Going Online with LEDs and the First Li-Fi Smartphone

For a few years now, engineers and scientists have tinkered with an alternative to wi-fi that utilizes not radio waves, but light: specifically, light from light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. Yeah, it's an internet of light, or maybe LEDnet, as if we needed another buzz phrase. This quietly gestating technology, li-fi—unlike wi-fi, it's an actual abbreviation, for light fidelity—may be ready for a serious look. Not only did a recent New International market forecast predict that the li-fi industry would be worth $6 billion in less than five years; li-fi devices debuted at CES this year allowed users to both establish an internet connection via light waves, and, in an arguably more intriguing application, to use an app to transmit data directly from lights outfitted with the technology. And now, for the first time, there's even a li-fi smart phone.