Hedy Lamarr may have been one of the most beautiful women of her time and one of the most glamorous Hollywood stars of the 1940s – and her face may have been the inspiration for Walt Disney’s Snow White – but she was also a passionate inventor.

One of her early inventions was a compressed cube containing various flavours that was added to water as a kind of effervescent tablet. However, Hedy herself admitted that it “tasted like Alka-Seltzer”.

On behalf of legendary inventor and tycoon Howard Hughes, she occupied herself by working to develop aircraft wings that were intended to exhibit lower drag.

However, her greatest invention was surely a system developed to help the US military defeat German U-boats during the Second World War. Her US patent numbered 2.292.387 describes a radio-control system for torpedoes which was entirely impervious to interference thanks to its automatically changing frequencies.

Nowadays, this concept is a key technology of modern wireless systems such as GPS, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth in the form of a “spread spectrum”.

From trophy wife to weapons technician

Hedy Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, then Austria-Hungary, in 1914. She acted in her first film at just 17, while the 1933 motion picture “Ecstasy” launched her into the spotlight of the film industry – and not just because of its daring nude scenes.

Her first husband, Austrian weapons manufacturer Fritz Mandl, tried in vain to put the brakes on her acting career. Yet life as a “trophy wife” was not to the taste of the budding young actress. In 1937, she fled to London to escape her domineering husband and – as a Jew – also the National Socialist regime before finally emigrating to the USA.

Once there, she was discovered by and contracted to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, making her debut in the 1939 film “Algiers” under her stage name of Hedy Lamarr.

The PR machine at the studio billed her as “the most beautiful woman in the world” – a title she loathed:

During the years she spent in Austria, Lamarr accompanied her first husband to his laboratories and eagerly listened in on his conversations with weapons developers, learning a great deal about anti-ship weapons and control systems in the process.

Using this knowledge, she developed a radio-controlled torpedo which was thus a sure-fire weapon. Nonetheless, she was all too aware that radio signals could be interfered with, meaning that countermeasures to use against a torpedo of this kind would be easy to develop.

She finally found a solution in collaboration with American avantgarde composer George Antheil. For the film “Le Ballet Mécanique”, he had arranged 16 automatic pianos in sequence and synchronised them using punched rolls of paper.

Changing frequency with rolls of paper

Lamarr then came up with the idea of automatically changing the radio -frequency of her torpedo control system using similarly perforated strips of paper.

Working with Antheil, she developed a technical concept which used identical piano rolls – effectively punch cards – in the transmitter and receiver to unpredictably change the signal across a range containing 88 frequencies (the inspiration taken from the automatic pianos is clear to see here: a piano has 88 black and white keys).

The technology seemed too complex to the military, while prejudices against an actress and a composer coming up with such an invention may also have played a part. In any event, the frequency-hopping procedure remained on the shelf for a number of years.

Until the 1950s, to be precise, when the technology was integrated into a new sonar buoy, complete with rotating cylinders for controlling the change in frequency. The technology only really made a full breakthrough once it was released by the military.

Nowadays, the paper strips have been replaced by digital circuits, while the sequences are generated by pseudo-random numbers (PRNs), yet the basic principle is still the same one patented by Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil back then.

The value of inventions based on Lamarr’s original idea is hard to quantify. However, Lamarr and Antheil didn’t benefit in the slightest from their developments. The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award was first awarded to the pair in 1996 in recognition of their achievement. Lamarr died in the year 2000.

Even though there are surely a great many other inventors and scientists who made greater advances with wireless technologies, Hedy Lamarr remains a role model and a pioneer for that very essence of the spirit of invention: the ability to think outside the box.

The post Hedy Lamarr – Inventor and hollywood star appeared first on Future Markets Magazine.

How great would it be if you didn’t have to waste another second commuting or travelling by car, bus, train or plane when instead – just like in Star Trek – you could simply be beamed anywhere you wanted to go at the push of a button?

To put it another way, what would it be like if matter could also be transmitted wirelessly just like information can? That will surely remain a pipe dream for the foreseeable future. Or will it?

As it happens, physicists today are already in a position to at least beam the basic characteristics of matter (or “teleport” them, to use the correct parlance of the profession).

