Do scientists at the University of Pittsburgh look like “Steely,” the mascot for the Steelers or do they dress up like pirates in homage to their beloved baseball squad? Tough question. We’ll probably never know.
I do know, however, that some of their most big-brained researchers are studying a wireless Internet connection that is 1000 times faster than 4G LTE speeds. Professor Hrvoje Petek is leading the research, which focuses on data transmissions flying around the broadband spectrum in what is known as a “frequency comb.”
Note: this is not what the Fonz uses to get the static out of his hair (haa-eey). Gizmodo reports: “A frequency comb results from dividing a single color of light into equally-sized chunks that can be used in numerous applications—such as data transmission. ‘The ability to modulate light with such a bandwidth could increase the amount of information carried by more than 1,000 times when compared to the volume carried with today’s technologies,’ Petek said in a statement.” Oh, I get it, a frequency comb is what divides the colors in a rainbow. Wait, no? OK well maybe this is best left for the pirates or steel workers to develop. Oh and, as with most things really cool and barely fathomable, this technology is in the very early experimental stage, so if you call up your wireless carrier and ask for a terahertz line they might hang up on you.
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