Networks
Japanese Scientists Make Terabit/Second Optical Fibre Connections Possible
Posted by Haroon Malik at 11:45 PM on November 18, 2007
Boffins at Japan's Tohoku University have developed a method to allow standard fibre optic cables to transfer data at hundreds of terabits per second. That means, before you blink, your movie torrent will be downloaded and ready to watch. The promising technique does not involve a new infrastructure for information delivery; it actually revolves around making adjustments to existing protocols.
Quadrature Amplitude Modulation, used in wireless data connections and digital TV tuners, relies on a stable wavelength for the movement of data. The stability is not offered via optical fibres, but the researchers have found a way to alter this fact. A laser is utilized to change the data transmission method via optical fibres, allowing QAM to be implemented for internet connectivity. This in turn gives rise to surprisingly fast, terabit/second connections.
Though this is unlikely to hit any time soon, be warned; when your kids reach the age of puberty, they shall have so much porn in their lives, it shall be difficult to see them past the mountain of HDD backups they collect to store it all. Much like us now—it's amazing how some things never change. [Tech.co.uk]

The Sega Genesis may well be the greatest gaming platform, ever. Who cares about online gaming, does anything beat a session of Sonic 2? Tec Toy knows the Genesis console rocked, so they are shrinking it and making it kinda pocket sized.
First introduced in 2005, the Rip Saw is about to hit the market with a $200,000 price tag. The custom-built UGV can hit 0-60 in 3.5 seconds, go 80 mph, and can manoeuvre over any surface or terrain a tank can. And the video is pretty good; watch as it drives through a barn as if it were the cardboard boxen your handset came in.
I just found Shane Willis's MC Mechanic piece via Joel@BBG. Photographer Shane Willis made this homage to Escher's
The Microsoft-employee only Zune Citron has turned up in Flickr, and it's got a really nice engraving on back "Welcome to the Social". Oh, and a 16GB tag. I like the black Squircle on citron colour scheme a lot more than the pink or green. [



Putting a full-sized USB port in a phone is such a simple idea, even a caveman could think of it. Yet, until now, nobody has. Vincent Palicki's design features such a port by the number keys, allowing devices like thumb drives to plug in and transfer MP3s, movies and documents. Phone makers, pay attention... this is a good idea. [
Appropriately, the DVD release of Live Free or Die Hard by Fox next week will come bundled with a copy of the film playable on a computer.
Consumer Reports writes about the pros and cons of LED Christmas tree lighting. In summary:
Girls and boys, Christmas-is-a-coming and you need gift ideas pronto. Socks, hand knitted jumpers and CDs just don't cut it, but how about a gift voucher? May we suggest, a gift voucher that entitles the recipient to private jet travel, which costs only $5 million!
Earlier this week, we shared breaking news about Seagate selling
If you are into building your own computers, you know how expensive it is to keep up with the latest hardware requirements. That having been said, if you are planning on building a quad-core rig sometime in the near future, you can now step up to 1500W of power (1600W peak) thanks to the latest model in the ThermalTake Toughpower series. No pricing details have been made available, but it is safe to assume that this one will set you back a few bucks — and that's not even considering the smoking crater left in your wallet after the monthly power bill arrives. [