Your Li-Fi Life

Internet access via light technology? Yes! It’s coming, and it will be faster than anything heretofore.

Throw out the mash-up word "hi-fi" into your congregation this Sunday, and those with gray hair will smile, while the kids will start looking it up on their smartphones. For those old enough to remember, "hi-fi" stood for "high fidelity" — a term born in the 1950s to describe records (yes, vinyl records) and stereo equipment that claimed to provide faithful sound reproduction. It was all about delivering the true sound intended by the artist, the crackling of the needle working the grooves of the record notwithstanding.

You don't hear that term much today, even though vinyl records are making an unexpected comeback. Who needs hi-fi, after all, when music can be delivered instantly, seamlessly, wirelessly and digitally via a "Wi-Fi" connection, which is an inventive homage to the old "hi-fi" term? Wi-Fi is, of course, as ubiquitous in our world as air itself, with connections available practically anywhere that people gather. It's our window into the world of information,...