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New Wireless Technologies

Codex The Sloth writes "The Economist has an article on 4 emerging wireless technologies: (1) Smart Antennas for improved base-station capacity, (2) Mesh Networks to make each wireless reciever also be a relay, (3) Ad hoc networking to use network devices as routers, (4) Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly (but only for distances of 10 feet...). Some of these are already in use while others are still in the lab."

4 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by mblase · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I mean, only ten feet? Why not just use a cable at that point?

    Synchronizing your high-capacity portable MP3 player or digital camera without having to buy a USB hub, for two. Bluetooth is one thing, but being able to move that much data in mere seconds has a real appeal.

  2. P2P Wireless Networks by mir@ge · · Score: 4, Interesting

    IANANE(I am not a network engineer), but it seems to me that widespread mesh and ad hoc networks decentralized nature might prove difficult to "police". Already we see Snort and other tools designed to break into exsisting WiFi networks. The distributed nature of these new networks would lend itself to such attacks. While strong encryption would prevent a properly configured station from being cracked, the real problem with WiFi and perhaps these new networks is foolish people leaving them wide open. Then there is the question of accountablity. What happens when my feed starts providing resticted intellectual property like "Oops!...I did it again"? Just who gets sued. Present laws dictate that ISPs are not liable as long as they take steps to immediately cut the source. Assuming, you would be protected under such a law it seems to me the central feature of the network(relaying others data) is discouraged by legal the standards.

  3. intelligent routing.. by __aawavt7683 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Couldn't really think of a better/propper name for it. But, I'm referring to that .. "activity" where a piece of mail was given to someone, and they were told a destination. So it'd pass through a shop owner to a company to a branch in a different country and get to the president sort of thing.. basically, just "fling" it and it starts going in the right direction.

    This was thought of with routing. But, it can't work as things are set up now. The reason this works is because they're all grouped. Continents, countries, shop owners, policical candidates and such... computers are just 192.168.0.5. The other IP's can be given out randomly to any place at all.

    Antennas like this, if they were to route in the same way, would need to know where they are, where the message wanted to go, in the physical world. Then the other antennas would need to be able to determine if they were between the source and the destination. And to prevent duplicate messages, tell people "I got it!!" like a football game(...).

    so.. basically I'm saying until the way computers are groupped/assigned IP's is done in some logical manner like countries, the "human" (flinging? just send it out and hope it gets tehre...) form of routing won't work with computers.

    just my comments on a topic that was brought up before..

    -DrkShadow

  4. Re:Ultra wideband to transmit 100 mbs wirelessly by kalgen · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Also accomplished by tossing DVD's back and forth....what's the point of that? I mean, only ten feet? Why not just use a cable at that point?

    Ask anyone wielding a remote control.