The Lamps Are The Network 139
An anonymous reader sent us an interesting story that talks about using the flickers in flourescent lamps to do something beside's give me headaches. They actually are using them as a network to send things like audio. There are numerous possible applications of this, but I'd tend to think some sort of other standard that would let us eliminate those cursed lights would be better. Regardless, it's a damn cool hack.
Forgetting One Issue (Score:1)
Aren't we forgetting something fundamental ?
These things only broadcast data not receive it. To use these thngs as a true network one would need to get these babies to receive packets as well as transmit them!
Re:Whats Next? (Score:2)
Re:neat hack but..... (Score:2)
I dunno, I just thought this was funny for some reason.
Mr. Wizards World (Score:3)
In that story, it was grocery stores that were using them automatically update the price of items on the shelf. Instead of the normal tags on shelves, each item had a small LCD device in front of it that could "read" the flucuations in the flourescent lights.
I saw this program somewhere between 12 and 15 years ago.
Re:Now RIAA can realize its dream (Score:1)
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Favourite Quote (Score:2)
That, in a nutshell, is what hacking is all about.
Re:Now heres something I can support! (Score:1)
Whee! I thought I was the only geek to do this!
Castration of office flourescent light tubes is usually one of my top three goals when I start a new job:
Joe vs Volcano (Score:2)
All I can think of is Tom Hanks escaping that awful flourescent lighting in Joe versus the Volcano. If only Meg Ryan could somehow be attached to the application of this technology...
<peering about> "Wow! Why do all the chicks suddenly look like Meg Ryan?!"
-l
Re:Oh No! (Score:1)
Hope they didn't get a US patent for this one. (Score:4)
I think it was one of the Israeli kits with the pinholes for sticking wires in, rather than one of the spring-connector Radio Shack kits. In the end, it's the same process as AM radio, but using visible light as the carrier instead of waves in the radio and microwave parts of the spectrum.
Not everything electronic came about in the post-microprocessor era.
Re:Grocery stores have been using this for years (Score:2)
There is an article about these systems in the current 2600: "Secrets of Electronic Shelf Labels".
neat hack but..... (Score:4)
Neat, but not really useable. I give kudos for trying.
I read something about this and supermarkets... (Score:1)
Big Brother watching... your car's headlights? (Score:1)
Imagine that this encoding and transmission was required by law and monitored by police and traffic authorities. Now our cars are tattle-tales and the need for fancy radar monitoring is greatly reduced. Kinda scary thought if you don't like speeding tickets! I suppose this would be hacked eventually.
But the same technology could also be useful for "convoy-ing" vehicles in an auto-pilot fashion. Perhaps light is not the best signal for this (radio or IR more reliable?). But wouldn't it be nice to not have to constantly tickle the accelerator and brake in stop-and-go driving? The car in front of you would tell your car that it was slowing down or speeding up, and yours could automatically adjust. Throw in a proximity detector as a failsafe and you are partway to an auto-pilot.
Enough random thoughts for today...
Mike
Re:But can we overclock them? (serious) (Score:2)
If you think this is really cool.... (Score:1)
Re:Parent control (Score:1)
"...Roxanne! You don't have to put on the red light. Those days are over. You don't have to sell your body to the night..."
Indoor GPS supplement (Score:1)
Technology already in use (Score:3)
The ILID Partnership (or what they are doing) may be what you were thinking of. They have their Indoor Light Interactive Display system, which uses the Fluorescent lighting already present in a building to transmit data to electronic shelf labels, keeping their prices accurate. They did a lot of R&D proir to the systems being made available to consumers/businesses in 1999.
For more information, see http://www.ilid.com.au/ [ilid.com.au]
Re:better solution: (Score:2)
Does that mean the slimy sales people will start showing up in person?
Re:Cool.... (Score:2)
I've seen this discussed before... (Score:2)
At the time, I thought this was a great idea since it would save a stock person from having to lug around a printer and try to get the prices right. Instead, you program the barcode of the item into the electronic price tag, then put it with the merchandice, and all your stock people have to do now is go around looking at inventory.
