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This is soo old news. This vibrations-to-power technoogy was already on the market in 2002 in self-powered structural integrity systems in tennis rackets. A similar system is used in some makes of snow skis to help dampen vibrations.

Newer news was is Science News in August 9, 2003 in "Electric Foam" (sorry, I don't have a link to the full text). Its a way to make piezoelectric polypropylene foam. Although the material needs more development (it losses its piezoelectric properties at temperatures that might occur in a car glove box), the new foam could expand the use piezoelectric materials in consumer products.

This is Slashdot. Diamonds hold huge potential as a superior semiconductor material compared to silicon. The technology is now here to make mass quantities of them for cheap. And all anyone here can talk about is its relevance as a transparent shiny stone?

Here's some info on its recent development as a semiconductor. Time for the U.S. to get on the ball. It won't take much for another country to surpass us in the technology race.

An interesting article then:
Toward self-diagnostic APIs for embedded systems

ATI's acquisition of ArtX had a much broader effect than you think. I highly suggest reading this article about it over at EETimes.

An engineer is someone who designs software and systems for unix.

EETimes has an article on this. They note:

Culturecom Holdings Ltd., a publisher of Chinese language "fighting" comics that migrated into information technology in the 1990s, has begun selling its V-Dragon microprocessor for use in Chinese PCs.

That's almost like vivendi-universal going from a water utility to a multimedia giant! Is there some new business strategy for totally changing industries that I should be aware of?

They also note:

The V-Dragon CPU incorporates support for Chinese-language characters, according to the company.

Wow, I wonder what that means... optimized U16 support? Or is it marketing-speak?

EEtimes also notes that 300,000 chips have already been sold or have letters of intent to be sold.

Subject says it all.

I am not surprised, considering the EU track record of total disregard for citizens' privacy rights.

The Central European Bank, you'll remember, is planning to insert radioID tag chips in every euro banknote. The cover story is that it would make counterfeiting harder. The swiped-under-the-rug consequence is that cash would become as traceable as wiring transfers or credit card transactions, a paramount consideration in EU where the high taxation level (60% of the GNP avg) are driving a lot of people to take jobs "on the side".

In France, a country which has very strict laws against cross-indexing personal data files, the French IRS bought new IBM RS/6000 in the 90s and bought the subscriber list of a very popular encrypted TV channel, Canal Plus. Then it checked the subscriber list for people who were not paying the TV tax (about $130/year for owning a color TV). That kind of Big-Brotherish tax enforcement gave little trust in the privacy reassurances uttered by the bureaucrats.

-- SysKoll

Heh, holographic memory eh? naw, this is the real deal: quantum-phase memory! Unlimited storage in just... one electron! :D

Just wait a couple years for this

Amazing...

I work at the Labs, right down the hall from these guys. I play soccer with a man named Panos Datskos. He recently finished building a cantilever based electronic nose that has the potential to detect a single molecule. Datskos is working on a "universal" sensor that shares many of the same processes of a gas chromatograph to identify any substance. As described in the article, it uses very basic technology (a CD laser). It's also very compact, the size and shape of a discman. The coolest thing about the technology is that it functions in the ambient environment. It does not, like most laboratory equipment, require a vacuum, extreme temperatures, or special shock absorbance to reduce vibration. This is the kind of device that they'll be deploying to airports, I believe.

Perhaps it's because the US is scaring them.

I ask you, what could the US possibly do to make the Chinese (and the rest of the world) even more interested in accelerating their space programs than attempting to pull crap like this ?

Unfortunately even those who are looking to hang onto "legacy PCI" (ie PCI-X) for a few more years concede they will be changing to PCI-Express when the time is right; they simply maintain that, with it being new technology, the time isn't yet right.

This is what happens when you get all your tech news from Anand and ZDnet. Why the hell can't /. link to an industry reference on this sort of topic? I realize this ain't a whole lot better, but at least it's not written (entirely) by poorly informed hobbyists.

The GNU Project was launched in 1984 to develop a complete Unix-like operating system which is free software: the GNU system.

And, just to make a point, maybe you can identify which of these were invented by FSF/GNU and were copied into Unix: sh, sed, awk, tar, compress, cpio, ar, cc, make, man, ps, df, ls, spell, diff, ed, finger, dd, lex, yacc, echo, date, su, telnet, ... If we want to ask this with a viscious turn, we could include the BSD utilities since UCB started with a Unix license, Unix code, and a DARPA contract to add features. Then we could add plenty of others, especially as part of the Unix standards process many of the BSD utilities were incorporated into System V Unix.

