FTA: "To send data to a smartphone, for example, one of the new prototypes switches its antenna back and forth between modes that absorb and reflect the signal from a nearby Wi-Fi router. Software installed on the phone allows it to read that signal by observing the changing strength of the signal it detects from that same router as the battery-free device soaks some of it up."
Sounds just a bit like one indirect way astronomers search for exoplanets: By looking for fluctuations in a star's light caused by a planet's transit 'across' the star. [1]
Comments
FTA: "To send data to a smartphone, for example, one of the new prototypes switches its antenna back and forth between modes that absorb and reflect the signal from a nearby Wi-Fi router. Software installed on the phone allows it to read that signal by observing the changing strength of the signal it detects from that same router as the battery-free device soaks some of it up."
Sounds just a bit like one indirect way astronomers search for exoplanets: By looking for fluctuations in a star's light caused by a planet's transit 'across' the star. [1]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoplanet#Indirect_methods