Mirrors on the ceiling. Next: Pink champagne on ice?
 

Extreme Tech reports that researchers from Intel and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) have achieved network speeds of 4Tbps (500GB/sec) inside a 160 rack data center by bouncing 60GHz wireless signals from active antennas off polished metal plates mounted on the ceiling. Here is a simple illustration [via ExtremeTech]:
http://www.extremetech.com/wp-conten...er-300x200.jpg
Potential uses include augmenting the wired network to accommodate peak usage periods or replacing the traditionally expensive and complex wired network altogether. In addition to speeding up the network among racks in the same data center, the article also suggests that this technique could "speed up the internet" -- but fails to explain exactly how this might result. The original report from UCSB is also linked.


Ken