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multiple uni-directional radio emitters
using trial-and-error, multiple aerials, uni-directional in nature, as opposed to emitting in an omni-directional manner, could be more efficient with bandwidth if each of the multiple aerials in a telecommunications device were pointing at the most efficient route to it's target receiving telecommunications device.
basically it's a bunch of aerials that point directly at the most efficient way to it's target, which would be less polluting and possibly even more secure.
i'd imagine a small device such as a wire-less router with many aerials on top of it, and whenever someone or something moves in the room, the aerials would move about trying to determine a new best route for the radio-waves to reach their target.
this could be applied to cellular/mobile phones, or basically any telecommunications device, and could result in multiple times more bandwidth whilst still using the same frequencies.
James Zhang 30+
I also have a cool dream where we literally have access to internet anywhere in the world. The underlying problem that's stopping this kind of thing is just the existing infrastructure like Cell Towers and others. People want to watch a youtube video in the car and not have any bandwidth inconsistencies.
griffin tucker 10+
a camera could be set up on the device that uses the same technology for recognising faces to recognise humans, and point each aerial away from humans whilst still finding the best route for the highest bandwidth for each aerial.
whilst walking around in the city, where security cameras are often used, a system combined with the security cameras could determine where all near-by humans are to the cellular/mobile phone with-out disclosing the security camera footage, but actually instead just the spatial dimensions and coordinates of each near-by human.
take it a step further and let the system that monitors for near-by humans to directly direct where the most efficient route for the aerials to point with-out revealing near-by humans' locations.
if you were moving in a car, most of the aerials would point at the closest cellular/mobile phone tower, whilst a small portion of the aerials would be seeking (moving around) for the next cellular/mobile phone tower preparing the large portion of the aerials to eventually point at the most efficient route to the next cellular/mobile phone tower.
whether or not the tiny aerials' motors would use more battery as compared to emitting less-but-more-concentrated radio waves has yet to be seen. even so, i would imagine bandwidth has a higher priority than battery life, especially with battery life in modern batteries improving every year.
James Zhang 30+
If the aerials can detect your location as accurately as you say without the need of omni-directional waves and can be applied to every (or most) devices in the world simultaneously, that would be a pretty amazing. It'll be harder for hackers to steal your info and track your internet usage, since they would need to be in the line of fire. And the bandwidth, we would save is HUGE.
But this sounds really complicating, and I'm not entirely sure how futureproof the system would be.
Maybe we can still use our pre-existing infrastructure, but people can pay for the aerial, uni-directional bandwidth as a premium service. That's a start at least.
griffin tucker 10+
the aerials wouldn't really need to detect your location accurately, or at all, to function at a higher bandwidth. the aerials would just find the most efficient route to point at no matter where you are.
James Zhang 30+
Can you also clarify what exactly the aerials are? Are they like a 3D field of small radio emitters? Like they're pretty much a bunch of points used for pathing algorithms?
griffin tucker 10+
the receiving part of the cellular/mobile device would already be pointing at the most efficient route to send data, so receiving the data would be the same.
essentially this means all signals received by the cellular/mobile device would not be secure, but signals sent from the device would be, that is, if/until cellular towers decide to adopt the uni-directional method of transmitting signals.
the aerials i imagine would look much like the aerial on an average wire-less internet router, only smaller, and many more of them.
if you could imagine the australian animal, the echidna, with spikes on it's back that move about when threatened, this is how i would imagine the aerials to function.
James Zhang 30+
So the aerials are basically just a bunch of wi-fi points that covers a good enough ground, and the device will only need to search for a specific aerial or router and shoot a straight line signal to it.
