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1394 Trade Association Adopts FireWire Brand
MaxVlast writes in that the
The 1394 Trade Association has adopted the FireWire trademark, logo and symbol as a brand identity for the IEEE 1394 connection standard in a "no-fee license agreement" between 1394ta and Apple. Apple has also granted 1394ta the right to sub-license the FireWire Trademark for use on products, packaging and promotion of the standard.
I hope they keep the name "FireWire" for their 800MBps version. It is catchy and it rolls off the tongue, unlike *shudder* GigaWire.
USB 2 suffers from a master / slave design. Theoretically one can plug a firewire drive into a firewire camera, and transfer footage from the camera directly to the HD
Unforutnatly the cost of actualy IMPLEMENTING this on a device shoots the price up by ~$25-$50 dollars. (it was worse. . . . )
And on say a $200 digicam. . . . ouch.
From a 12.5% to a 25% price markup for the ability to transfer images straight to a HD without a computer go between (uh. . . . heh.) may be useful to people who are doing high end work, but then again people doing high end work do not bother with $200 digicams;
which is why firewire is senseless to use in cheap devices and why USB{1,2} still has its uses and will for some time to come.
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Actually, Sony has been promoting i.Link as an alternative name because of the angst cause by the translation of "FIREWIRE" into the Japanese language. Culturally, the Japanese seem to take product and marketing use of language and naming much more seriously than Westerners...
In English, we can easily distort meanings and make allusions to fuctionality with the same words and we fluidly do so.. In the case of "Hot" refferring to temperature, trendiness or even sexiness all taken in an appropriate contextual setting; the English speaker is not likely to experience any particular mental anguish regarding the particular usage of the term.
In this case, "Fire" and associations with "wire" porvide a particular image of speed. In Japanese, the Kanji "hi" (-hee-) is literally *Fire* and quite dangerous. Associating that with "wire" possibly alludes to the quite frequent burning down of older buildings with less than adequate electrical systems (a whole other topic).
Unfortunately, due to access to world press the term "FireWire" or "fieyawieya" is widely known in the technical community along with the "IEEE1394". Unfortunately, as computer people are just beginning to become acquainted with video technology, few seem to have made the connection between "fireWire" and "iLink".