Category: Shanghai

Li-Fi – A plan to turn every lightbulb into an ultra-fast alternative to Wi-Fi

On By A.P.In China, Fudan University, Internet, Li-Fi, light, Oledcomm, The Future, Wi-FiLeave a comment

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Current wireless networks have a problem: The more popular they become, the slower they are. Researchers at Fudan University in Shanghai have just become the latest to demonstrate a technology that transmits data as light instead of radio waves, which gets around the congestion issue and could be ten times faster than traditional Wi-Fi.

In dense urban areas, the range within which Wi-Fi signals are transmitted is increasingly crowded with noise—mostly, other Wi-Fi signals. What’s more, the physics of electromagnetic waves sets an upper limit to the bandwidth of traditional Wi-Fi. The short version: you can only transmit so much data at a given frequency. The lower the frequency of the wave, the less it can transmit.

But what if you could transmit data using waves of much higher frequencies, and without needing a spectrum license from your country’s telecoms regulator? Light, like radio, is an electromagnetic wave, but it has about 100,000 times the frequency of a Wi-Fi signal, and nobody needs a license to make a light bulb. All you need is a way to make its brightness flicker very rapidly and accurately so it can carry a signal.

The idea sounds daft: Who would want to sit under a flickering bulb? But Li-Fi, a standard proposed just two years ago, is seeing rapid technological progress.
First, data are transmitted to an LED light bulb—it could be the one illuminating the room in which you’re sitting now. Then the lightbulb is flicked on and off very quickly, up to billions of times per second. That flicker is so fast that the human eye cannot perceive it. (For comparison, the average energy-saving compact fluorescent bulb already flickers between 10,000 and 40,000 times per second.) Then a receiver on a computer or mobile device—basically, a little camera that can see visible light—decodes that flickering into data. LED bulbs can be flicked on and off quickly enough to transmit data around ten times as fast the fastest Wi-Fi networks. (If they could be manipulated faster, the bandwidth would be even higher.)

Li-Fi has one big drawback compared to Wi-Fi: you, or rather your device, need to be within sight of the bulb. It wouldn’t necessarily need to be a special bulb; in principle, overhead lights at work or at home could be wired to the internet. But it would mean that, unlike with Wi-Fi, you couldn’t go into the next room unless there were wired bulbs there too.

However, a new generation of ultrafast Wi-Fi devices that we’re likely to start using soon face a similar limitation. They use a higher range of radio frequencies, which aren’t as crowded with other signals (at least for now), and have a higher bandwidth, but, like visible light, cannot penetrate walls.

Engineers and a handful of startups, like Oledcomm, have been experimenting with Li-Fi technology. The Fudan University team unveiled an experimental Li-Fi network in which four PCs were all connected to the same light bulb. Other researchers are working on transmitting data via different colors of LED lights—imagine, for example, transmitting different signals through each of the the red, green and blue LEDs inside a multi-colored LED light bulb.

Because of its limitations, Li-Fi won’t do away with other wireless networks. But it could supplement them in congested areas, and replace them in places where radio signals need to be kept to a minimum, like hospitals, or where they don’t work, such as underwater.

http://qz.com/137221/a-plan-to-turn-every-lightbulb-into-an-ultra-fast-alternative-to-wi-fi/#

Bear eats monkey when forced to ride bike at Shanghai Wild Animal Park

On By A.P.In Bears, China, Kebmodee, monkey, Nature, Shanghai, Shanghai Wild Animal ParkLeave a comment

A monkey was mauled by a bear after a disturbing circus stunt went wrong.

A video has emerged online of two monkeys and a black bear being forced to ride bicycles around a track in front of a large crowd.

After two laps of the track, one of the monkeys crash and the bear then attacks it as it lies stuck under the bicycle.

The video is believed to have been shot at the Shanghai Wild Animal Park, in China, which has hit the headlines in the past for its ‘Wild Animal Olympics’.

In the video, the audience can be heard cheering and laughing as the animals are sent riding around the small arena.

Circus workers holding sticks push the small bikes off but after a few seconds one monkey and the bear crash.

Staff can be seen desperately trying to force the bear off as it grabs the small monkey in its mouth.

At one stage three workers, dressed in brightly coloured costumes, try to wrestle the bear away, while another leads the second monkey away.

Campaign group Animals Asia said it has previously documented cheetahs, lions, tigers, bears, chimpanzees and an elephant being forced to perform in the ‘Wild Animal Olympics’.

It is not clear when the latest video was taken but Shanghai Wild Animal Park said in 2006 that the Olympic event had been scrapped following complaints and ‘out of consideration for the safety of our visitors.’

Stunts in the show had included making bears box one another and ride bicycles, kangaroos boxing humans and monkeys lifting weights.

Visitors to the park can also pay to have their picture taken with the big cats and other animals.

