Wireless at Firewire Speeds?

MeCoward writes "EETimes reporting on working group that hopes to leapfrog 802.11 to create wireless 1394 links. Initially 100mbps but aiming for 400mbps." I don't expect to see this anytime soon, but it certainly makes things like wireless HDTV feasible. Sure would be cool. Of course Bluetooth is only now just catching on, so imagine how long it'll be before this becomes practical.

Comments

wireless HDTV?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't expect to see this anytime soon, but it certainly makes things like wireless HDTV feasible.

Uh... maybe I'm just a dumbass or something, but wireless HDTV is already feasible. I watch it every day. It's called 8VSB.

However you encode it, broadcast HDTV is only 19.3 Mbps. It's feasible over dual-like 802.11a, or 802.11g.

Re:Wireless HDTV?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

a pure HD digital signal? That's not necessarily possible from a consumer broadcasting device. However, with wireless at firewire speed? might just be feasable.

Re:wireless HDTV?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit. I previewed and everything. That was supposed to be "dual-LINK 802.11B." Sorry, y'all.

Thanks for the mod points, anyway.

Re:wireless HDTV?

[Anonymous Coward]

It certainly is feasible, see this article on recieving HDTV broadcasts using a radio tuner. It's a bit expensive, but pretty cool nonetheless.

Re:Wireless HDTV?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wireless by default, but not necessarily broadcast (in the sense I think you mean it). A ventured guess, but most cable systems (wired coaxial) get satellite feeds (wireless) but these are not necessarily broadcast. For example, I don't think SciFi network (the dumbasses that dropped Farscape) has a broadcast tower anywhere. Their market penetration is through the cable networks solely. I think this is the same with Food network, TNN, TBS, TNT, etc. (although the last 2 Turner networks may have a local broadcast tower in, say, Atlanta or something but nowhere else).

(Note that not all satellite feeds are point to point of course and are indeed broadcast, but that also depends on semantics--what broadcast exactly means to you (I tend to think "signal goes near everywhere above ground".)

Also, Taco was the one that didn't think too hard before commenting. You can get an HDTV decoder now, break the signal down (it's analog of course when broadcast) to the 20mbit it's at, and then stream it on more or less newer generation wireless network equipment (g or a) (54 or 72 mbit if I recall; the "turbo" stuff (~22mbit) will be cutting it close given the inefficiency of networking protocols). The digital signal in HDTV is mpeg2 transport stream, so you could just repipe it. Plenty of projects abound that will more or less get you off the ground to do this.

Now why you would want to do this, well, that depends on your needs. I can think of a view, but they're all rather impractical and mucho expensive given HDTV costs. (For example, security systems, but to take real advantage, you'd need an HDTV camera, and they are still rather expensive.)

Re:wireless HDTV?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mbps != Mhz. Now you can encode 1 bit on every hert, but we've been past that for some time. Typical is about 12 bits on every hert with compression. Even then though, you have to worry about things like disconnects and signal strength. (Not worried about when you are using a closed cable system like with cable TV.)

Re:Wireless HDTV?

[Anonymous Coward]

TV uses tons of spectrum between the 100Mhz and 2Ghz range. (It jumps around through the spectrum to avoid interference with other broadcasters) 802.11b uses a super small slice of RF in comparision. MY GOD. If 802.11b had 100Mhz to 2Ghz to play within, we'd have superfast internet and it would be worldwide overnight! Oh wait, that's right we already have UWB technology, it just isn't implemented yet...

Re:wireless HDTV?

[Anonymous Coward]

man, how the fuck was that informative? That has nothing to do with the parent post at all, Holy shit. Where the fuck did MHz come in?!

19.3 Mbps. 802.11b is 11Mbps (maximum theoretical. Subtract packet overhead as required). Therefore two of them > 19.3 Mbps.

There was NO MENTION of MHz. (Yes, Hz. And the singular is STILL a hertz.) No wonder you posted AC, it's because you're fucking retarded.

I posted AC to protect my karma. :) (And because I'm also fucking retarded. I blame my parents. They were human, it was inevitable.)

too late?

[Anonymous Coward]

By the time it arrives firewire will be dead I think, anyway.

Re:too late?

[SRMoore]

Not really.. firewire is still the way to get digital video off highend digital video cameras into editing systems and back again. Make this wireless would be even more valuable to those who wish to record multiple feeds at the same time off these types of cameras directly into an editing system.

Re:too late?