In two places at once

The basis for the technology is in one of the most spectacular quantum physics phenomena: entanglement. This describes the characteristic whereby two particles behave not as two independent physical objects, but rather as a single one.

Entanglement cannot be understood merely in spatial terms: entangled particles correlate to one another on the basis of their characteristics.

If the characteristics of the one particle are changed, this means that the other particle will change accordingly at the same time, irrespective of where it is situated.

In the case of light particles (photons), it is possible to generate such entanglement by using a laser array with a special crystal to split a single particle into two photons.

Such entanglement can be used to transmit information from one location to another without any loss of time, or so the theory goes. Every measurement which changes the state of the one particle will result in the state of the other particle being changed immediately, regardless of how far apart the two particles are.

This process has been known as “quantum teleportation” for a number of years now.

Teleportation across hundreds of kilometres

Last year, Chinese researchers succeeded in using this method to teleport information about the state of photons from a ground-control station to a satellite in space.

In theory, it might even be possible to teleport information on the state of a human being in the same way. This would actually enable “beaming” as we know it from Star Trek.

For this to work, all you would need to do is decode every single one of a person’s quantum states, send this information to the target location and “imprint” atoms with the same chemical elements.

Humans are just too complex

Two major problems are yet to be solved, however. Firstly, a vast amount of energy and extremely complex calculations would be required to teleport a human being.

Researchers at the University of Leicester in the UK have crunched some numbers to answer this question: due to the fact that 10 billion bits are required just to describe a single human cell, the data volume for a person of average height and weight would come to around 2.6 x 1042 bits – in other words, 2.6 with 42 zeroes behind it. Merely transmitting this information at a cycle rate of 30 GHz would take 350,000 times longer than the existence of our universe.

In other words, you’d be quicker to walk. And even if the rate were to be increased to reduce the duration of travel to a few thousand years, our planet’s energy resources would have been depleted within a single second.

Nor would this solve the second problem: what happens to the person at the place of transmission when they arrive at their destination?

According to quantum physics, the original would be deleted and would cease to exist. Who in their right mind would actually be prepared to test a teleportation machine like this?

Sadly, in light of all that we know today, it seems extremely unlikely that we will ever be transported to our desired destination simply by uttering the words “Beam me up, Scotty”.

Nonetheless, teleportation is well worth all the attention it is afforded, but not for transmitting objects. Instead, quantum physics could be used to create fast computers and achieve lightning-speed data transmission by today’s standards. That’s what you might call wireless communication at its best.

The post Is teleportation possible? appeared first on Future Markets Magazine.

For which types of network does EBV generally offer solutions?

U. M.: At EBV, our customers can obtain semiconductors and increasingly also all-in-one modules for all different kinds of area networks. In addition, our portfolio contains body-area-network solutions such as near-field magnetic induction (NFMI) technology, which is entirely new on the market. In general, however, the product portfolio comprises solutions for a vast range of applications and wireless technologies.

Does the sheer variety of wireless standards actually make sense?

U. M.: Someone once said what was good about standards – the fact that there are simply so many for us to choose from. Eventually, time and the user will decide which technology will take the lead. Nevertheless, we need to admit that there are still applications for which not-so-widely adopted standards are a perfect fit.

Which wireless technologies are currently particularly exciting from your point of view?

U. M.: Technologies in the area of low-power wide-area (LPWA) networking solutions. We can really see a lot happening to do with Sigfox and LoRa, which will enable many new applications and create a “true” IoT. In parallel to Sigfox and LoRa, mobile-communication technologies will maintain their market share. 2G will disappear from the market sooner or later, although there is not yet a mobile-communication solution available with the same coverage. LTE NB-IoT and Cat M1 technologies are rapidly approaching, yet with no clear sign indicating which direction manufacturers should take. Both technologies offer many interesting features like a power-saving mode (PSM) and extended discontinuous reception mode (eDRX), which enables an application to be run on a single battery for more than ten years. Despite this, the lack of global, worldwide coverage is preventing immediate acceptance. With regard to both licensed and unlicensed bandwidth technologies, the big question is really which technology will eventually prevail on the market.

