NOW THERE’S UNDERWATER WIFI

A team of engineers and computer scientists from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia have invented underwater WiFi. The research team built a device called “Aqua-fi,” which acts like an WiFi booster so deep-sea divers have internet access while underwater. The system user laser light to quickly flash on-and-off in binary code. The booster has a light detector which reads the incoming signals like it’s reading Morse code. A computer converts the light signals back into data for the internet. In their experiment in static water, the underwater WiFi system had a max transfer speed of 2.11 megabytes per second and an average delay of 1 millisecond.
* There goes the last excuse for not checking in to work while you’re on vacation.
* There’s about to be a zillion texts that read, “Hey, guess where I’m texting from? Underwater! LOL.”
* “Help, I’m being eaten by a giant octopus!” “Hold on, let me finish checking my Instagram.”
* Unfortunately, the lasers superheat the water and boil you alive, but it’s still pretty cool, no?