By and large, all FSF has done is to reimplement existing Unix tools with a different license - Free software, create derivative works, or collect up the work of others willing to donate their labor and software. It is a good thing, since as I stated before they often do some useful, fresh things with them, but don't be confused about what they are doing.


SCO has been eyballing the Linux source for years by improving and distributing Linux as well as by adding Linux compatability to Unixware. And now we are soppused to believe that they didn't notice before?


An entirely reasonable thing. Both code bases no doubt contain millions of lines of code. You would either have to know it was there, and what to look for, or run some type of automated tool to find it. This is particularly true if the violation occurred at another company, and only within the last couple of years. Also remember

If you paid attention during your chemistry classes, you already know this: H2 released in the atmosphere will react with oxydants at the drop of a hat under the influence of almost any catalyzer or combustion. The most likely oxydant is good old O2. I fail to see how H2 would patiently wait until it finds some unsuspecting ozone (03) before reacting. This just doesn't add up.

Moreover, millions of tons of H2 are already manufactured in refineries and chemical plants. Any increase linked to transportation use would be a drop in the bucket. So why do these pseudo-scientist wake up now?

Finally, recent developments indicate that fuel cells will probably not use H2 directly. The FC types favored these days use methanol, or alcohol, in solutions between 7 and 60%. See engineering publications such as Electronics Engineering Times, for instance http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20030507S0035 or http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20030407S0046. Conclusion: 1. fuel cells will use methanol; 2. Large-scale H2 production started in the 19th century; 3. And the ozone layer is safe from H2. So why do pseudo-scientist feel the need to start alarming people with demonstrably false voodoo claims? Say what? Research grants? Oh, OK, sorry, keep going.

If you paid attention during your chemistry classes, you already know this: H2 released in the atmosphere will react with oxydants at the drop of a hat under the influence of almost any catalyzer or combustion. The most likely oxydant is good old O2. I fail to see how H2 would patiently wait until it finds some unsuspecting ozone (03) before reacting. This just doesn't add up.

Moreover, millions of tons of H2 are already manufactured in refineries and chemical plants. Any increase linked to transportation use would be a drop in the bucket. So why do these pseudo-scientist wake up now?

Finally, recent developments indicate that fuel cells will probably not use H2 directly. The FC types favored these days use methanol, or alcohol, in solutions between 7 and 60%. See engineering publications such as Electronics Engineering Times, for instance http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20030507S0035 or http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20030407S0046. Conclusion: 1. fuel cells will use methanol; 2. Large-scale H2 production started in the 19th century; 3. And the ozone layer is safe from H2. So why do pseudo-scientist feel the need to start alarming people with demonstrably false voodoo claims? Say what? Research grants? Oh, OK, sorry, keep going.

I also thought the article poorly described Sun's new chip design initiative. Here's one article on the new asynchronous chip design. Here's another.

Dopant profile and gate geometric effects on polysilicon gate
Gate Length Dependent Polysilicon Depletion Effects

Also EETimes has another interesting article with more information about AMD's presentation at the 2003 Symposium on VLSI Technology in Kyoto, Japan.

IBM, for its part, has said it doesn't intend to respond to SCO's threat. âoeWe believe our contact is perpetual and irrevocable,â an IBM spokeswoman said. âoeWe've already paid for it, and there is nothing else we need to do.â

Yup, that works until they start putting RFIDs in currency. So much for using cash.

. . .but G4's are all from Motorola* because IBM refuses** to use the Altivec unit.

That is *entirely* untrue.

Back in the days when Apple was having problems pumping out anything over 450 MHz G4s, they remedied the problem by, among other things, contracting out with IBM to produce G4 chips.

Apple's PR announcement on the matter can be found on their site.

Not only does IBM not "refuse" to use AltiVec, but they're going to be implementing it on the 970, albeit with much pressure from Apple.

While it may be FUD only, this technology being used to track ALL that you buy is the concern. RFID will eventually be "mainstreamed" and many people such as yourself won't see a problem with it being in money or in credit cards. Again, no FUD just fact, the FBI has already planned an investigation about RFID in money Why is this a privacy concern? What I'm about to say may be an ethical issue but it is seen different ways by different people. What if I want to buy some marijuana with that note? What if I want to pay the kid down the down the street to cut my lawn? What if that same kid does drugs? Now, I am suspect for being in "drug ring" if they can trace all those RFIDs.