The requirements regarding cybersecurity are continuously increasing for wireless data transfer. What kind of solutions does the semiconductor industry offer to this problem?

U. M.: When it comes to cybersecurity, the discussion is mainly about the encryption of communication using various symmetric or asymmetric algorithms. In IoT applications, however, it is more important to ensure that the data is coming from the right device and that the integrity of the data is ensured; in other words, that the data at both the transmitter and receiver end is identical. The semiconductor industry offers a broad spectrum of solutions for this; from simple, low-cost and low-power authentication solutions through to trusted platform modules (TPMs). However, the two basic things that all true hardware security solutions have in common are, firstly, a highly secure hardware key storage and, secondly, cryptographic algorithms that run on the hardware.

How does EBV help manufacturers who perhaps have had little experience with electronics so far?

U. M.: For the ones with little or even no experience with wireless technologies, there are modules with integrated antennas and – most of the time – the ability to run user applications on the module as well. The customer only has to connect the sensors, the power pack, the power supply and combine the whole lot within a housing. This type of module comes with test reports and certificates, which enable the manufacturer to seamlessly certify the end product. EBV also appeals to such manufacturers with EBVChips solutions that support various wireless technologies. On the other hand, there are customers who have the resources to deal with the RF part of the design (e.g. antenna matching, antenna shape and layout), for whom a chipset-level integration is an ideal solution. In this case, the customer needs to take care of all of the RF tests and certifications. All of these extra requirements come with certain additional costs compared to module solutions, thus higher volumes are needed to break even. Of course, EBV can also assist manufacturers in finding third-party providers with the RF expertise required for a faster time-to-market.

You just mentioned EBVChips. What is it exactly that you provide in the field of wireless technologies?

U. M.: It’s true that most EBVChips products are related to wireless technologies. For example, with our EBVChip MAIA, we provide a solution whereby the production level of the wireless M-bus stack is available on a pre-certified module which has the ability to simultaneously run a user application. Many consumption-metering applications can now be seamlessly upgraded with wireless M-bus connectivity – including the open metering standard (OMS), which is in demand in many regions. Similarly, there is the EBVChip IRIS, which we also call “cloud-on-chip”. With this product, we offer Wi-Fi connectivity from the level of production up to the cloud. The customer does not lose any time integrating a comprehensive Wi-Fi stack or antenna design; instead, they can focus on their application.

Are any other EBVChips for wireless data transmission planned?

U. M.: The most recent EBVChips innovation called Heracles solves three common customer problems when dealing with mobile wireless connections: it integrates a 2G module, a SIM card and a pre-paid data package with roaming in 33 EU countries at a fixed price until 2025. The solution targets all applications which require a constant connection, yet only require a small amount of data to be transferred. The EBVChips family will be extended further, with solutions for LTE and upcoming connectivity standards yet to follow. These will optimise power consumption and include other features like a GNSS receiver. With that, our customers will be provided with future-proof mobile-communication solutions, complete with a pre-paid data package.

The post A multitude of options appeared first on Future Markets Magazine.

Wirelessly STREAMING HDMI images

Light painting

Keyless entry for bicycles

A starter kit for the smart city

Cracking down on mould

A jukebox for kids

Cough and learn

Communicating via LiFi

The post Wireless – Startups to follow! appeared first on Future Markets Magazine.

Around 20 years ago, Harald Haas had a lightbulb moment in the truest sense of the phrase. Why not use the spectrum of visible light to transfer data? After all, lights are already installed in every house, every office and every production hall. Haas, who is now a Professor at the University of Edinburgh, has since developed his original idea into a marketable technology called “LiFi”.

An electrical technician by trade, creativity is essentially part and parcel of being an engineer in his view. According to him, becoming an engineer in the first place is about wanting to build something that changes the world for the better. It follows, then, that he founded his own company, pureLiFi, once his ideas were developed enough to be marketed.

What is LiFi?

Scotland is perhaps better known for its rugged landscape and fine whiskies than for high-tech products. How did it come to be that LiFi – a technology which is poised to turn the wireless world on its head – was developed here of all places?

