What’s Actually Inside the Antennas of Google’s Wild Internet Balloons

When Google first announced Project Loon, its plan to cover the world in a blanket of Wi-Fi using internet balloons, it was sort of hard to believe. It still is, but now Google’s taking us inside the antenna.

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Tiny Satellite Antennas Are the Coolest Party Balloons You Never Had

Tiny Satellite Antennas Are the Coolest Party Balloons You Never Had

There’s a small army of adorable, little, (sometimes) phone-powered satellites out in space, circling the globe. And while they’re damn impressive for their size, they face some challenges. They don’t have much room for antennas, for instance. But MIT’s new inflatable balloon antennas should change all that.

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A Graphene Antenna Could Give Us Wireless Terabit Uploads in One Second

Wireless uploads of big files take for-ev-er. But researchers at Georgia Tech University have plans for an antenna made of crazy thin graphene that would let you transfer a whole terabit of data in just one second. More »

Seed-sized A*STAR antenna could open the door to 20Gbps wireless

Seedsized ASTAR antenna could open the door to 20Gbps wireless

Antennas have often capped the potential speed of a wireless link — the 450Mbps in modern 802.11n WiFi routers is directly linked to the use of a MIMO antenna array to catch signals more effectively, for example. That ceiling is about to get much higher, if A*STAR has anything to say about it. The use of a polymer filling for the gaps instead of air lets the Singapore agency create a 3D, cavity-backed silicon antenna that measures just 0.06 by 0.04 inches, roughly the size of a seed on your hamburger bun, even as it increases the breakneck pace. The new antenna generates a signal 30 times stronger than on-chip rivals at an ultrawideband-grade 135GHz, and musters a theoretical peak speed of 20Gbps — enough that 802.11ac WiFi’s 1.3Gbps drags its heels by comparison. Before we get ahead of ourselves on expecting instant file transfers at short distances, there’s the small matter of getting a chip that can use all that bandwidth. Even the 7Gbps of WiGig wouldn’t saturate the antenna, after all. Still, knowing that A*STAR sees “immense commercial potential” in its tiny device hints that wireless data might eventually blow past faster wired standards like Thunderbolt.

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Seed-sized A*STAR antenna could open the door to 20Gbps wireless originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Aug 2012 00:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This Is the Secret of the Google Glasses Skydiving Demonstration [Video]

It seems that there are some people that still just don’t get it, so here’s a photo to illustrate it. This image shows what the whole Google’s skydivers-with-eyeglass-webcam demonstration is all about: antennas. Yes, it’s a great demo for wireless Cisco routers and antennas. More »