Same with purchases from Walmart. What if I happen to purchase a combination of items unknowingly, that the average drug user purchases. Will I be profiled for that buying habit too?

I am with you, it's coming no matter what. It will be hard to stop. But, there are legitimate concerns.

I will hope that Walmart will adopt the Philips chip that you can turn off if the customer so wills to.

You would be amazed at what your grocery store bonus card data holds about you! Returns, complaints to the store, not just sales data. Again, what if something with an RFID or something trackable has your fingerprints on it, are you suspect when the "bad guy" buys it from Goodwill or steals it? Not only do we need Walmart to understand that before they make this step that we want on off switches, but we would also like disassociation capability. IE, erasure of your association with an RFID. Also, yearly reports by email or mail on what your RFID info holds and what data they truly are keeping about you would be nice.

Dupe post for dupe story....

Tragically we know how the US would like to react:
http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/OEG20030522S0050

The nation's largest intelligence agency by budget and in control of all U.S. spy satellites, NRO is talking openly with the U.S. Air Force Space Command about actively denying the use of space for intelligence purposes to any other nation at any time not just adversaries, but even longtime allies, according to NRO director Peter Teets.

At the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs in early April, Teets proposed that U.S. resources from military, civilian and commercial satellites be combined to provide "persistence in total situational awareness, for the benefit of this nation's war fighters." If allies don't like the new paradigm of space dominance, said Air Force secretary James Roche, they'll just have to learn to accept it. The allies, he told the symposium, will have "no veto power."

This would not go down to well at all. I know the US economy/military is the biggest in the world - but I still think that a trade war/shooting war with every other country in the world isn't the best way of improving the lives of American citizens.

it's already the case:

U.S. 'negation' policy in space raises concerns abroad

Some choice quotes:

Beginning next year, NRO will be in charge of the new Offensive Counter-Space program, which will come up with plans to specifically deny the use of near-Earth space to other nations, said Teets.

Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Judd Blaisdell, director of the Air Force Space Operations Office, said recently, "We are so dominant in space that I pity a country that would come up against us."

After the administration renounced the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty last year, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made it clear that the abrogation of treaty constraints in the use of radar and tracking devices was not just for the benefit of fielding a missile-defense system, but to build better unilateral networks to manage the planet from space.

but above it. At least according to this article. Scary how a number of these things are starting to come together at the same time... it sounds like it is in the rest of the world's interest to support anything that isn't American. Which is a real pity that the DOD just can't play nice with the rest of us. Cheap, GPS guided cruise missile anyone?.

Tragically we know how the US would like to react:

http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/OEG20030522S0050

The nation's largest intelligence agency by budget and in control of all U.S. spy satellites, NRO is talking openly with the U.S. Air Force Space Command about actively denying the use of space for intelligence purposes to any other nation at any time--not just adversaries, but even longtime allies, according to NRO director Peter Teets.

At the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs in early April, Teets proposed that U.S. resources from military, civilian and commercial satellites be combined to provide "persistence in total situational awareness, for the benefit of this nation's war fighters." If allies don't like the new paradigm of space dominance, said Air Force secretary James Roche, they'll just have to learn to accept it. The allies, he told the symposium, will have "no veto power."

This would not go down to well at all. I know the US economy/military is the biggest in the world - but I still think that a trade war/shooting war with every other country in the world isn't the best way of improving the lives of American citizens.

U.S. 'negation' policy raises concerns abroad

A snip from the start of it:

"The nation's largest intelligence agency by budget and in control of all U.S. spy satellites, NRO is talking openly with the U.S. Air Force Space Command about actively denying the use of space for intelligence purposes to any other nation at any time--not just adversaries, but even longtime allies, according to NRO director Peter Teets.

At the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs in early April, Teets proposed that U.S. resources from military, civilian and commercial satellites be combined to provide "persistence in total situational awareness, for the benefit of this nation's war fighters." If allies don't like the new paradigm of space dominance, said Air Force secretary James Roche, they'll just have to learn to accept it. The allies, he told the symposium, will have "no veto power."

Beginning next year, NRO will be in charge of the new Offensive Counter-Space program, which will come up with plans to specifically deny the use of near-Earth space to other nations, said Teets.