[Anonymous Coward]

While firewire has many advantages over USB, I think it's safe to say that after the Ipod got usb 2, firewire is not really doing very well:

Firewire advantages:

* can connect devices directly to each other (no host needed) - possibly with USB on the go

* More power available to devices - true, but most devices don't need all that power.

* faster transfer - this is mostly due to the fact that more of the protocol is done in the chipset, less cpu work, as cpu's get faster this problem will diminish, and most devices don't use all that bandwidth anyway

USB 1/2

* much cheaper to manufacture
* tons of devices - except video cameras, however I believe cameras will switch from dv to hd, and when and if that happens, usb will be used.
* simpler protocol
* much greater support - OpenBSD supports it (extremely important)

Also the completely lunatic idea to have a different port for fw800, is to me unbelievable!

Re:too late?

[jdhouse4]

Ok, first problem. Yes, iPod supports USB 2.0. It also supports FireWire 1394. When 1394b comes out, Apple will support that. Apple's goal is to sell you an iPod whether you want to use USB, FireWire, swizzle stick, or anything else.

Nobody but the engineers and management of Sony, Cannon, Panasonic, and JVC know if the digital video market will migrate from dv. I doubt it, but my opinion and i'm a nobody.

Most devices don't need the power of FireWire? Personally, every device I've worked with will gobble as much power they can get if they can get it externally.

OK, I could be wrong on this but didn't FireWire get accepted as the standard to connect digital TV? Haven't followed this for a bit. But the FCC was leaning towards FireWire despite Microsoft's and Intel's begging them to accept USB 2. Why? FireWire 2.

When you talk about FireWire vs. USB 2.0, remember that FireWire 2 (1394b or Gigabit 1394) is rolling out. Makes USB 2.0 look slow just as 1394 made USB 1.0 look slow as frozen syrup.

Doing a static analysis of a dynamic world always a bit troubling unless the time difference (seconds, minutes, days) is immaterial. When not (months, years, etc.), the linearization gets shot to hell and your analysis falls apart.

The FireWire vs. USB battle isn't over. In fact, it's just begun because USB couldn't compete with FireWire a year or so ago. Once FireWire 2 rolls out, then we'll see if Intel's gambit to compete with FireWire will work out for them.

Re:too late?

[mritunjai]

The basic problem with USB(1/2) is that it utilizes CPU power to do the transfers (what else would you expect from Intel).

Thus, in small devices, a huge battery power is drained when doing these transfers, not to speak, a lot of CPU power is required.

Firewire is nice to CPU. It can use DMA to do all the transfers without occupying the CPU. Thus you can play DVDs at the same time as you're streaming through your firewire LAN. With USB2, the CPU is engrossed with moving the 60 MByte/s of data to/from the device... something much cheaper DMA chips were invented for.

So while USB is good and all... I still favour 1394 for its elegance and doing things *right*.

Re:too late?

[rajr]

From what I understand of it... the FCC is leaning towards firewire (1394 a and b) because of an encryption scheme called 5C.

Re:too late?

[marklar1]

Duuhh. Get your head out of the dark hole. FW1 beats usb for throughput. I know, you're going to post 480 vs 400 mbps. Well FW supports, peer to peer, has less overhead and is superior...and, dumbbass, FW 2 (800 mbps) is out NOW. Apple is in the business of selling the damn things, USB 2 is as good as most PCs can handle, why not sell something that takes advantage?

Re:too late?

[happynut]

They're only using the firewire protocol (to provide things like guaranteed bandwidth), not the actual firewire physical layer.

So it doesn't matter whether or not firewire (aka ieee1394) lives or dies in the marketplace. Although, bridging from 802.15.3 to 1394 will be easier if they share a mac layer (and, for example, bridging to usb2.0)

Using the USB protocol might be a better market choice, but this is the IEEE, where leveraging an existing IEEE standard gets the inside track of consideration.

Re:too late?

[SRMoore]

The thing you have to look at is not the cost or the raw bandwidth. But the protocol. Firewire has many andvantages which is why it is used in video cameras.

I highly doubt that High end DV cameras will move to USB. The protocol isn't really designed for that type of application. While a close inspection of the specifications is really beyond the scope of my reply, it is something to look into.

Currently you can get a device that allows you to use any DV camera to go right to a hard drive through 1394.. these also allow playback from the HD to a TV without the camera, or hook the drives right up to a computer for editing.