Anyone have some venture capital to spare?
Re:Epileptic Shock (Score:1)
Potential Abuse (Score:1)
Re:Mr. Wizards World (Score:1)
Re:Incredible... (Score:1)
However, you can block most of those types of stories from the user prefs page, if you choose.
However,
OT: Innovative lighting techniques? (Score:1)
Its a very soothing environment in which to work. (At least, environmentally
I also take ideas on how to keep people out of my cube, and to stop them from sneaking up behind me without a complex series of mirrors.
Bringing credence to some conspiracy theorists (Score:2)
Many have suggested that The Man (tm) is controlling our thoughts with flourescent lights.
On a serious note though, it might be interesting to see what one could do with this technology in a covert fashion. I.e. fashion an audio/video bug self contained in a balast and install them after hours. Attach a receiver to a telescope, and you have very hard to detect surveilence.
wearable computers! (Score:2)
Re:pointless (Score:2)
Tesla did this 100 years ago. (Score:1)
Re:Now heres something I can support! (Score:1)
Likewise all the "I'll patent breathing!" posts.
I can't figure out whether the posters really think they're original, or just cynically fishing for mod points.
Infrastructure is already in place... NOT! (Score:1)
Sure, except for the fact that you will need to hook all your lights up to a no-doubt really expensive computer, with no-doubt really expensive software.
That's like saying, Everyone can get DSL, look, they already have phone jacks!
Troy
Re:better solution: (Score:1)
Ingnoring your paranoia for a second, and focusing in the technical aspects of your argument:
"They" would know better than "to the nearest light - fitting". Effective wireless networks have considerable overlap, rather than tangents where transmission radii intersect.
Using this overlap, then, "they" could triangulate your position within much cliser than "to the nearest light fitting". Try within the nearest 2".
Re:neat hack but..... (Score:1)
Old news (sort of ...) (Score:5)
Anyway for a lark a friend of mine built this humungo tone generator and connected it to his house mains .... then in the wee hours of the morning used it to send morse across town .... by turning on and off all the street lights in his neighborhood ....
Re:Heh (Score:1)
Therefore, farts are nature's PING.
Heh (Score:2)
Your backside emits a controlled burst of a carbon compound called methane through a shutter called the anus. It quickly spreads around the area, where it is (hopefully) picked up by other humans with a device called a 'nose'. This nose sends signals along nerves to your brain, where the intended message is quickly decoded and the recipient yells, "d00d, wh0 f4rt3d?!?!"
Why the handicapped? (Score:5)
The design meeting:
So what will people use this thing for?
hmmm how about another delivery system for Bluetooth?
...nah.
How about a communication alternative for the navy?
....mmmm no that's no good
hmm
How about a way to alert blind patients with Heart Diease of impending transplants availability as they walk along the mall escalator?
BINGO!
Re:Cool.... (Score:1)
Whats Next? (Score:2)
Incadescent Lights sue Fluorescent lights (Score:5)
He went on to say that "This is a new form of aparthied!, If this is allowed to continue, Incadescent lights everywhere will be swapped out prematurely from there life spans and replaced with Fluorescent lights that can transmit data as well as provide well balanced illumination for billions of people around the world. Us Incadecent bulbs will be quickly replaced and stop manufactured and we shall die out, I simply can not allow this type of genocide to continue."
Lighting Analyst B. Franklin worries that this law suit if it prevails could set back new data services 15-20 years, GE's stock tumbled 20 points on the news as well... developing....
Ping! (Score:1)
Fluorescent lights (Score:1)
Actually there is
Why haven't you seen any you may ask? Well
No one mentioned Morse Code or Semaphore? (Score:1)
Old, old, old news. (Score:2)
We did this when I was a wee 'un with flashlights and the neighbour's kid, after dark.
"...your...mo...ther...is...stan...ding...right. .. be...hind...you...you...mor...on..."
The next step, you realise, will be coded message to international intelligence spies sent through disco lighting.