The program will include two components: the Counter Communication System, designed to disrupt other nations' communication networks from space; and the Counter Surveillance Reconnaissance System, formed to prevent other countries from using advanced intelligence-gathering technology in air or space.

"Negation implies treating allies poorly," Robert Lawson, senior policy adviser for nonproliferation in the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, said at a Toronto conference in late March. "It implies treaty busting."

Hints of such a policy showed up in the Rumsfeld Commission report of January 2001, which warned of a "space Pearl Harbor" if the United States did not dominate low-earth, geosynchronous and polar orbital planes, as well as all launch facilities and ground stations, to exploit space for battlefield advantage.

The European Union complained in no uncertain terms five years ago that the NRO and National Security Agency were using global electronic-snooping programs like Echelon outside the boundaries of mutual NATO advantage. The European Space Agency chimed in last fall, when the Defense Department tried to bully ESA into changing its design plans for a navigational-satellite system called Galileo.

In the aftermath of the successful Iraq campaign, concern goes much deeper and extends to the heart of NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command inside Cheyenne Mountain near here. While Canada is supposed to be an equal member of NORAD, representatives of Canada's military and civilian establishment are complaining that they are not allowed to use space-based communications and intelligence in the same way the United States can."

To repeat, Rumsfeld "warned of a "space Pearl Harbor" if the United States did not dominate low-earth, geosynchronous and polar orbital planes, as well as all launch facilities and ground stations, to exploit space for battlefield advantage."

The current administration is completely out of fucking control.

I recommed the article U.S. 'negation' policy in space raises concerns abroad. Space is the next frontier for US military dominance. NASA may have been gutted, but now the government is realizing it can enhance its control over the world if it has space. This means denying everyone else access to space - so I won't be surprised if the US govt starts painting the Chinese (dirty commies! watch out! coughbullshitcough) space program as a serious military threat.

(Missile shield? Missile shield? Hell, son, we need orbital weapons platforms all around the world! We need to be able to shut down military operations by rogue states and terr'ists anywhere on the globe! Hot damn, we need nukes on the moon!)

Euro bank notes to embed RFID chips by 2005

There are already several BIOS manufacturers that have developed mini operating systems to be used in event of a system failure. Phoenix even has one. Google for Phoenix cME.

• Wind River executives said last week that fear of legal action caused them to abandon their own Linux program, which was quietly moving into high gear three years ago. After investing more than a year in Wind River Linux, they said they decided against releasing it because Linux is subject to the laws of the general public license, which allows users to demand access to an OEM's source code. "We decided we didn't want to expose our customers to those kinds of issues," said Fraser of Wind River. "This like going after the tobacco companies. If it's successful, it will tear down the precepts that support Linux, and it could affect the concept of all software."

Beginning next year, NRO will be in charge of the new Offensive Counter-Space program, which will come up with plans to specifically deny the use of near-Earth space to other nations

If allies don't like the new paradigm of space dominance, said Air Force secretary James Roche, they'll just have to learn to accept it. The allies, he told the symposium, will have "no veto power."

The nation's largest intelligence agency by budget and in control of all U.S. spy satellites, NRO is talking openly with the U.S. Air Force Space Command about actively denying the use of space for intelligence purposes to any other nation at any time--not just adversaries, but even longtime allies, according to NRO director Peter Teets.

At the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs in early April, Teets proposed that U.S. resources from military, civilian and commercial satellites be combined to provide "persistence in total situational awareness, for the benefit of this nation's war fighters." If allies don't like the new paradigm of space dominance, said Air Force secretary James Roche, they'll just have to learn to accept it. The allies, he told the symposium, will have "no veto power."

First, embedded systems are no longer thought of, or designed from the perspective of being, "closed". A very simple digital watch is the an example of a "closed" embedded system, being that it does not have to communicate with or rely on another device's logic/input to function (closed loop). On the other hand, the embedded systems found in cars/routers/switches/cellphones/servers etc. are not, and cannot be described as "closed systems" - they rely on input from other digital devices such as sensors or other embedded logic in order to function. By definition, there is NO communication/input in a closed system. Learn. Learn more.

"In order to be flexible enough to do everythign a computer can do, computer languages have to be allowed to crash the computer. Otherwise you are severly limiting what they can do and slowing thigns down."