Uhm

[cscx]

but it certainly makes things like wireless HDTV feasible

Because right now you can't pick up HDTV from over-the-air signals... right???? :P

Re:Uhm

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Re:Uhm

[Anonymous Coward]

But remember back in the day when wired radio on a pc was impossible? They still had FM.

Wireless HDTV?

[broken_bones]

I need some clarification on this. Isn't TV typically a broadcast medium and, as such, wireless by default? Perhaps I'm just stupid and have no clue what Taco is talking about.

Another wireless standard, yay.

[poor_boi]

If 802.11g didn't make you want to stick your head in front of a Cantenna to get a preview of brain tumors to come, this new standard certainly will.

Re:Another wireless standard, yay.

[AndroidCat]

No sweat. Historically, a cantenna is a 50 ohm dummy load in a paint can full of oil; used for transmitter tuning. If there's anything left of Heathkit, they probably have a trademark on that word.

small range

[afidel]

UWB only works if you severly limit the range (10m in the case of 802.15.3 networks). This might be fine for connecting you DVR to your TV, but it won't be usefull for connecting your DVR to the tv on the other side of the house or up a floor. This could be ultra cool for next generation MIDI though, the ability to connect all of your devices wirelessly and get both MIDI data and samples would rock. I can't imagine how much this would please all of the musicians who have had to do a road show with the spagheti nest that is MIDI setups.

Re:small range

[geekBass]

Interesting. Though bluetooth should work well there no?

Re:small range

[JesseL]

Like every other form of radio communication, UWB requires a trade-off between data-bandwidth and range. To say "UWB only works if you severly limit the range" is grossly misleading. Any conventional carrier based radio communication that works at these data rates is going to be of similarly short range.

Re:small range

[afidel]

No, bluetooth could only handle the notation section like traditional MIDI, next generation MIDI also includes the ability to transfer sample data at high bitrates between devices, so your sampler could pull the output from your effects processor and loop it etc. Plus bluetooth doesn't have the level of QOS that firewire provides (though I'm not sure how well the QOS from firewire will work when layered on top of inherintly problematic transport like wireless UWB)

Re:small range

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, that idea's just too good! Gimme wireless MIDI now!

It would actually be nice to skirt around the whole issues of chaining MIDI devices together, trying to figure out THRU loops etc. etc. and not have to suffer from timing irregularities (kinda important for a musician).

In a small studio it's quite easy to drown under masses of wires (each synth = 2x audio outs and 2/3 MIDI cables, each guitar = 1x audio out plus lots of daisy-chained stomp boxes).

Seriously though, the current MIDI standard has been in use since 1983 and is probably one of the oldest protocols that hasn't actually been updated in any form for 20-odd years. I'd suggest to all the music hardware manufacturers that they get their heads down and think about the next generation of MIDI spec - heck, I have a problem finding 5-pin DIN plugs... some kind of high-bandwidth wireless technology could be the answer and open up new possibilities for future instruments.

Re:small range

[afidel]

MIDI + sampling over firewire has been around since 97, it's called mLAN and it was introduced by Yamaha. This would just be a phycial transport change from normal firewire cabling to UWB. For more info on mLAN see the mLAN alliance website Here

Re:small range

[MP3Chuck]

MIDI + sampling over firewire has been around since 97, it's called mLAN and it was introduced by Yamaha. This would just be a phycial transport change from normal firewire cabling to UWB. For more info on mLAN see the mLAN alliance website Here [yamaha.co.jp] Yea, but mLan use is limited to the few high-end workstation synths that can actually support it.

Re:small range

[alienw]

You are forgetting about interference, grasshopper. UWB works on bands that are occupied by other entities, and its range is LEGALLY limited to a few meters. Otherwise, it would interfere with everything.

BTW, I doubt it would be acceptable for use in a critical environment like on-stage. You need reliability, and UWB won't provide it. Every nearby transmitter, microwave oven, or other source of interference would royally screw it up.

Re:small range

[sexecutioner]

Have you checked out this before?

http://magic.gibson.com/index.html

Re:small range

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah then every time they have to change their MIDI setup they will have to do extensive software configuration. Maybe for road shows it's good, but for experimentation it'd be a pain!

Re:small range

[JesseL]

First, the range of UWB isn't limited by the FCC at all, the transmission power(It is limited to power levels so low that they may be below the normal noise floor), and certain spectra that may interfere with systems like GPS are restricted.

