Comment by sigkill | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sigkill | Hacker News Reader

Not to poke holes in the implementation but even one-wire requires two connection, [1]Data/Power [2] Ground. Even with their optical mumbo jumbo how the hell can they actually transfer data?

On one hand they talk about optical things, and then on the other hand they're talking about 'conductive'. Seriously? Regardless, you do not bypass the laws of physics. You need atleast a complete circuit for it to be powered. And if their cop-out is that it's got a super-micro-pico-tiny-high-density-capacitor then I'm not even going to bother poking holes anymore.

Well, there is a way but it's pointlessly slow - inductive power.

The whole concept is quite flawed in my opinion [EDIT - unless their plan is to showcase a theoretical ultrathin USB flash drive.]

if the surface you stick it on is actually full of (conductive) dots:

  . . . . .
   . . . .
  . . . . .

and your sticky thing has two panels for data/ground with dimensions larger than the width between the dots then wherever you stick it you can be guaranteed of two separate connections

More like two connections plus a ton of short circuits...

I was anticipating a very smart connecting board that can determine two working connections and disable the others. I wasn't arguing it's completely viable but simply that it's not beyond the laws of physics as OP suggested :)

I'm sorry I don't understand your description. You said a grid of conductive dots right? You'd need two separate grids of dots if you're going to use one-wire. Would you superposition both grids? Then it would short. If you have one 'band' on top and one band below, then it's just a rail setup.

There's nothing special about ground, it's the same as a digital pin set to low (from an M/C perspective). You don't need to have two separate grids. Just try out combinations of pins as data/power and ground until you get a set that works and float (disconnect/set as input) the others.

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