The last time I used IR to any effect was for playing Snake (the original version) on my Nokia 8250 with a friend who had a compatible Nokia 8210. At that time it seemed magical , this ability to play a game wirelessly but in conjunction. Needless to say this was several years ago. Since then I had also tried exchanging contact details using the IR system. But besides being too slow, the negligible range (if any) and requirement of line of sight made sure that the technology was doomed.

The tech really died down and this is the first that I am hearing about it at all in the past few years. KDDI (Japan) demonstrated the Giga-IR which promises to make 1Gbps transfers possible using Infrared. Unlike most infrared communications using LEDs as light-emitting elements, Giga-IR uses semiconductor laser elements.

The technology is expected to be used for forwarding music and video data stored in mobile phones at high speeds to other mobile phones, PCs, TVs, DVD recorders and printers, and so forth.

Further details will be posted as they get available.

Source