Is this correct?
griffin tucker 10+
James Zhang 30+
So how will the aerials be implemented?
griffin tucker 10+
of course this would mean that the device would be near-impossible to actually pick up and use (such as a cellular/mobile phone) so plastic (clear plastic would look cool) could surround the surrounding aerials, and any one of the aerials that doesn't have enough dexterity to point in another direction other than that of pointing toward the user's head or body would be disabled.
the human body is interesting when it comes to radio-emitting devices. if the battery in your garage-door opener is going flat, you can press it against your chin and press the button, and allow the human skeleton/skull to act as a booster antennae. i suspect the same goes with cellular/mobile phones. personally i think it's not healthy, so i'm glad you mentioned radioactivity.
griffin tucker 10+
a wealthy businessman once told me "ideas come a dime a dozen."
what he then went on to explain was that ideas are easy to come by, but implementing them is what will grow or crush the idea.
this means a business plan, and investors. both of which i have not, nor intend to acquire.
James Zhang 30+
I meant like, will the aerials be installed onto houses, large buildings, or will they just somehow float in the sky to try to cover as much ground as possible?
And yes, a good business model is quite the problem to implementation. But if you can pitch your idea to a lot of investors, and describe what it does, how it works, cost and benefits, and the long and short-term effects, I think someone can help you out. And I think, what you need is to team up with someone, who is business savvy or someone like that. You're a very technical guy, and this sounds like a good idea (though I'm not sure if someone else already is trying this idea).
KickStarter is a good place to create startups.
griffin tucker 10+
as for the receiving part (the server) such as a cellular/mobile phone tower, the current placement of towers would not need to be changed, but instead simply replacing a single huge emitting-in-all-directions antennae with many multiples more smaller antennas.
to an extent, i believe cellular/mobile phone towers already do this, but not to the extent i am talking about, which would save incredible amounts of bandwidth, however, this could mean a significantly less amount of cellular/mobile devices being able to be used simultaneously. this could be compensated for by using the old method of emitting-in-all-directions, or rather, a few more directions for each aerial.
cellular/mobile phone towers are already installed on to large buildings, and are often associated with cancer clusters surrounding the towers, however, for what ever reason, these claims are supposedly unsubstantiated.
if the aerials were to float in the sky, or rather, orbit in space, the amount of time it would take to calculate where the aerials should be pointing to from the server's (satellite's) perspective would be greatly increased, and the only solution would be to broadcast over a larger (although concentrated) area, and could be, in my opinion, unhealthy.
i've heard that the way modern radio transmitters work is that the signals bounce off walls, objects, or even animals (including humans) until they reach their destination, and many, many packets are lost due to not finding their destination, so these packets are simply repeated until they do find their destination.
with the method i am talking about, not only would the most efficient route be found and kept for many times fewer repeated packets, but it could adapt to moving objects, and avoid the 'interference' (term used loosely) of humans.
James Zhang 30+
Right, I was thinking the same thing. It's a nice efficient solution, but the issue I'm a little worried about is scalability. As in, how long will something like this last before there needs to be another change?
How long would it take to find the most efficient route? Or what's the Big O on that?
griffin tucker 10+
since the users' side's hardware is changed much more often than upgrading cellular/mobile towers (upgrading to a different cellular/mobile phone, for instance) then this would allow the technology to develop better algorithms according to use.
basically what i'm trying to say is that the cellular/mobile towers would not need to be changed until the technology is, more or less, perfected.
on the user's side in regard to communicating signals to the tower(s), frequencies would not need to be changed, so implementing the idea is possible today using the same signal transference technology.
the only thing that would change is at minimum an increase in through-put to the tower. as for receiving bandwidth to the user's device, i would expect, but can't guarantee less repeated packets.
i don't know how long it would take to find the most efficient route, i haven't done the math on that. however, i imagine that at first opening a communications channel, that the user's device would be emitting in all directions until it found which directions would be the most efficient, then most of the aerials would be pointing in that particular direction, with only a few of the other aerials searching for 'backup' targets or the 'next' target receiving aerial depending on movement.
James Zhang 30+
Well, I'd say go for it, but if you really want the idea to be implemented, I think you should find a good partner who sees your idea and is much more business savvy.