Animals Asia said some of the creatures had also been declawed.

China Tour Online’s website said the park ‘offers animal performances, showing the charm and skill of the animals and their gift in performing.’

Thanks to Kebmodee for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2320745/Bear-forced-ride-bike-sick-circus-stunt-crashes-mauls-monkey-large-crowd.html#ixzz2T1OBSdWz
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Mayan apocalypse: panic spreads as December 21 nears

On By A.P.In 12-21-12, 2012, alien garage, Altai Mountains, Armageddon, Barnaul, Bugarach, China, Cuba, David Morrison, Dmitry Medvedev, France, John Cusack, Long Count, Mayan apocalypse, Mayan calendar, Mayan prophecy, NASA, Nibiru, Novokuznetsk, panic buying, Pedro Celestino Yac Noj, Planet X, Ron Hubbard, Russia, Shanghai, Sichuan province, survival shelters1 Comment

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Cubans participate in a Mayan ritual at Bacuranao beach in eastern Havana.

Fears that the end of the world is nigh have spread across the world with only days until the end of the Mayan calendar, with doomsday-mongers predicting a cataclysmic end to the history of Earth.

Ahead of December 21, which marks the conclusion of the 5,125-year “Long Count” Mayan calendar, panic buying of candles and essentials has been reported in China and Russia, along with an explosion in sales of survival shelters in America. In France believers were preparing to converge on a mountain where they believe aliens will rescue them.

The precise manner of Armageddon remains vague, ranging from a catastrophic celestial collision between Earth and the mythical planet Nibiru, also known as Planet X, a disastrous crash with a comet, or the annihilation of civilisation by a giant solar storm.

In America Ron Hubbard, a manufacturer of hi-tech underground survival shelters, has seen his business explode.

“We’ve gone from one a month to one a day,” he said. “I don’t have an opinion on the Mayan calendar but, when astrophysicists come to me, buy my shelters and tell me to be prepared for solar flares, radiation, EMPs (electromagnetic pulses) … I’m going underground on the 19th and coming out on the 23rd. It’s just in case anybody’s right.”

In the French Pyrenees the mayor of Bugarach, population 179, has attempted to prevent pandemonium by banning UFO watchers and light aircraft from the flat topped mount Pic de Bugarach.

According to New Age lore it as an “alien garage” where extraterrestrials are waiting to abandon Earth, taking a lucky few humans with them.

Russia saw people in Omutninsk, in Kirov region, rushing to buy kerosene and supplies after a newspaper article, supposedly written by a Tibetan monk, confirmed the end of the world.

The city of Novokuznetsk faced a run on salt. In Barnaul, close to the Altai Mountains, panic-buyers snapped up all the torches and Thermos flasks.

Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian prime minister, even addressed the situation.

“I don’t believe in the end of the world,” before adding somewhat disconcertingly: “At least, not this year.”

In China, which has no history of preoccupation with the end of the world, a wave of paranoia about the apocalypse can be traced to the 2009 Hollywood blockbuster “2012”.

The film, starring John Cusack, was a smash hit in China, as viewers were seduced by a plot that saw the Chinese military building arks to save humanity.

Some in China are taking the prospect of Armageddon seriously with panic buying of candles reported in Sichuan province.

The source of the panic was traced to a post on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, predicting that there will be three days of darkness when the apocalypse arrives.

One grocery store owner said: “At first, we had no idea why. But then we heard someone muttering about the continuous darkness.”

Shanghai police said scam artists had been convincing pensioners to hand over savings in a last act of charity.

Meanwhile in Mexico, where the ancient Mayan civilisation flourished, the end time has been seen as an opportunity. The country has organised hundreds of Maya-themed events, and tourism is expected to have doubled this year.

Nasa has been aggressively seeking to dispel doomsday fears. It says there is no evidence Nibiru exists, and rumours it could be hiding behind the sun are unfounded.

“It can’t hide behind the sun forever, and we would’ve seen it years ago,” a Nasa scientist said.

The space agency also rejected apocalyptic theories about unusual alignments of the planets, or that the Earth’s magnetic poles could suddenly “flip.”

Conspiracy theorists contend that the space agency is involved in an elaborate cover up to prevent panic.

But David Morrison, an astronomer at Nasa, said: “At least once a week I get a message from a young person, as young as 11, who says they are ill and/or contemplating suicide because of the coming doomsday. I think it’s evil for people to propagate rumours on the internet to frighten children.”

Mayans themselves reject any notion that the world will end. Pedro Celestino Yac Noj, a Mayan sage, burned seeds and fruits to mark the end of the old calender at a ceremony in Cuba. He said: “The 21st is for giving thanks and gratitude and the 22nd welcomes the new cycle, a new dawn.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9730618/Mayan-apocalypse-panic-spreads-as-December-21-nears.html