Turning Your Home Wiring Into a Giant Antenna 135
An anonymous reader writes with this IBT snippet: "Imagine if you could run a wireless sensor device for years without ever having to replace the battery. Turns out, the idea of a battery-less wireless device might not be too far off. Researchers at the University of Washington and the Georgia Institute of Technology developed a small node sized device that uses the residential wiring from a building or home and transmits information to and from almost anywhere else from within. The device is called Sensor Nodes Utilizing Powerline Infrastructure, or SNUPI. It uses basic copper wiring as a giant antenna to receive wireless signals at a set frequency. When the device is within 10 to 15 feet of electrical wiring, it uses the antenna to send data to a single base station." (For "node-sized," think "size of a breakfast cereal prize.")
Interesting (Score:2, Interesting)
This is actually a pretty cool idea. It means in any populous area you wouldn't need wireless hubs or cell towers anymore, just the whole city would be humming.
Of course, if there is indeed any higher risk of cancer from radio waves, well... I pity everyone who lives there :)
Bet the HAM guys are gonna love this (Score:4, Interesting)
They already get upset enough about HomePlug style ethernet-over-power devices.
Re:Interesting (Score:1, Interesting)
"Of course, if there is indeed any higher risk of cancer from radio waves, well... I pity everyone who lives there :)"
Radio waves are already being generated by the wiring, albeit at much lower frequencies (e.g., 60Hz).
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
Radio waves are already being generated by the wiring, albeit at much lower frequencies (e.g., 60Hz).
You insensitive clod! [wikipedia.org]
seems an old idea... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Bet the HAM guys are gonna love this (Score:3, Interesting)