Second, this application was never intended for "a critical environment like on-stage". From the article:

"Backers hope the approach could leapfrog efforts on 802.11 to provide a route for consumer electronics companies to send high quality video signals over wireless home networks."

I hate it when slashdotters imply that a technology is useless because it doesn't fit their pet application.

Re:small range

[alienw]

It is limited to power levels so low that they may be below the normal noise floor

If the power level is below the noise floor, how do you tell signal from noise? That's probably supposed to mean that it causes interference, but not a whole lot of it. I am pretty sure the FCC limits both power and range (by prohibiting certain types of antennas with high gain).

Second, this application was never intended for "a critical environment like on-stage". From the article:

Read the parent post before starting a bitch session.

Re:small range

[JesseL]

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.

Re:small range

[alienw]

Sure, it can work over any distance. If you have a 500MHz chunk of spectrum all to yourself, you aren't limited by anything except the power of your transmitter. You don't need UWB unless you are actually using someone else's frequencies. In that case, you DO have to limit yourself to short-range communications. Besides, you would need quite a bit of power to transmit a signal 500MHz wide for more than a few meters.

Here's a quote from your linked article (which is mostly industry hype for potential investors, BTW) that sums up my point exactly:

"The advantage of UWB is that the transmitter is quite simple -- but the receiver, on the other hand, is quite complex and power hungry," said Eric Janson, vice president, Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR) North America, a Bluetooth proponent. "It has to pull signals in the presence of powerful interferers that will inevitably be present. Good dynamic range is needed and that's costly." Janson limits UWB's applications to asymmetric services, such as in-store security tags, mice, keyboards and joysticks. "But not for LANs or PANs as it'll suffer from the classic near-far problem," he added, though he does believe it'll work well over short distances of up to 2 m. "Claims of UWB for cellular seem farcical to me."

In short, this technology seems as plausible as cold fusion. It's promising everybody all the bandwidth they want, when there is only a very limited amount of it.

Range, bandwidth and security...

[WegianWarrior]

Heberling is also working with the 802.15.3a committee attempting to set standards for an ultrawideband physical layer chip that could transmit at data rates of 100 Mbits/second initially but be upgraded to versions at 200 and 400 Mbits/s, albeit at ranges of 10 meters or less.

So... I can have a massive bandwidth without any cabling - as long as I don't move the devices further apart than a cable can reach. Somehow, while fiddling with cables can be a hazzle now and then, I think I'll stick to cables. One reason for this is security - unless this technology relies on LOS (line Of Sight), which would make it even less an atractive replacement for cabling, people would likely be able to pick up the signals from a much further distance than the aforementioned ten meters...

...unless I decide to utilise some of that bandwidth - along with CPU-time - to encrypt my signal... which I wouldn't have that much reason to do with a piece of cabel in the first place.

Still, early days and all that - we'll see just where and how this ends up in a few years time.

Re:Range, bandwidth and security...

[afidel]

Encryption will almost always SAVE bandwidth because the first step to encryption is compression to eliminate repeating patterns in the input stream. It will cost you processing time (not necessarilly cpu, it can be done with an ASIC) and will slightly increase latency. Plus if I am sending next generation MIDI data or DV movies over it I really don't think I need to encrypt the signal.

Re:Range, bandwidth and security...

[the uNF cola]

The first step to encryption is NOT getting rid of duplicate data.

All encryption is, is obfuscation of data. Usually, your goal is to have a 1-1 function that takes data in, some data to use as an encryption key (initialization vector, pk, something) and your result is new data, equal in size.

Compression can be considered encryption, in that it obfuscates data. So is ROT-13. It's weak, fine, but the job is to prevent people from reading it unintentionally (like hidden answers).

Btw, compressing will save data bandwidth, but not data processing bandwidth (CPU).

Re:Range, bandwidth and security...

[Cyno]

Whatever happened to trusting your neighbor?

Its like walking against a river of stupidity. We might as well just be ludites.

Re:Range, bandwidth and security...

[andfarm]

Actually, most serious encryption packages (as opposed to algorithms) compress the data before they encrypt it. This increases the entropy-per-bit of the data being encrypted, making it harder to break.

It is true, though, that many encryption systems don't compress. This makes them weaker, though, and it's why PGP compresses the text (using gzip, I think) before encrypting it.

Re:Range, bandwidth and security...

[the uNF cola]

Doing any precalculation would increase entropy, you are right. Then again, so would uuencoding it.

