This weeks assignment involved us to watch a TED Talk and dissect the elements that wen't into it. After searching through many videos I stumbled upon Harald Haas: A breakthrough new kind of wireless internet. In it Harald Haas talks about an inventive way to transmit data via LED lights and solar panels. He also talks about the digital divide. At this moment there are 4.3 billion people without access to the internet and the amount of internet devices are increasing rapidly. Surely increasing the scale of the internet to include those 4.3 billion people would be easy right? Wrong, according to the video it would take the energy of 100 nuclear power plants to have world wide coverage. This is where the use of Li-Fi comes into play.
Li-Fi, or light-fidelity, is information being transmitted via a light source and a receiver. In the video Harald demonstrates how using a cheap, store bought LED light can transmit information to a solar panel. By changing the brightness of light, you change the amount of energy produced by the solar panel. A device can detect these changes and convert them into data. In the video he showed how the light was transmitting data, which held a video in it, to the solar panel and it played on the laptop. Harald proved it was the LED light transmitting the data by breaking the light with cardboard. This action stopped the video from playing. He also simulated fog with a piece of tissue paper. It lowered the energy output of the solar panel, but didn't alter the how the video was played.
With the combination of solar panels and Li-Fi, the solar panels can produce energy from the LED lights. This would cause the energy use to be neutral. The energy being consumed by the LED light is also being used to produce energy from the solar panels. This can solve the larger issue of energy needs.
As for certain aspects of the presentation. It lacked an area for the audience. The presenter didn't give the opportunity for audience participation or questions. There was a lack of humor in the presentation. Despite those short comings, the presentation made me think.
I think there would be some issues that Harald is not accounting for. In the presentation he gives the example of a LED light tower projecting a light at a home covered in solar panels. At a certain distance I believe the light would disperse and information would be lost. There's also an issue with this model of outside light. Outside light levels are constantly changing due to cloud cover and the position of the sun. Given the potential issues with these two examples, I would be more confident in this idea if he touched on them.
Overall I feel this is a step in the right direction to closing the digital divide. He has come up with an inventive solution to reduce the digital divide. I'm looking forward to hearing more about this in the future.
