[amelius]

> The transmitter acts like a miniature display screen and the detector like a camera.

So if I'm streaming a movie, it could be that the video is actually literally visible inside the datacenter?

[tails4e]

No, this is just an a analogy. The reality is the data is heavily modulated, and also the video is encoded so at no point would something that visually looks like an image be visible in the fibre.

[topspin]

They story states there are 300 optical lines in the "fiberbundle." Let's assume this is arranged as 20x15 and the wavelength of the led is visible and bright enough to perceive. So if your unencoded, monochrome 20x15 movie was aligned on every frame and rendered at 10E9 FPS, then yes, your movie would be visible at the end of one of these cables through a magnifying glass.

[lo0dot0]

Obviously this is not how video compression and packets work but for the sake of the argument consider the following. The article speaks of a 300 fiber cable. A one bit per pixel square image with approx. 300 pixels is 17x17 in size. Not your typical video resolution.

[fecal_henge]

Not your typical frame rate either.

[mystified5016]

Not any more than if you blinked an LED each time a bit comes across your network connection.

[tehjoker]

maybe a low res bit packed binary motion picture thats uncompressed