Zaphod B
Security Issues Abound!!!! (Score:2)
This could be used as a covert method of distributing "Secret", or "Top Secret" information. (OR even "Company Classified" data.)
Just buy a new ballast for your desk lamp, wire it (covertly) to your PC, and then make sure your light points towards a little bit to your window. Then aim a telescope at the window from another building/hill, and then hook up a PC to the telescope.
Of course, I'm sure the government has been doing stuff like this for years for foreign agents. But if you can't bring your briefcase out of the building, then this would be an ideal way to get the data out!
CSG_Surferdude
Hmmm (Score:3)
Re:Mr. Wizards World (Score:1)
Flouresenct replacements (Score:2)
Because flourescent lighting is annoying in terms of flicker and color temperature, it would be a brilliant notion to replace them with superior alternatives.
However, to supplant flourescent lights, any solution must be superior in terms of the benefits building owners perceive: lower energy costs, and longer bulb life. Note that while pricey sockets is a damper to adoption, flourescent lighting costs a packet to install already, so over time a better solution is possible. The ideal is a matching form factor.
So, that in mind, possible solutions include
Re:Old, old, old news. (Score:1)
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Re:Now heres something I can support! (Score:1)
IR networking (Score:2)
One nice application for this would be in transit systems, which often already have LonWorks/Echelon networking over the power line for sign control and such. Ballasts equipped for LonWorks could retransmit to mobile units to provide destination info and such for the handicapped, retarded, or merely lost.
Realistically, though, this sort of stuff will be done using the cell phone network and GPS. It's not worth the infrastructure investment.
Re:Quickest route to serious cash... (Score:2)
Eh, I dunno. How many intersections near you are equipped with beeping crosswalk signals? There's also a system similar to this that "reads" street signs for blind people (provided that the sign is equiped with a transmitter) though I don't think it's too common except in major metropolitan areas.
The simple problem is that there just aren't enough blind or otherwise disabled people to justify the cost of installing these sorts things everywhere. Handicapped parking and ramp access are more feasible because they're less specific to any one disability. On the other hand, areas that tend to deal with lots and lots of people (and therefore more disabled people), like airports, are more likely to adopt such a system.
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Re:pointless (Score:2)
Take Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon [cryptonomicon.com], it has several great examples of instances when you need to transfer data and normal methods either aren't available, or can't be used (ie. sending messages via a deck of cards).
Using lamps might seem a little McGuyverish, but it certainly has it's uses.
_f
Cool.... (Score:1)
Hmm... That sounds like a nifty way to pass traffic data to a car... You could even tell the car "Hey, I'm about to turn yellow" thus giving the driver more information to better decide his speed...
Now that this is public, can I use this as prior art when someone tries to patent it?
But can we overclock them? (serious) (Score:1)
So, an idea I've had recently is this: why not just overclock flourescents? Running at 120Hz (a 2:1 rate) would probably make them far less annoying to most people. While there may be an energy crisis in CA, more people (like me) might consider them if they weren't so darn headache-inducing.
Nathan Mates
So then... (Score:1)
Electricity over IP (Score:2)
IP over electrical lamps is boring.
No, really. Just today the IESG has approved for publication [ietf.org] a new Informational RFC: MPLampS: Electricity over IP (with an MPLS control plane). [ietf.org]
From the document:
Grocery stores have been using this for years (Score:2)
But it's still cool.
John
Re:Grocery stores have been using this for years (Score:2)
Yes, it'd be foolish to refit all our fluorsecents when we already have an 802.11 network in place. But if we didn't already have an RF network, or plan to have one, it might be an avenue worth exploring.
Do you work for Microsoft, by chance? You sure sound like their sales force. Keep up the "only my way" mentality and I think you have a bright future in store for you!
John
Re:Old news (sort of ...) (Score:1)
Where I grew up (which shall rename nameless) the local utility used tones sent thru the power mains to turn on/off things like street lights and electric hot water heaters/storage heaters during peak times (this was really low tech using reed-relays)
Not sure where you grew up, but I seem to remember New Zealand using ripple-relays like the ones you mentioned in a lot of centres. Odd that ;-) They've since gone a bit higher tech, at least in the larger cities.
