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HOW IS FIBRE OPTIC BROADBAND USHERING IN A NEW ERA OF COMMUNICATION? Remember dial-up internet? Most of us do and it’s not so very long ago that speeds of 56K were considered fast when it came to accessing the delights of the world wide web. And while it may have been fine for checking GeoCities pages and bulletin boards, as our demands and uses of the internet became more complex so higher speeds became more necessary, can you imagine using iTunes or YouTube on a 56K modem? Neither could the service providers who now vie for our attention, trying to find the balance between faster connections and lower prices. Currently the fastest speed on offer in the UK and US and most of Europe lie somewhere between 2MB and 10MB while China, South Korea and Japan lead the way in ‘fibre-to-the-home’ broadband lines. However many western nations such as America, Sweden and Romania are following close behind. Over the next few pages we’ll be explaining fibre optics, the amazing technology behind the n...

Seen by many to be the next stage in the evolution of music distribution and reproduction, Spotify is bringing music to the world of cloud computing.  Spotify is a new application that is available for PC and Mac – along with many modern smartphones – which allows you to stream music from a vast catalogue distributed through the Spotify central hub and sourced from every other Spotify user. To use Spotify you would first need to download the Spotify software from www.spotify.com. Once installed, Spotify looks a lot like other media players such as iTunes, but there is a big difference. With Spotify, you don’t have to download the music in order to listen to it (although this is also possible). Instead you can simply stream it over your internet connection.  To use Spotify you would fi rst need to download the Spotify software from www.spotify.com. Once installed, Spotify looks a lot like other media players such as iTunes, but there is a big difference. With Spotif...

Used increasingly in digital products, how does this technology work? Electronic ink (or electrophoretic ink) consists of millions of microcapsules. Each one contains positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles, all suspended within a clear fluid. When these microcapsules are subjected to a positive or negative electric field, the corresponding particles rise to the top, becoming visible to the eye and colouring that microcapsule.  eBook reader displays coat electronic ink onto a sheet of plastic film, which in turn is laminated to a layer of circuitry. This circuitry forms a pattern of pixels that can be controlled by the display’s software driver, allowing images and text to be displayed in the form of a traditional page of physical paper.   Electronic ink displays differ from LCDs by utilising ambient light to illuminate pixels, with the rays merely reflecting off their surface. This means they have very low power demand, a...

QR codes allow symbols, phrases and URLs to be hidden from sight. But how do they work? A QR Code (QR stands for ‘quick response’) is a two-dimensional matrix barcode that consists of a series of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. They work by embedding a series of information within preset boundaries, the data being located and identified by a series of alignment, timing and positional patterns within the code. The codes are read by scanners and smartphone cameras installed with a QR-deciphering software (these tend to be freely available as apps, or in some cases, are natively installed in the phone’s firmware). In practice, this allows any smartphone user to hold their device up to a QR code and decipher its encrypted data, receiving a message, image or URL link.  READ ALSO:- How a speaker works ? How OLEDs work? How do semiautomatic pistols work?