Re:Range, bandwidth and security...

[andfarm]

Nope. Uuencoding decreases the entropy per character from a maximum of 8 bits per character to a maximum of 6 bits per character. The total entropy is kept constant. The only way you can increase the entropy of a message is by adding pseudorandom data to it somehow.

Please read a book on cryptography --- I'd recommend Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier (sp?).

Re:Range, bandwidth and security...

[sporty]

I have. I suggest you do the same.

Health concerns

[Samir Gupta]

While I would love to see this happen, I fear that this may have serious potential implications for health, which should be looked at carefully before moving forward too hastily.

One of the basic consequences of Shannon's Law, a fundamental tenet of information theory, that in order to increase your bandwidth and transmission rate, with a given noise level (which we can't reduce beyond a certain point, due to inherent cosmic background noise, not to mention many other manmade factors), you have to increase your transmission power to compensate.

With all this RF energy floating about amidst space, I am sort of concerned that if ultra high-speed wireless becomes ubiquitous, without the right studies being done, this may cause negative impact to health. While I am not a physician or molecular biologist, I think that we need to investigate this before jumping too quickly.

Re:Health concerns

[DeltaSigma]

I'm pretty certain that these office halogen lights are killing me, so why should I be concerned about this product which promises me precious, precious bandwidth?

Re:Health concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps is was a similar lack of investigation that led to the downfall of the Smell-o-vision?

Re:Health concerns

[Jimmy_B]

One of the basic consequences of Shannon's Law, a fundamental tenet of information theory, that in order to increase your bandwidth and transmission rate, with a given noise level (which we can't reduce beyond a certain point, due to inherent cosmic background noise, not to mention many other manmade factors), you have to increase your transmission power to compensate.

No, it doesn't; in fact, it says that there is a maximum possible bandwidth for a given power and noise level, which current technologies are far short of. Therefore, it is possible to increase bandwidth without increasing power, to a point. I might also add that the FCC limits transmission power on all parts of the spectrum.

With all this RF energy floating about amidst space, I am sort of concerned that if ultra high-speed wireless becomes ubiquitous, without the right studies being done, this may cause negative impact to health. While I am not a physician or molecular biologist, I think that we need to investigate this before jumping too quickly.

I recall an article from Skeptical Inquirer awhile back which investigated the claims of some who claimed to suffer from 'electrosensitivity'. The finding was that a visible non-transmitting antenna or wire would produce the supposed symptoms, while a concealed active one had no measurable effect; therefore, the supposed symptoms were entirely psychological. In light of the number of crackpots claiming that EM radiation affects them, and the thoroughness with which they have been debunked, I don't think it necessary to do any further research.

Re:Health concerns

[jmoriarty]

Back in high school I did some student co-op work at Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque. They had (among other cool things) a giant concrete tower used for solar collection testing. A wide array of mirrors on the ground focused sunlight up to the top of the tower, heating the salty water circulating inside.

The cool thing was the actual spot where all the mirrors focused. It glowed, shimmered, and attracted small birds. As the birds flew into the beam... !POOF! A few stray, charred feathers were all that remained.

As the power of all these wireless and cellular technologies increases, I feel more and more like that bird. I can't resist the draw of these bright, shiny objects, but one of these days I'm going to step between two 802.something access points and get zapped into ash.

Re:Health concerns

[ckaminski]

It's called evolution. If humans are ever going to colonize the universe, we HAVE to develop a tolerance to radiation. What better way than what we've been doing?

Those who can tolerate mutations caused by cellphone and UWB radiation will give rise to children that can tolerate even greater levels. We've removed one selection pressure (hunger and predators) and replaced it with others (recycled and processed foods, constant radiation bombardment).

I see this is a good thing. If it means my granchildren's kids can walk around on Mars in a t-shirt with a SCBA pack, I'm all for it.

Re:Health concerns

[shepd]

>One of the basic consequences of Shannon's Law, a fundamental tenet of information theory, that in order to increase your bandwidth and transmission rate, with a given noise level (which we can't reduce beyond a certain point, due to inherent cosmic background noise, not to mention many other manmade factors), you have to increase your transmission power to compensate.

Yes, but we're not even close to shannon's law yet.

Remember modems? Those never increased power to get more bandwidth. You could say 802.11 b is the 2400 baud of modems. 802.11 g the 4800 baud strange modem that never seemed to really exist, and this will be the 9600 baud of modems. ;-)

We still have a _long_ way to go...

