let’s take them from the top.
How does it work?
To begin answering this question, we need to look at how the iPhone X’s Face ID works. Scanning the users face (and for the AirPods to sense the inside of your ears), Apple employs Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) to rapidly scan and efficiently collect/process data.
This laser diode is set to revolutionise fibre optic communications with a higher efficiency than current networks and a cheap cost of manufacture.
“VCSELs are a bit of a buzz word at the moment. They have the advantages of low driving current, high light-power conversion efficiency and high directivity,” Project coordinator Professor Pierpaolo Boffi commented. “This makes them an ideal choice for transmitting huge amounts of data in a low cost, energy efficient way.”
You see, current fibre optic broadband is limited by the linear, rather power-hungry transmission of data. But with the use of VCSEL, which can be very finely directed with pinpoint accuracy through a far wider, much cleaner spectrum for the best possible connection, you are guaranteed a far more efficient network every time.
How much better could it actually be?
To say it will trounce your current home broadband would be an understatement…
While reducing the current power requirements for the internet by over ten times, data transmission rates could peak at a whopping 112 terabytes every second!
Plus with a switching capacity of 1 petabyte per second per internet node (essentially a fancy name for every device with a unique address on the internet, including servers that host websites), you don’t stand a chance of hitting server capacity.
Cracking! When can I get my hands on it?
A timeline isn’t really talked about in the press release I received, but I have reached out to them for comment.
What’s to say we’ll even get it anyway? With the whole Brexit thing happening…
But with internet traffic set to grow 3.3 trillion gigabytes every year between now and 2021, it’s clear that something like this needs to be done!
And with a grant of over €7.5 million from the European Commission and nine countries forming the hive mind behind this project, they’ve got what they need to get it over the finish line.