Yes, as we have learned, if you want to create a system that is based on any type of varibles/input, it has to be open. You do not seem to understand that an embedded system is called "embedded" because the OS instructions are contained in the chip architecture. Instead writing code which uses a defined chip architecture (x86,PPC,Alpha), the code/logic is "embedded" in the chip. You can write software for imbedded devices - my cell phone runs java apps. There are many devices which utilize embedded linux, I have a webcam that runs its own apache webserver. So, no, embedded devices are not "severly" limited, and they most defiantly not slow! They instantly boot when turned on! Ha.

"1) accept a restricted operating system that will never be able to compete with a commercial system like Windows."

Your assumption of being restricted is wrong, check out Transmeta - and what does windows being "commercial" have to do with anything? How is an embedded system not commercial? Why can't a "non-commercial" system compete with a "commercial" system? Is my cellphone not commercial? Do you know the definition of commercial?

"2) Never install a program that was not A) created by the same company/group that wrote your operating sytem, B) specifically designed for your particular computer, and C) designed to be used with and thoroughly tested against all the other software that is currently installed on your PC."

How does something being created by "the same company/group" have anything to do with embedded systems, and/or system stability? (proprietary/opensorce) Not designed for my PC? I thought we were talking about embedded devices... What does your misinformed/erronous ideas about embedded devices have to do with a PC?

Your argument is based on numerous false assumptions which makes it untrue, and your misuse of words and their definitions makes your reasoning/correlations invalid. Basically, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Anyone roughly know what an RFID "detector" costs? I'm curious.

Nothing to see here moderators. Move on.

"What about all the special purpose real time OSes that many companies use"

Old news: The ELC, which includes such corporate heavyweights as IBM, Intel, Motorola, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Siemens and Sony, is clearly gaining momentum in its effort to bring Linux to the forefront of the embedded market. .

"f you have any figures to even suggest the opposite, I would love to see them."

If the list of companies in the Embedded Linux Consortium does not impress you, then who do _you_ think are actually the implementers of most of the volume shipments of embedded systems?

Smell Coffee. Read more, be informed.

So Sony is an unmovable object? Obviously even?

Do you even (ever?) read the news?

You sound very much like an optimistic Microsoft SalesPerson(tm), or somebody who owns a little bit too much stock of it.

I suggest you read this article. I am not starting a "bitch session", my rely to the original post was only pointing out a particular fallacy that I didn't want to see spread, ie "UWB only works if you severly limit the range", I never intended to debate the merits of afidels idea of UWB wireless MIDI - I simply don't give a damn about that aspect of this threads original post.

I beg to differ. Silicon has been made to emit light in various ways for over a decade.

"Scientists at Surrey University, led by researcher Kevin Homewood, are showing off a prototype silicon-based light-emitting diode (LED) -- an invention that could be of significance to the whole electronics and communication industry.

"By enabling silicon to emit light, the scientists say they may have found a way to use light to efficiently transfer data around microchips. This could lead to smaller, more powerful computers and improve data communications significantly."

ZDNet UK: Light-emitting silicon boosts chip speeds: 8th March 2001

"The photoluminescence emanating from a regular array of 1.2 m sized dots composed of Si nanocrystals was studied with spatial, spectral and temporal resolution."

New Journal of Physics: Nanostructuration with visible-light-emitting silicon nanocrystals

"GENEVA, Switzerland -- STMicrolectronics claims to have achieved a breakthrough in the creation of light-emitting silicon and said it would have engineering samples of monolithic silicon devices based on the technology, combining electrical isolation and optical communication, before the end of 2002.

"The development allows silicon light emitters to match the efficiency of compound semiconductor materials such as gallium arsenide for the first time, the company said."

EE Times: STMicro claims light-emitting silicon breakthrough: October 28, 2002

"The discovery of visible luminescence from porous silicon [1] has stimulated a large interest in this material. Numerous studies have demonstrated that it is possible to achieve efficient visible luminescence from porous silicon layers [2]. This material system has significant economic potential as efficient visible emitters could be fabricated on silicon wafers and incorporated with current microelectronic devices using existing silicon processing technologies."

[1] L. T. Canham. "Silicon quantum wire array fabrication by electrochemical and chemical dissolution of wafers." Appl. Phys.Lett., 1990, 57 1046 - 1048.

[2] For a recent review of the work in porous silicon see : Thin Solid Films, 1995, 225 and "Porous Silicon", edited by Z. Chuan and R Tsu, World Scientific, Singapore, 1995.

