Intel Promises UWB Products By 2006

prostoalex writes "Ultra WideBand radio is a technology that allows transmitting huge amounts of data over a short distance at very low power. At Intel Developer Forum this week Ben Manny, director of wireless technology development at Intel Research and Development, promised market deployment of UWB-based solutions by 2005-2006. Possible applications of UWB can be discovered in this article that also refers to UWB as 'Bluetooth on steroids'."

Comments

Sometime in the futre aboard an airplane...

[SuperKendall]

"This is the captian speaking. Our monitors have detected someone in first class using a UWB device, so as per international law we have jettisoned the entire first class cabin to ensure the saftey of this aircraft. The remaining delicacies not already consumed by said criminals will now be distributed by the flight attendants. Thank you for your attention."

UWB advertising slogan

[Jay Maynard]

You, too, can clobber every radio and cellphone within 20 feet!

Possible applications of UWB

[skydude_20]

can be taking down planes

Re:Possible applications of UWB

[SerpentMage]

And this is where I would even consider that this technology never be implemented. I read someplace else that airlines may do a blanket ban on all electronic devices if UWB does conflict with airplanes. Imagine how boring those long flights will be now!

Finally, wireless monitors!

[Suidae]

Does this mean I can get rid of all my video switches and just connect the keyboard and mouse to the monitor and connect to whichever CPU I want?

That would kick ass.

Usefulness?

[HTMLSpinnr]

So if you wanted to turn this into a wireless network, you'd have to put base stations at every 10 feet?

And if you want to turn it into Wireless USB 2.0 - you can now broadcast your color print jobs of confidential documents from a corner office and have joe hacker on the opposite side of the wall eavesdropping the "connection"?

I think I'll keep my cables for now.

Steroids.

[Xunker]

Can we get rid of this expression? Please? It's, like totally, from the 1980's. It's so aniquated and cliche'd that's it's not funny (literally anf figuratively).

A better 21st century expression would probably "Bluetooth on a double-hit of Viagra".

Ban it ...

[halftrack]

"By applying UWB wireless technology to cable TV operating systems, it is possible to double capacity. Thus a system that currently offers customers 100 channels could
increase options to 200 channels."

That is exactly 100 times more channels on my behalf and I allready watch too much TV. How many days can one fit in one?

Hmm.. no cables so how does the data move?

[WinPimp2K]

Oh yeah. it is wireless.
So,that means there is some type of receiver with a fair amount of processing power to turn that lovely EM burst back into nice clean digital data.

A receiver in every device, and of course a transmitter as well which uses that same processing power to turn digital data into EM bursts.

So, no more cables to hook up your monitor or speakers or other devices. There are some definite possibilities for convergence between HDTV and computer monitors here - why continue to build TV tuner circutry into your video display device? after all, you don't have built in FM tuners in every speaker.

BUT:
This sure sounds like just the sort of massive technological change that is exactly what the DRM people are looking for to piggyback Pay-Per-Everything onto. Certainly there will be plenty of processing power to implement some nasty strong encryption scheme in the UWB hardware.

I'd say "Hello, fragmented computing", but...

[Skyshadow]

This would be a great thing in terms of fragmented computing, but there's been zero progress with the tools we have now.

I've played booster for this before, but the industry just hasn't reacted in any sort of reasonible way. Instead, we've seen mutant solutions like cell phones will sub-par digital cameras built in (which is, to me anyway, pretty much useless).

So, once more with feeling, here is my dream: I want a personal network that moves with me. I want to be able to have the various personal devices I'm carrying at any given time detect each other and communicate (securely) and to act in a way which raises the value of the whole beyond that of just the components.

I want to take pictures with my digital camera and have them stored on my iPod. I want my cell phone to detect this and use idle time to send bits back to my home computer (maybe the pictures could show up in email or something). I want to use my PDA to sort through my MP3s and have them play on wireless headphones. I want to use my PDA to get a real-time account balance (again, via my phone, which is more of a communication hub) when I'm trying to decide how much to spend at lunch.

I don't want a *wearible* computer. I want my computer to be the sum of my devices.

The infamous pringles-can-mod

[mamba-mamba]

From the FCC pub:

69. We find no validity to the statement from USGPSIC that an operator would modify the UWB antenna to change operating frequency or bandwidth or that equipment that has been damaged in such a fashion would continue to be operated.

I guess the FCC committee is unaware of the pringles can mod for 802.11!

MM
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