You probably know that a laser pointer can transport data through the air across a room. But the question right now is: have you tried yourself? Well, to save you time and money in order to prove that it works, a team of engineers at the National Taipei University of Technology in Taiwan have successfully transmitted data using red and green laser pointers. The engineers replaced the standard batteries of the laser pointers with a power source that switched each laser on and off – approximately 500 million times a second.

They then connected a 500 Mbps data stream into each pointer and pointed both to a photodiode receptor/ light-sensitive detector, 10 meters away. The transmitted signals are then amplified and mutiplexed to produce 1 Gbps of data stream. After processing the results, it was found that the signals had less than one error per billion bits.  According to New Scientist, it’s a sign of high-quality transmission.

The entire project costs about $600 – quite a price for a laser project. Hai-Han Lu, the project manager, said that hobbyists can do this project in their home, which means that you can do this too. Lu also attributes the red and green laser pointers for their cheap price and properties. While this technology is going to work on long-range transmissions, the Taiwanese engineers have proven the technology to be quite useful indoors. So, why not try building your own prototype or make this as your DIY project? Who knows, yours might even be better.

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