Harald Haas: The foundations had already been laid in Germany, in actual fact. Back when I was working on 4G at Siemens Mobile Communications Network in Munich, I quickly realised that the bandwidth of radio frequencies would no longer be sufficient in the future. In 2003, I moved to Jacobs University in Bremen and started to occupy myself with light-based communication more intensively.

Here, we achieved one success after another; things got more and more exciting. In Edinburgh, I was then able to continue my work in this field with support from local business-development funds.

Why did you move to Scotland?

H. H.: In my opinion, Scotland boasts a wonderful academic landscape that maintains a good balance between teaching and freedom for research. The University of Edinburgh is well regarded and sits very high up in global rankings. We have good students, a good environment, good research funding and the ideas to match!

Can the rest of Europe take a leaf out of Scotland’s book in terms of research work?

H. H.: I think so, yes. Ideally, it would be possible to combine German precision and the tendency to consider things down to the very smallest detail with the creativity and the possibilities that abound here. Germany is good when it comes to fine details – and world-class when it comes to development and elaboration.

However, it’s often the case that the initial ideas come from elsewhere. I think that creativity and the courage to tread new paths are more pronounced in Anglo-Saxon countries.

In other words, it would be ideal to gain experience in both countries…

The polar opposite of Brexit would create something worthwhile, which is what the United Kingdom has failed to understand. I would advise politicians that all Europeans should spend at least two years living abroad in a different European country at least once during their lifetime. It is definitely worth broadening your horizons and seeing things that you’re not used to.

By doing so, you get to see what’s good at home – but also what’s good elsewhere. Once you come to that realisation, you can combine those things and continue to improve them. That’s far better than raising the drawbridge.

How did you first come up with the idea of transferring data using light?

H. H.: Light forms part of the electromagnetic spectrum but has a much larger bandwidth than radio waves. For radio, this amounts to approximately 300 GHz; for light, it is more like 200 THz. I wanted to tap into this spectrum to transfer data. My aim was to apply the modulation techniques used for wireless radio technology to incoherent light. In the meantime, we’ve achieved a transfer performance of over 12 Gbps – a data rate which is almost twice that of the fastest Wi-Fi. To do so, we use four normal LEDs, such as the ones sold by EBV for less than 50 cents in total.

How far along is the technology today? Is it already time to talk about commercial viability?

H. H.: Absolutely! LiFi has been on the market since 2012. It already exists in its fourth product generation.

In the meantime, we have realised access points together with partners such as Lucibel in France. Our LiFi dongle has also already been integrated into a smartphone case. This then enabled us to conduct a Skype call at the Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona. The automatic handover of the smartphone from one LiFi diode to the next enabled us to pass through the room and continue the call without any interruptions. The connection is bi-directional; it provides an infrared uplink, and we are well on the way to miniaturising the system further. In the near future, this will enable us to integrate LiFi directly into the smartphones themselves.

Can you imagine using the technology in a wide area network?

H. H.: We have already developed a system of that kind; we call it “backhaul”. The technology behind this is based on infrared laser systems which connect two locations in a point-to-point fashion. That distance may be as little as one metre or may equally extend over a range of hundreds of metres.

However, we were able to achieve a further breakthrough in the last three years by using solar cells as LiFi receivers. If the photon flux varies over time – as in the case of LiFi – the amount of energy generated by the solar cell changes. Information can be encoded in these fluctuations of intensity. Consequently, a solar cell can simultaneously serve as a LiFi receiver and an energy harvester. We have already been able to transfer 500 Mbps per cell using the latest solar-cell technology from a Fraunhofer research institute in Germany. One solar panel is made up of many such cells. If we then apply the MIMO procedure, we can achieve a linear increase in data rate that corresponds to the number of elements in the solar panel. As such, we achieved 5 Gbps on a panel comprising ten cells. We would be able to use every solar cell on a given building as a receiver by implementing this technology. In combination with laser systems, this would enable high-speed Internet to be rolled out to even the remotest regions. In the meantime, we’re working on building a solar-cell-based backhaul of this kind in the course of 5G expansion with funding from the UK government.

Where do you see the trends that will drive forward the use of LiFi?

