search technology reviews, news, features, group tests
Popular Searches:   video , dell , dvd
 |  Register
 |  Newsletters  | 
Sitemap  |  RSS
RSS
Monday November 23, 2009 5:20 AM AEST
Skip Navigation LinksPC Authority > News > Boffins invent time telescope
Boffins invent time telescope
NEWS

Boffins invent time telescope

by David Neal  on Oct 1, 2009
Tags: science
White coats at Cornell University have demonstrated a photon-based system that has the potential to squeeze more data into packets sent over the Internet.

Discussed first in the journal Nature Photonics, the device can focus light pulses in time, as opposed to space. By doing this it should be able to increase the amount of data sent in packets quite dramatically.

According to the BBC, a prototype device boosted the data rate of photon pulses by 27 times. It reported that "temporal lenses that can squash comparatively long pulses in time" were employed to jam an image of a standard 10GHz pulse into much a shorter one.

The introduction to the research explains, "We generate waveforms with 1.5 [picosecond] minimum features by compressing lower-bandwidth replicas created with a 10 GHz electro-optic modulator. In effect, our device allows for ultrahigh-speed direct 270 GHz modulation using relatively low speed devices and represents a new class of ultrafast waveform generators."

So why has no one thought of this before? The results of the University's experimentation in photonic data transfers even surprised Cornell University's Mark Foster, the person who came up with it.

"The most surprising thing for me was seeing it all work," he told the BBC.

 

theinquirer.net (c) 2009 Incisive Media
Email a Friend Email this
Print Page Print this
Tweet This Tweet this
Feedback Send us your tips


Ads by Google

Comments

Be the first to comment on this article.
Thoughts on this article? Add a comment below.
Login or register to submit a comment.
 

Top Stories

Box battle: Telstra takes on TiVo and Foxtel with T-Box trial in Melbourne
It's not quite Foxtel IQ and it's isn't TiVo either. The T-Box lets Telstra users watch movies and TV from the Bigpond site, as well as record and watch digital TV
 
5 More Free Linux Apps You Can't Do Without
More digital Swiss Army knife software, including Linux utilities and tools that are so useful you won't know how you ever did without them
 
Microsoft delivers Office 2010 public beta
Vendor details editions for Office 2010 along with application virtualisation for testing.
 


 
Intel
 
 
LogMeIn
 
 
Amazing Dell Coupons now available
 
Discover Apple