A Visible Large Area Light Emitting Diode Fabricated From Porous Silicon Using A Conducting Polyaniline Contact

BTW, technically, photocells are optoelectronic devices, as are LEDs.

This is the chip that kills intel's god awful dependency on rambus, about time. VIA did release a chipset that supported ddr quite some time back IIRC, but the performance was god awful so it was 'overlooked'.

The i875 is not the chip that kills intel's god awful dependency on rambus, that was the i845D released in December 2001, and absolutely ubiquitous in review systems and consumer PCs since then.

VIA's P4X266 was not overlooked because of the performance, which was perfectly decent, but because Intel sued VIA for patent infringement over it, causing most motherboard manufacturers to avoid it for fear of jeopardizing their relationship with Intel. VIA eventually set up a platform division mostly to sell motherboards based around the P4X266 because almost no-one else would.

Confident exposition, "facts" that anyone who's even read a few articles on any hardware review site in the past year should know are false, +5 interesting. Man, that is not a good sign...

Here's what people don't understand: When it comes to SPARC it's not about pure Mhz, it's about being efficent.

Check out the SPEC scores. SPARC 1.2 Ghz have the same score a Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz. We all know about lies and benchmarks, but it seems to show that Mhz isn't the whole story.

The other thing people miss is the future. I would suggest checking out this article about Niagara. If Sun pulls this off, it will be *huge*.

I don't see Sun being purchased anytime soon or at least not in any kind of a mutual agreement. They have plenty to keep going for, both currently and in the future.

I'm also quite interested in this, hope he answers your question. Actually, now that I think about *activate google powers*: first search result for h.264 is this @ :

By any name, the codec, scheduled for completion in spring 2003, is a product of the Joint Video Team (JVT) of the International Telecommunication Union and International Standards Organization. And it's already making waves.

Ok, that doesn't tell me much, but a search for h.264 and royalties brings this up :

One of the initial goals of the H.264 project was that the so-called "baseline" codec should be free of problems with patents. It should be possible to build products using the technology without having to pay royalties. I originally laughed at this idea and talked about flying pigs, but it appears that the aim has come true; the baseline codec uses technology that is either not patented or the patent holders have waived their rights to royalties.

I likes me the sound of that.

Here's a good (but dated) article explaining this feature. The short answer: they used encryption plus security-through-obscurity (no internal documentation!). This would be cool to hack for good, too -- imagine if you ran one major application that could be sped up with one additional specialized instruction!

From the first page of AMD's technical datasheet released today:

Target CPU core power: 80.6W
Target maximum thermal power: 84.7W

I wish it was only 40 watts! Where did you find this number - was it an actual measurement? If so, was it at 100% cpu load, idle, or midway?

I thought this was a little low (esp. compared to my athlons), and didn't actually look it up until I ran across this EETimes article that claims 89 Watts for the AMD64 240.

It's called Homeplug for the network over powerlines w/in the house, read about the spec getting completed here.

You put a couple of GB ethernet interfaces, fibreSCSI cards, etc and there just isn't the bandwidth to service the data on PCs.

Interesting story on hypertransport and PCI Express here.. Something to keep in mind: hypertransport, when implemented at 32-bits, can do 12.8GB/s.. also, IIRC as each CPU is added it gets its own nonblocking connection to the HT switch fabric.. Hanging PCI Express, gig-e, fibre channel, etc off this interconnect should be pretty effective...

Also see this thread.

802.11[b,a,g] is WiFi, this is 802.16a. (Note 802.3 is Ethernet, but this isn't Ethernet either). Granted, there's a provision in the spec for linking 802.11 WAN's, but the much more interesting part of the spec is the MAN stuff, with 20km links. The IEEE usually gets these things right, so I wouldn't worry about Mr. Cooper's concerns.

I need this - the only low-latency broadband I can get at my house (in a lovely pastoral setting 7.2 miles from the CO my line is served from, but of course not the closest) runs $850 install plus $90/mo. SWMBO frowns upon such things, so let's hear it for standards!. Remember what Proxim radios cost before 802.11b?

I'm actually more concerned about press articles that were flying around today talking about how Intel was about to revolutionize wireless communications. Yay, they sponsored an industry group already promoting an IEEE spec, but it seems more of a case of "why actually do the work when you can just take credit for it?"