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Wi-Fi Communicators For the Real World

Posted by timothy on from the what-about-tricorders dept.

Erik_ writes: "In this most interesting article on MSN Wearable Wi-Fi - The wave of the future?, there is a description of a Wi-Fi Communicator device. Just like on Star Trek (Thanks Gene), these devices provides hands-free, voice-activated communications throughout any 802.11b networked building or campus. The company manufacturing these devices Vocera hopes to begin selling the equipment later this year. Can't wait to get my hands on some of these communicators... Beam me up Scotty."

4 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. A better story by Reality+Master+101 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Speaking of WiFi, since Slashdot seems to think this story is interesting (*yawn*) and a much more interesting story doesn't seem to be able to make it to the front page, I recommend checking this story out. Bottom line, a couple of garage tinkerers have managed to extend 802.11b's range to about 20 miles. Big deal, right? We hear about this all the time. The kicker is that they are actually deploying it in some neighborhoods, so it appears to be something real rather than something "we hope to deploy 5 years from now".

    We might actually see universal broadband in our lifetimes! (Not that I don't already have a l33t 3 megabit cable modem, but...)

    What I especially like about this is that true broadcast broadband would allow a lot of competing providers in each area, instead of needing massive investment in running wires.

    --
    Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
  2. Star Trek's Influence on the Future by RevAaron · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I was having this conversation with my girlfriend a while back.

    How much do you think the vision of our future in Star Trek will and does affect the direction, form and function of our real future?

    How will the starship designs in Star Trek influence real shuttle and space craft designs?

    Communicators? Other technology?

    Aaron

    --

    Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
  3. What about equipment interference? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This is probably the main advantage to hospitals: cellular frequencies have been claimed to interfere with medical equipment. With WiFi, do you think there will be any problems? My guess is no, and this is one of the main reasons that this is a big step in hospital communications..

  4. RF yes radio no. was - Sounds like a radio to me. by auroran · · Score: 2, Interesting

    As an amateur radio operator or ham. I have run accross some troubles you can have w/ a voice activated cicruit (vox).
    Most amateur radios and commercial ones to have a ptt (push to talk) button on them but occasionally some people forget the other aspect which i refer to as rtl (release to listen). Since most radios are simplex or 1/2 duplex you need to unkey the radio to hear the other person (and/or make sure they haven't switched frequencies and left). :)

    A trouble w/ a vox circuit in that implimentation will really show up in a mobile environment. if you go past a construction site you will find that instead of the conversation you were listening to, you are now transmitting all the noises arround you.

    On a duplex conversation, like a phone, it is always transmitting and recieving at the same time. This has an advantage of you can interupt the other person but there's a tendancy to not pay attention to the other's conversation as the tendancy is to ramble on more instead of shorter messages w/ a pause between.

    Additionally for a situation as above like driving by construction some people will forget that they may not be able to be heard over the noise. the natral reaction to that is to talk louder so you can be heard but that only makes things worse. Radios and cellphones have really sensitive micropones these days and talking louder will only distort what you are trying to say.

    Digitally encoding a voice for radio communication has been done and is being done by hams, it's not all that new. It is quite possible to send somtihng like that by 802.11 even using existing technologies. Record the voice to a digital format (ie .wav file) compress it for efficient space (ie .mp3) stream the file to the other machine with oh say shoutcast/icecast. Building something like that into a pda like the Ipaq/Journada or a Palm. While a project like that would be a bit much to build for just a normal conversation the geek factor is quite good.

    my $.02 anyway
    73 de VE6OMJ (= best wishes from me)
    orin