H. H.: The most important driving force is surely the trend towards a data-based economy. Industry 4.0, autonomous systems, smart cities – all of these developments require connectivity. Yet the capacity of existing wireless systems will not be sufficient for future requirements. You can already witness this “spectrum crunch” today – at the airport, in a stadium; essentially anywhere a lot of traffic is generated by a lot of people simultaneously. In such instances, LiFi not only offers enormous capacity, but also increased security. Those are its decisive aspects.

Market analyses do predict enormous market growth for LiFi, in fact. How does it feel to have invented a technology which is poised to turn the entire market on its head?

H. H.: It’s exciting – and also what has got us out of bed in the morning for the past 15 years! Initially, my vision was only to generate additional data links using light. However, upon closer examination, applications opened up in many markets, including 5G, defence, IoT and Industry 4.0. In some respects, this also poses a problem. After all, we need to focus our efforts appropriately from a business perspective. Today, we are concentrating on the opportunities which can be most quickly and profitably implemented.

Throughout this process, how do you manage to stand up to the major high-tech firms from the USA?

H. H.: We’ve been working on LiFi for 15 years and have built up a very strong portfolio of patents. In addition, our status as a small company and a relatively small research institute makes us more agile than our larger counterparts. For LiFi, we now have over 70 pilot projects running in various fields in order to test the technology in different markets and applications. In doing so, we are striving to continue leading the charge.

A market analysis conducted by Energias Market Research forecasts that the largest market growth for LiFi will be in Asia, while North America will generate the highest turnover from the technology. Is Europe missing a trick?

H. H.: Indeed, that is a potential danger. You only need to take a look at the example of GSM: Europe laid the foundations for wireless communication with GSM, but the applications that bring in the money were then created elsewhere. The same risk exists for LiFi: Europe is building the infrastructure, although the profits may be skimmed off elsewhere. Be that as it may, I hope that Europe has learned its lesson – that it will simultaneously help to shape the applications to accompany the technology instead of merely helping to develop the infrastructure.

Many of your fellow researchers are of the opinion that fundamental research should be kept separate from commerce. It would seem that you think differently …

H. H.: If you take a look at Stanford or MIT, you won’t see any conflict of interest there either. I find this idea of separation ludicrous. In engineering disciplines, we aim to develop specific concepts which are of use to mankind. That’s how I see myself – and that’s why I have absolutely no problem saying that I’m an applied researcher. For me, that’s an expression of pride. When I undertake research, I also want to see that it has been of use to people at some point.

As a Professor of Mobile Communications, you’re not only occupied with LiFi. What part do other wireless technologies have to play in your research efforts?

H. H.: Our institute is still running a research programme related to wireless technologies. In 2006, for example, we invented spatial modulation – the use of which for 5G is now being trialled by Samsung and Orange. Furthermore, we are conducting research into multi-antenna systems.

Radio continues to be an important element of wireless communication, particularly where long-range communication or extensive coverage are concerned. In this case, trends point towards higher frequency ranges, i.e. 10 GHz and above.

Can you also see potential in the area of personal area networks, or is 5G at the forefront for the time being?

H. H.: I wouldn’t separate the one from the other: 5G definitely also covers personal networks. For example, we also consider LiFi to come under the umbrella of 5G. At any rate, LiFi is standardised in IEEE standard 802.11, which forms part of the 5G initiative. Radio and LiFi technologies complement one another rather than causing interference. Together, they make up the nervous system of the digital society of the future.

Is it even possible for someone like you to step aside and critically examine the full extent of the trend towards ever-increasing networking from a distance?

H. H.: Of course that’s difficult when you’re so completely absorbed in your research. On the plus side, my wife and our four children constantly provide me with a different perspective. Yet when all is said and done, I don’t view the growing significance of networking as a negative point.

Only by doing so can we increase sustainability, solve existing problems and ensure that economic development is distributed more fairly throughout the world. The crux of the matter is to use technology correctly – a factor which is not entirely in the hands of researchers.

Yet overall, technology has definitely improved our quality of life over the years. I’m also excited by the idea of putting these LiFi systems together because I know they’ll contribute to that as well.

The post Interview with the inventor of LiFi – Prof. Harald Haas appeared first on Future Markets Magazine.