On an unrelated note, is there any chance of someone sending malformed data through these lights in order to, say, trigger an epileptic seizure? I mean, fluroescent lights aren't necessarily the best on that score to start with. (Granted, IANANeurophysiologist)
Re:Why the handicapped? (Score:3)
Finally! Beyond 2000 Becomes Reality. After 2000 (Score:4)
Incandescent = The Devil (Score:1)
Sure flourescents have a flicker problem, but thats just because the USA runs on 60hz.. THERE is the problem. (Don't you think electricity would transmit more efficiently at a higher frequency?)
If every house switched one 100 watt incandescent to one 30 watt flouro, that would save 70million watts just in the united states. (Thats 70million watts 24/7) Of course this translates into so many million tons of carbon being released into the air too!
Oh, and another thing, we have enough power here. Otherwise we would be in black-out right this minute. We just need to stop being stupid about so many things.
If every house built generated 100watts (say one major appliance or a water heater was required to be solar.) Well, that would actually be more than 100watts, but you get what I'm saying? It should be law that any house built must have some form of solar/renewable energy.
We are so stupid.
Now heres something I can support! (Score:5)
This just proves my point... (Score:1)
- MayorQ
This reminds me of... (Score:1)
Wow, those are better ballasts...not (Score:2)
1/120 second is just a bit over 8 milliseconds. "Speed[ing] up the flicker rate to milliseconds" just doesn't seem like a huge breakthrough, somehow...
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Lamps (Score:1)
better solution: (Score:1)
Parent control (Score:2)
Re:Now heres something I can support! (Score:2)
Re:pointless (Score:2)
You just program the ballast and replace the old one with it. From then on this light continuously broadcasts its short data sequence, over and over again. No network attached, no power supply, no batteries. Just a slightly more expensive electronic ballast.
The idea is to "tag" areas and have receivers which can use the location information to give advice to the handicapped (like "you're supposed to be in the kitchen and you're not"). The technology could be used to distribute more data, but for this application it's just used as "low-res indoor GPS".
Re:Hmmm (Score:3)
Re:neat hack but..... (Score:4)
Oh I dunno, I don't think the blind people will mind too much if the lights are out.
Awesome hack! (Score:2)
It's fundamentally different than IR; imagine, for example, if street lamps using this technology had localization data encoded into them?
Of course this would only register at night, but imagine if you your car could tell what streets you were approaching? Consideing how difficult it is to read street signs at night? Or if the lamps had more intelligence, if the lamps could relay traffic conditions to the cars below? Accidents, etc?
Or if this were hooked up to traffic lights?
Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
Prior Art? (Score:2)
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
The Existing Fluorescent Light Network (Score:3)
Guess now I'll be stuck with..
"our plans for world domination zzzz any users out there got p3rn zzzz me too zzzz jello and mayonnaise."
Oh well, there's always aspirin.
Hacking and an example (Score:2)
Also I have seen an example of something similar involving analog info via light. My physics teacher rigged a LED to a variable resistor attached to a radio. A solar panel picked up the LED's invisibly varying light and played it on a speaker. Not as useful as straight-up RF but it was pretty cool at the time.
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Useless toy (Score:2)
Application (Score:4)
Strippers and Uptime. heh
Upstream (Score:2)
I've 'retrofitted' my signifcantly older cube with a $10 flourescent tube. I'm certain it wouldn't be that difficult to replace the ballast with one of those mentioned in the article.
Can anyone say 'Lan Party'?
Re:Not Communication (Score:2)
For example, I have a network of 5 lights, each with a flourescent tube and 360degree receiver. Each tube broadcasts a packet on a tokenring like schedule. One part of the packet is instructions for passing the token, the next part of the packet is data. Wash, rinse, repeat, around the ring.
While the article talked about broadcast applications, this style of communication would be ideal for small general purpose lans.
