Every day we use WiFi on our notebooks, phones, tablets,
routers, TVs – in fact it’s estimated that there’s around 3
billion WiFi-enabled devices worldwide. Who out there knew
though that WiFi is actually an Australian invention? Developed
by Australia’s national science agency, the Commonwealth
Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) , it was
patented in Australia in 1992 and the US in 1996. More
information after the break: The invention came out of CSIRO’s
pioneering work in radioastronomy. That work involved complex
mathematics known as ‘fast Fourier transforms’ as well as
detailed knowledge about radio waves and their behaviour in
different environments. Indoor environments are particularly
difficult for the rapid exchange of large amounts of data using
radio waves. The CSIRO team solved the main problem of wireless
networking, called reverberation, where the radio waves from the
outgoing signal bounce around the surrounding environment
causing an echo that distorts the signal. CSIRO solv