One home-modder plugged bundles of fiber optics into tiny dremel holes in his ceiling. Using just a touch of glue to hold each star in place, 250 dots twinkle...maybe even brighter than real stars.

Even for a lazy glob of lard such as myself, the install sounds wicked-easy thanks to a step-by-step tutorial over at Instructables. That said, I'm still the type of guy to hire out. [instructables via Hack a Day via lifehacker]

Indeed, when the relatively isolated RNLI, a tidal estuary station in Northern England, wanted a better connection, they took shovel to earth and installed it. That simple.

The fiber and other tech necessary for the deployment were eagerly supplied by FiberStream, which enjoyed the PR while the RNLI finally got the Internet speeds they thought they deserved. [ISP Review via Slashdot]

His process is a refined, high art version of Kirlian Photography—a photographic technique popularized in the 1930s. Buelteman places a whittled, near translucent flower directly onto color film, then he sandwiches the subject between sheet metal and plexiglass—all of which is submerged in liquid silicone. Using jumper cables, the flower is pumped full of electricity which ionizes the surrounding air and leaves a glowing corona on the film (the blue outline).

Then, Buelteman "paints" the film with a single fiber optic strand, adding an almost divine white glow to the image (which can take as many as 150 attempts to execute perfectly).

Buelteman argues that without lens glass distorting colors, his flowers have an unparalleled chromatic accuracy. You can judge for yourself in his new book Signs of Life and read more on the story over at: [Wired]

We're not saying that we enjoy dressing up in women's clothing when no one's around. We're just saying that, when we're talking about garments woven from fiber optic cables, a simple dress transcends the artificial social norms of male or female attire. It becomes something greater, something OK for a typical man's man to don during Mardi Gras, Carnival, or hell, any old weekend on the couch watching sports while throwing back some brewskies.

Plus, the LumiTop Sophia costs over $2000. And if you have that much cash to throw around on one item of clothing in this economy, chances are, everyone will be kissing your butt for a job, not questioning your techno-effeminate taste in fashion. [LumiGram via 7Gadgets]

The Mist Bench is described as a "light sculpture," and it set to make it's debut at the '09 Senseware exhibition' at Milan design week. So, I wouldn't expect to pick one of these up at your local furniture store anytime soon. [Tokyo Fiber via Designboom]

The plan, which costs $30.5 billion of our U.S. dollars, will rely on a massive infusion of government funds to get the ball rolling on the project, of which the taxpayers will own 51%. It will then be transitioned into a reliance on public sector investment, and the government plans to sell of its stake in the project within five years. It is expected to bring 37,000 jobs to unemployment-hindered Australia,

The one detail not yet decided obviously is pricing—set the price too low, and private telecom companies are pissed; too high, and no one will adopt it. But 90% fiber coverage for a country like Australia is an ambitious play (the other 10% will be served through an upgraded 10mbps satellite service). [NYTimes]

Designed by Ettore Cimini, the Ra features two fully adjustable steel and technopolymer arms that separately deliver and focus light from a 100W fluorescent bulb from the tip of their snake-like head using fiber optic cable. The light itself can be adjusted to taste via a built-in dimmer control.

On the downside, it appears that the lamps are custom made to order—which surely means that it is far, far out of most of our price ranges. [Lumina via e-potpourri via TFTS]

The 63 x 13-inch LumiTable come with power adapters, so you can trip over the cables running from your dining table to the electricity socket. For $196, you can't ask for more. No, no, no. You can't. [Lumigram via 7Gadgets]

The technique, spearheaded by Bo Albinsson at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, encodes DNA in a way that, when mixed with light-receptive molecules called chromophores, self-engineer themselves into a natural photo-sensitive wire that can accurately transmit light—similar to those found in some algaes. The technique may also someday be used for artificial photosynthesis systems that may power next-gen solar cells. [New Scientist, Image: DNA visualized in a cDNA microarray from Wiki Commons]

It still looks too busy if you ask me, plus that lighting effect could get real annoying real quick—unless there is a way to shut off the power (or you are tripping balls 24 hours a day). [Bodie and Fou via Inhabitat]

The tubes' intensity and color are controlled by an external projector; they're in sync but don't actually contain any electricity. (Sorry, Tesla.) In the Cornwall exhibition, they will be installed on a huge 1,200-square-meter grass-covered roof using 24,000 meters of fiber. It is of course "best viewed in hours of darkness." Munro has actually set up Field of Light shows on a number of occasions in the past, each successive installation growing in some way. His next all-new project is "a massive illuminated maze synchronized with choral music" named (what else?) Water Towers. That will be on display next March in Frome, Somerset, so yes, again again with the England. You lucky Limeys had better send pictures! [Dezeen]

Via the original article, the Harvard Broadband Communication Laboratory provides this explanation of Free-Space Optical Communications and gives some insight as to why this method doesn't work very well unless used under optimal conditions:

"Free space optical communications is a line-of-sight (LOS) technology that transmits a modulated beam of visible or infrared light through the atmosphere for broadband communications. In a manner similar to fiber optical communications, free space optics uses a light emitting diode (LED) or laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) point source for data transmission. However, in free space optics, an energy beam is collimated and transmitted through space rather than being guided through an optical cable. These beams of light, operating in the TeraHertz portion of the spectrum, are focused on a receiving lens connected to a high sensitivity receiver through an optical fiber."

The hurdles with this form of "wireless" are many, and it really only gets optimal speeds in places like space. Rain, fog and snow can all affect the transmission here on Earth. Even wind has a tendency to make the beam "wander" off course. [Corriere Della Sera via Hot Hardware]

With a length of 8 meters, it can dive in with its fiber cam where rescue dogs can't, leading the way for human rescuers. Look for it slinking around in rubble piles next year. [Nikkei and Tohoku University via Crunchgear]

Intel's chippy takes a beam of light and karate chops it into eight channels, each of which has a modulator that encodes data onto light. These data-ified beams are then recombined, and boom. This all at happens at a rate of 25Gbps per modulator. This stuff is the building blocks of a computer future where copper is replaced by beams of light. But before that happens, Intel wants to cram 25 modulators onto a single chip, with each one running at 40Gbps, maybe with hybrid lasers built onto the chip to toss light at the modulator instead of an optical fiber.

Time to market? Three to five years. Fingers crossed. [MIT Tech Review]

The transmission was done with the goal of achieving a 100 Gbps Ethernet connection, which, as I'm sure you'd agree, is a goal we can all get behind. All sorts of fancy, confusing-sounding technologies were used to get the blazing optical transmission, including "a highly linear, balanced optoelectronic photoreceiver and an ultra-compact, temperature-insensitive coherent mixer." I kept telling them that they just needed a more balanced optoelectronic photoreceiver! I'm glad they finally listened.

We're still pretty far from seeing speeds anywhere near this in consumer connections, as the technology being worked on here will go towards the internet's backbone rather than in a line to your house. But I mean, honestly, at what point is bandwidth so fast that it doesn't matter if it gets any faster? When we're talking about speeds that'll allow you to download a full HD movie in 15 seconds versus 3 seconds, you really start to lose the right to complain about it. Those 50 Mbps connections we'll start seeing offered to consumers in the next few years should be just plenty for the time being, no? [IT News Australia via Slashdot]

The concrete can be cast in just about any way possible: bricks; fa ade plates or paving stones, and you can even incorporate logos in them. The fiber-optics come in different diameters as well—from 2 micro- to 2 mm.

Even colors can be detected through the walls, which can be as thick as you like, as it is only at 20 meters you start to see a loss in light. Expect to see this at the top of many architects' shopping lists in the next decade. [Dezeen]