4 ms·

Okay never mind don't read my sources. This 3D printed Plastic is using backscatter techniques. I'll just quote the article and realize your not understanding w

Okay never mind don't read my sources. This 3D printed Plastic is using backscatter techniques. I'll just quote the article and realize your not understanding where this invention is coming from and why this is new worthy and not just some wifi reflections. "To 3-D print objects that can communicate with commercial WiFi receivers, the team employed backscatter techniques that allow devices to exchange information. In this case, the team replaced some functions normally performed by electrical components with mechanical motion activated by springs, gears, switches and other parts that can be 3-D printed — borrowing from principles that allow battery-free watches to keep time." ... "Information — in the form of 1s and 0s — is encoded by the presence or absence of the tooth on a gear. Energy from a coiled spring drives the gear system, and the width and pattern of gear teeth control how long the backscatter switch makes contact with the antenna, creating patterns of reflected signals that can be decoded by a WiFi receiver."

detaro 9y ago
I read your sources. Nothing you quote here contradicts what I said if you read it in the context of the entire paper. E.g. " creating patterns of reflected signals that can be decoded by a WiFi receiver." isn't technically wrong, but very misleading, since what they analyse for data is the signal strength the receiver sees across the packets, not the content of the packets. That's why we are arguing that they present it terribly. A Wifi packet is a few milliseconds long at best, it should be obvious why a 3D printed mechanical thing can not be fast enough to change bits in there to actually generate a new packet. Please note that I'm not claiming that it's not using backscatter techniques, that it isn't novel or that it isn't interesting. Backscatter is a generic enough term to cover all these things, despite them being quite different. I'm claiming that it does not generate Wifi packets. It merely changes their physical characteristics in a way that can be detected, without changing anything about the packet contents.
- baldfat 9y ago
  > I'm claiming that it does not generate Wifi packets. How does the Wifi transmit how much laundry soap or any measurement if it wasn't new packets???? Maybe if you can just look at this for 2 minutes you'll understand how this is new packets? https://youtu.be/4tmatoD0I1o?t=14m5s https://youtu.be/4tmatoD0I1o?t=14m5s It has to be received and transmit data. Your assuming a reflection is what's happening. Than a mirror could also do the same thing? This is your laptop or Smartphone able to receive a signal from a 3D device with no new hardware using only the power of a Wifi transition signal that a Wifi receive will read.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    That link has nothing to do with what we're discussing here. The video is about active electronics. The article being discussed here is about variable reflection of RF signals based on pure mechanics and zero electronics. The project discussed in this article is exactly like a mirror, but for RF. If you'd attach a mirror to a spring and had it rotated back and forth with a cog-like thing, you'd have built the exact same thing they're presenting here, except for light. You wouldn't want to call it "Li-Fi communication" just because the mirror can reflect the same frequencies Li-Fi devices use, though. Which is why calling this project a "Wi-Fi device" is wrong.
    - baldfat 9y ago
      As a former research librarian I have to say please check why in the world you are going down this path. It is 100% a Wifi device that is sending new packets. There is zero chances that what you are assuming to be true would work. They are called in the published paper "printed Wifi devices, Wi-Fi input widgets, 3D Printed Wi-Fi Smart Objects." If your smarter and see how stupid or misleading these Phds are and MIT for publishing these finding then do it. Otherwise you are basing your whole argument on incorrect presuppositions and you didn't do any due diligence to see your missing knowledge how these actually work. How in the world would you send measurements to a Wifi receiver in your laptop? You would send a measurement of test tubes to a laptop without any electronics and no dc power. Read how this is done for measuring wind speed: "We 3D print a cup anemometer as shown in Fig. 2 to measure wind speeds. The entire setup is sufficiently light that even wind speeds as low as 2.3 m/s will cause it to spin. The hub of the anemometer is attached to backscatter gear that encodes an alternating sequence of zero. I understand your missing the similarities in the projects but they are all related by the same principles. The 3D printed Wifi devices (plastic adn metal, are doing what is normally requiring circuitry.
      - emilfihlman 9y ago
        Stop with the trolling.

detaro 9y ago

I read your sources. Nothing you quote here contradicts what I said if you read it in the context of the entire paper. E.g. " creating patterns of reflected signals that can be decoded by a WiFi receiver." isn't technically wrong, but very misleading, since what they analyse for data is the signal strength the receiver sees across the packets, not the content of the packets. That's why we are arguing that they present it terribly. A Wifi packet is a few milliseconds long at best, it should be obvious why a 3D printed mechanical thing can not be fast enough to change bits in there to actually generate a new packet. Please note that I'm not claiming that it's not using backscatter techniques, that it isn't novel or that it isn't interesting. Backscatter is a generic enough term to cover all these things, despite them being quite different. I'm claiming that it does not generate Wifi packets. It merely changes their physical characteristics in a way that can be detected, without changing anything about the packet contents.

baldfat 9y ago
> I'm claiming that it does not generate Wifi packets. How does the Wifi transmit how much laundry soap or any measurement if it wasn't new packets???? Maybe if you can just look at this for 2 minutes you'll understand how this is new packets? https://youtu.be/4tmatoD0I1o?t=14m5s https://youtu.be/4tmatoD0I1o?t=14m5s It has to be received and transmit data. Your assuming a reflection is what's happening. Than a mirror could also do the same thing? This is your laptop or Smartphone able to receive a signal from a 3D device with no new hardware using only the power of a Wifi transition signal that a Wifi receive will read.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  That link has nothing to do with what we're discussing here. The video is about active electronics. The article being discussed here is about variable reflection of RF signals based on pure mechanics and zero electronics. The project discussed in this article is exactly like a mirror, but for RF. If you'd attach a mirror to a spring and had it rotated back and forth with a cog-like thing, you'd have built the exact same thing they're presenting here, except for light. You wouldn't want to call it "Li-Fi communication" just because the mirror can reflect the same frequencies Li-Fi devices use, though. Which is why calling this project a "Wi-Fi device" is wrong.
  - baldfat 9y ago
    As a former research librarian I have to say please check why in the world you are going down this path. It is 100% a Wifi device that is sending new packets. There is zero chances that what you are assuming to be true would work. They are called in the published paper "printed Wifi devices, Wi-Fi input widgets, 3D Printed Wi-Fi Smart Objects." If your smarter and see how stupid or misleading these Phds are and MIT for publishing these finding then do it. Otherwise you are basing your whole argument on incorrect presuppositions and you didn't do any due diligence to see your missing knowledge how these actually work. How in the world would you send measurements to a Wifi receiver in your laptop? You would send a measurement of test tubes to a laptop without any electronics and no dc power. Read how this is done for measuring wind speed: "We 3D print a cup anemometer as shown in Fig. 2 to measure wind speeds. The entire setup is sufficiently light that even wind speeds as low as 2.3 m/s will cause it to spin. The hub of the anemometer is attached to backscatter gear that encodes an alternating sequence of zero. I understand your missing the similarities in the projects but they are all related by the same principles. The 3D printed Wifi devices (plastic adn metal, are doing what is normally requiring circuitry.
    - emilfihlman 9y ago
      Stop with the trolling.