Taara, a Google X spinoff, debuted Taara Beam at Mobile World Congress — a shoebox-sized free-space optical device capable of transmitting up to 25 Gbps with 50-microsecond latency over open air using infrared lasers. The key innovation is a fingernail-sized photonics chip that implements an optical phased array, splitting the laser into over a thousand streams with controlled phase delays to steer the beam without mechanical parts. This makes it far more compact than Taara's earlier Lightbridge product. The company also launched Lightbridge Pro, which adds automatic failover to a radio link during fog or rain, achieving 99.999% uptime. Google's own campus is already using Taara technology to bypass right-of-way issues. Future applications include space-based data-center-to-data-center links.
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