DIDO - Distributed Input, Distributed Output

Steve Perlman, the genius behind Quicktime, Onlive, Mova Contour (Facial Motion Capture), and a wealth of other stuff, has turned
his efforts to developing a seemingly impossible (sound familiar) wireless technology, capable of increasing cellular speeds over 100x.

And unlike other technologies, this one is specifically designed to handle the load of thousands of cell phone users.

Sound Crazy? Here is a link to the white paper where he "details" it all: http://www.rearden.com/DIDO/DIDO_White_Paper_110727.pdf

tl;dr, It's an amazing technology that overcomes wireless interference by preprocessing radio signals (based on the receiver location)
from a central computing station (cloud) to emit so that they don't conflict with each other in a "bubble of coherence" around the receiver
so that only the intended signal gets through. whew.

They have a working proof of concept with 10 simultaneous handsets running at full speed.

Advantages include:
• Speeds as if you are the only one using the cellphone tower
• Radically Increased transmission distance of over 250 miles per tower.

Disadvantages include:
• Redo the Infrastructure (though, how many towers will you need to put up with a 250 mile radius per tower?)
• Reddit "scientists" cover the rest: http://www.reddit.com/r/business/commen ... f_stephen/ (The article also gives a short summary of the tech)

Is this the future of all wireless communications? Has he gone too far this time? Could a disembodied brain control an army with it?
Leave your thoughts in the comments.

PS: Watch Perlman's Lecture at Columbia University, it's fascinating: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QxrQnJCXKo

Wow, there are a lot of improvements on technology lately. I'm wondering what will come next.

Speaking of technologies rapidly advancing, I heard about a wireless way to transmit electrical power. I think it's being developed at more than one place, one of them being my university (UGM) here in Indonesia. The device looks like a hoop-like antenna, both the receiver and emitter. And it doesn't shock like cables or tesla lightning guns either, they tested it with the receiver inside an aquarium tank, filled with live fish and the fish doesn't show any abnormalities. The receiver, on the other hand, managed to get a lightbulb on, inside the tank (probably had it insulated).

Think of this as a way to transmit power over large distances, and we got feasible electric car 'gas' stations. Or a way to power things from orbit.

Those kinds of devices are induction power transmitters. Now, I'm no expert, but these kinds of induction devices work using alternating magnetic fields. That's why they have so little effects on living organisms. Though, if they got powerful enough, they could start interacting with the iron in our blood stream (really really bad). The unfortunate downside of using an induction system is that they are inherently close range. You can't fire them like beam like you can with light. It relies on interlocking magnetic fields, and to get a magnetic field of the correct shape for orbital power transmission would require an enormous amount of energy. What it can do, is charge our electric cars as they are driving down the freeway (though it would be insanely expensive to build), or charge them at a recharging station (more feasible).

I can only foresee systems like DIDO working with information for relatively stationary objects. If they move too far, they move out of their field of coherence (unless they devise a way to move the bubble of coherence with the device.)

So perhaps a large single master cell tower, that uses this to communicate with smaller regular cell towers?

Err, what I meant is that if they move too fast, they will move out of the special bubble of coherence that is created around each device. If that happens, the tower will have to recalculate the position of the cellular object, and adjust the transmissions accordingly. It might make a little more sense if you read the whitepaper.

I figured as much, I was asking if to make use of the increased range and speed of transmission you'd have to make some stationary "last mile" towers to help with moving phones.

wow I'm really liking how that presentation is just Perlman marketing his stuff that really isn't all that amazing to the audience

I'm sure this'll turn out just like quicktime and onlive - never used.