Re:But can we overclock them? (serious) (Score:2)
Re:Epileptic Shock (Score:2)
Re:Whats Next? (Score:3)
Dancin Santa
Saw this demoed for grocery stores (Score:2)
Hmmm...you should read the article. (Score:3)
The point of the system, as outlined in the article, is that it's cheaper, and easier to retrofit to a building than bluetooth (or some other wireless system.) For "incrementally more" than the 20 dollar cost per lamp of upgrading to nonflicker regulators, the network can be installed. Infrared isn't terribly efficient, because it's fairly focused line of site, slow, and expensive. Overall, this sounds like a VERY good option for retrofitting older facilities with networks. The only drawback is that they're one way...
Epileptic Shock (Score:2)
"What are we going to do tonight, Bill?"
almost worthless (Score:2)
Drat... (Score:2)
Wishful thinking? (Score:2)
Well, I hate to point out the obvious, but there's almost no infraestructure in place. You still have to carry the data there. There is, IMHO, absolutely nothing that you can do with this idea, that you could not do better with a little infrared coded light source. I mean, what's the point? You save nothing, you have still to lie the cabling and the data infraestructure.
Only in the case of locating devices, like in an airport, could be argued that no data is neccesary, and the info could be hard coded in the emitting bulbs. But even there the savings are not too big, and are outweighted by the problems of maintenance that you find when using a device for two completely unrelated functions. Another type of locating device could be arguably better.
The technology to help handicapped persons to find their way around is here from a long time. The only thing needed is a common standard and a clear will, or rather the other way around. No amount of new gadgetry is going to change that basics needs.
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different from Bluetooth != useless. (Score:2)
Why not use infrared? When you've already got many times the emitter power in the ceiling for room lighting, a separate IR emitter system looks like a waste of money (and electricity).
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Look at what it CAN do, not what it can't. (Score:2)
And who cares if it's not a commercial success? It's fun and thought-provoking.
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Oh No! (Score:4)
Prices in the Supermarket (Score:2)
Here in brazil it's obrigatory to keep prices updated in the shelves in the supermakets. We have two choices, or we keep it updated, or we come back to ye-old-price-label on each product.
Of course supermarkets won't come back to price-labels. So, they tryied many different solutions. One of the solution is use fluorescent lamp flicker to send data to digital price-informers in the shelves.
I have never seen any kind of thing like this working before. But it's really a nice idea.
Imagine, you pick the product from the shelf thinking that it costs $1.00, and by the time you pay it, it's $1.20!!!
Don't worry, I'm to bored [to|every]day
Multi-threaded String LANs on the Way (Score:5)
The vibration of a string, long a symbol associated with guitars, violins, and other stringed instruments, may give new freedom to the handicapped, thanks to a low-tech startup that sees the strings as the perfect transmitters.
Talking Strings, a Cambridge-based MIT spinoff, is developing a local area network that uses fluctuations in thin strands of thread to transmit data. Inventor, company founder and MIT professor Steven Dweeb predicts the technology will be a boon for the disabled.
For example, he says, shoe strings could direct a blind person carrying a special receiver-worn as a badge or held like a PDA-to the correct gate. Thick metal "round wound" bass strings attached to a person's eardrum could broadcast enhanced audio to the hearing disabled, or transcriptions to the deaf. And research published this month suggests that the technology could greatly improve the rehabilitation of persons with traumatic brain injury.
Hallelujah
In his MIT laboratory, Dweeb recently demonstrated his invention. First, he pulled out a 2 foot strand of waxed mint dental floss. "See?" he asked. "A normal piece of floss. You probably have some in your bathroom."
Next, he picked up his receiver--a black coffee can with a small hole poked in the end. From a few feet away, he tightened the string and plucked it. Twangy music blared from the can. Tinny, but clear, came the familiar chorus from Handel's Messiah.
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Oh yes, brilliant! (Score:2)
Still fun as an idea, though =)
43rd Law of Computing:
Re:better solution: (Score:2)
What, you mean like
Now they no longer only know what you're buying, but exactly where you are, to the nearest light-fitting...
43rd Law of Computing: