WEBVTT - Aluminum Foil and Wi-Fi Signals

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<v Speaker 1>Put away your tinfoil hats and grab your aluminum foil

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<v Speaker 1>WiFi antennas. It's time to talk about how to boost

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<v Speaker 1>your wireless internet signal. I'm jovin Strickland and this is

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<v Speaker 1>tech stuff Daily. It sounds a bit like an urban

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<v Speaker 1>myth you can boost your WiFi signal reach with a

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<v Speaker 1>little aluminum foil shaped a particular way. But as it

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<v Speaker 1>turns out, the science holds up. What's next? Are we

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<v Speaker 1>going to find out that blowing into an old Nintendo

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<v Speaker 1>cartridge really does make it work better? Side note, don't

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<v Speaker 1>blow into cartridges. You're more likely to gum things up

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<v Speaker 1>to make them better. All right, back to the WiFi.

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<v Speaker 1>The research is out of Dartmouth University. She has jal And,

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<v Speaker 1>assistant professor, spoke about the project. She said that all

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<v Speaker 1>it takes is about thirty five dollars worth of materials

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<v Speaker 1>to create a reflector capable of shaping WiFi signals. There's

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<v Speaker 1>no need for repeaters or signal boosters. You can do

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<v Speaker 1>it all yourself booming you have access to a three

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<v Speaker 1>D printer. That is. The research team took an interesting

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<v Speaker 1>approach to their work. They took inspiration from d I.

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<v Speaker 1>Y communities that had experimented with using aluminum cans to

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<v Speaker 1>direct WiFi signals. Essentially, these groups had cut cans open

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<v Speaker 1>to turn them into sheets of thin aluminum, and then

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<v Speaker 1>attached those sheets to a router's antenna. The sheets would

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<v Speaker 1>block signals going out in that direction and redirect them

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<v Speaker 1>in the opposing direction. It worked, but it wasn't very precise.

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<v Speaker 1>The team thought they could dial this in a bit.

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<v Speaker 1>They developed software that does all the number crunching for you.

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<v Speaker 1>In order to make a design that will suit your needs,

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<v Speaker 1>you plug in some parameters into the software, giving it

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<v Speaker 1>information about the size and shape of the room that

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<v Speaker 1>the router is in. Maybe you want to boost the

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<v Speaker 1>signal in one direction and curtail it in another. For example,

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<v Speaker 1>you might want your wireless router located near a window,

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<v Speaker 1>and you'd rather not broadcast your WiFi signal out to

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<v Speaker 1>your entire neighborhood. By reshaping that signal, you can direct

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<v Speaker 1>it where you want. This isn't just efficient, it's potentially

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<v Speaker 1>more secure. WiFi sniffers will have a harder time connecting

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<v Speaker 1>to your routers signal if that signal is being redirected

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<v Speaker 1>inside your home rather than outside. Once the software has

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<v Speaker 1>done all its beat boop boop calculations, it designs a

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<v Speaker 1>three dimensional shape calibrated precisely to the information you've fed

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<v Speaker 1>the software. That includes taking into account the directions where

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<v Speaker 1>you want a stronger signal and the ones where you'd

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<v Speaker 1>like to prevent the signal from bleeding over into other regions,

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<v Speaker 1>such as the street outside your house. The three D

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<v Speaker 1>shape acts like a reflector. It's sort of like the

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<v Speaker 1>bowl on a satellite dish. After getting the design for

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<v Speaker 1>the shape, you have to then make the darn thing.

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<v Speaker 1>This is most easily done with a three D printer.

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<v Speaker 1>Three D printers are a type of additive manufacturing, meaning

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<v Speaker 1>they create shapes by adding to a foundation layer by layer. Typically,

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<v Speaker 1>a printer does this by laying down a sticky layer

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<v Speaker 1>of plastic material on a heated platform. The plastic adheres

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<v Speaker 1>to the platform enough to stay in place as the

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<v Speaker 1>printer lays down another thin layer, and another and another.

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<v Speaker 1>This happens over and over until the collection of layers

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<v Speaker 1>reaches the dimensions of the object you set to print.

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<v Speaker 1>Smaller objects tend to be easier to print than larger ones,

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<v Speaker 1>mostly because you don't have to worry about the structural

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<v Speaker 1>integrity of the object quite as much. There are three

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<v Speaker 1>D printers that can build objects out of stuff other

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<v Speaker 1>than plastic, but generally speaking you're less likely to run

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<v Speaker 1>into those in the consumer market. If you've got the time, money,

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<v Speaker 1>and as we found out in our office, the patients

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<v Speaker 1>to work with a three D printer, you can purchase

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<v Speaker 1>one for yourself and start churning out the chatch keys. Otherwise,

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<v Speaker 1>you can do a quick search online to see if

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<v Speaker 1>there are any three D printing businesses that can take

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<v Speaker 1>on custom jobs. Once printed, you then cote the three

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<v Speaker 1>D object in aluminum foil. This gives the object it's

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<v Speaker 1>reflective properties. The shape determines where the signal will go

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<v Speaker 1>once it bounces off the object. The combination of those

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<v Speaker 1>two is what allows you to reshape WiFi signals. The

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<v Speaker 1>aluminum foil and shape aren't actually boosting the signal in

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<v Speaker 1>any way. That is, they're not making a weak signals strong.

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<v Speaker 1>They do redirect the signal so that it might more

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<v Speaker 1>efficiently reach the areas within a space you designate, but

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<v Speaker 1>it doesn't make your WiFi magically better. Keep in mind

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<v Speaker 1>that WiFi is ultimately radio waves. The frequencies for WiFi

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<v Speaker 1>are in the two point four and five giga hurts

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<v Speaker 1>ranges in the United States. So why those ranges? Well,

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<v Speaker 1>there are a couple of reasons. The big one is

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<v Speaker 1>that the radio frequency spectrum is really valuable real estate.

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<v Speaker 1>If you were to broadcast two different things along the

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<v Speaker 1>same frequency, like TV signals and WiFi, let's say you

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<v Speaker 1>didn't counter interference. That's not good whether you want to

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<v Speaker 1>log into the world of warcraft or watch your stories.

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<v Speaker 1>So you have to set aside blocks of frequencies for

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<v Speaker 1>specific uses. That way, you can be reasonably sure that

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<v Speaker 1>one technology won't meddle with another. The Dartmouth team has

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<v Speaker 1>yet to release a build of the software they used

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<v Speaker 1>to design the three D shapes. Without that software, you're

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<v Speaker 1>not likely to create a reflector that's going to be

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<v Speaker 1>very useful. You might even make your signal more difficult

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<v Speaker 1>to connect to. Hopefully the team will either create a

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<v Speaker 1>software product people can purchase, or even release their program

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<v Speaker 1>for free so that anyone can take advantage of their research.

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<v Speaker 1>To learn more about the Internet, WiFi, radio frequencies, and

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<v Speaker 1>weird experiments in technology, subscribe to the tech Stuff podcast.

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<v Speaker 1>Episodes last about an hour and explore all things tech.

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<v Speaker 1>I'll see you again soon.