How Differential Gear works must see 100% My bright idea: Light bulbs can be used to transmit data | Discover | Technology | The Observer. "Light can be gentle, dangerous, dream-like, bare, living, dead, misty, clear, hot, dark, violet, spring-like, falling, straight, sensual, limited, poisonous, calm and soft," said the great Swedish cinematographer Sven Nykvist. It is also extraordinarily useful, he could easily have added, a point that scientists have been recently exploiting with some striking new uses for light, both in the home and in industry. Using light-emitting diodes – or LEDs – it will soon be possible to manipulate optical signals in order to build super-fast data links for personal computers, construct simple crash-avoidance systems for cars, design cable-free communication links with submarines and underwater robots and develop a host of other intriguing devices.
Such projects currently are now being studied by engineers like 42-year-old Professor Harald Haas, once a projects manager for Siemens, now professor of mobile communications at Edinburgh University – and a man with a bright future. 19-year-old tech kid slays the Dragons Den. [VIDEO] Www.intersil.com/data/an/an1325.pdf.