Re:Health concerns

[Mister Proper]

It's called evolution. If humans are ever going to colonize the universe, we HAVE to develop a tolerance to radiation. What better way than what we've been doing?

Evolution you say? I'm thinking more in the direction of a Darwin Award for you!

Re:Health concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

Channel Capacity = Bandwidth * log2( 1 + S/N )

According to Shannon's law, you must either increase transmit power OR spectrum bandwidth to increase data rate.

Guess which one UWB (Ultra Wide Band) does ? Hint: Ultra Wide Band[width]

Note that increasing transmit power only increases channel capacity logarithmically, but capacity increases linearly with bandwidth.

Not only aren't you a physician or a molecular biologist.. you don't seem to be versed in comm. theorist either.

High-speed PAN w/ copy protection?

[questionlp]

First, it seems that this would make record and studio execs happy since this is using IEEE 1394:

The 1394 interface is a key interconnect for sending copy protected digital video between TVs, set-tops and other systems.

So you have pretty good speed wireless connections plus some nice little bits to make sure that you may or may not be able to sniff the signal and redistribute it elsewhere.

Anyway, this seems to be the next step up from Bluetooth (which is more of a wireless replacement of USB) for connecting wireless DVD players to a projector or TV, or play media files from a wireless 1394 hard drive or a computer sitting in your AV rack.

Great Performance

[Lieutenant_Dan]

I agree that IEEE1394 technology could leverage off the existing WAP source focus point which translates into high-end yields in the fluctuation array.

The transfer speeds could be augmented if we daisy-chained several EISA drives in a RAID 4 architecture (reflecting-mirror, where bit orders are reversed in drives 3, 7, and 11). That would allow the drives to sustain the increased write rates, although read rates may suffer during off-hours.

This would also compensate for the electro-synergetic interference that the 2.4GHz encryption spectrum introduces at lower altitudes.

What do you think?

Re:Great Performance

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

I think you work in marketing.

Unbelieveable!

[jspayne]

To think, wireless HDTV! That would be like - like getting HDTV over the air! You would just need an antenna, maybe a fancy converter box. Who could think it possible? Wouldn't it be cool if they could do multiple channels at the same time? *sigh* Jeff

Well...

[MachineShedFred]

"Bluetooth is only now just catching on, so imagine how long it'll be before this becomes practical. "

Bluetooth is slow. If it was 100 time faster, it would catch on faster, becuase there would be more applications for it. With less-than-megabit speeds, the only thing you would EVER want to do is serial I/O (sync stuff, keyboards), and *maybe* a mono audio stream.

The consumer electronics industry has been eyeballing FireWire (1394) for a while. It makes for one hell of an universal interconnect between all your digital devices, rather than having coax spaghetti and 20 IR or IF devices all over the place. Instead you have one FireWire hub, going to your receiver, your DVD player, your VCR, your CD changer, and your HDTV decoder, and one remote that tells one device what to tell the others...

That's my kind of home automation and control.

Re:Well...

[CausticWindow]

Streaming mono cd quality sound over Bluetooth works great. But why bother with monoaureal sound when you have hip new technologies like, for example, mpeg1 layer3 encoding?

If you don't believe me, check out these nice cans.

With these cans, a Bluetooth pcmcia card and a mini-pci 802.11b card in my ultraslim laptop, I'm so wireless it hurts (my back, lugging around all the batteries).

Re:Well...

[goosman]

The consumer electronics industry has been eyeballing FireWire (1394) for a while. It makes for one hell of an universal interconnect between all your digital devices, rather than having coax spaghetti and 20 IR or IF devices all over the place. Instead you have one FireWire hub, going to your receiver, your DVD player, your VCR, your CD changer, and your HDTV decoder, and one remote that tells one device what to tell the others..

Why not just use Gigabit or 10-Gigbit ethernet? "Foundations for Sound over Ethernet (SoE)"

Re:Well...

[NomNet]

Bluetooth is slow. If it was 100 time faster, it would catch on faster, becuase there would be more applications for it. With less-than-megabit speeds, the only thing you would EVER want to do is serial I/O (sync stuff, keyboards), and *maybe* a mono audio stream.

Er, that's precisely what it's for ! What else would you want to use it for ?

If you need a quick connection, then use 802.11x, together with the HUGE increase in component size and battery drain that it demands - the whole point of Bluetooth is that it's VERY small, and uses VERY little power (so you can put it in just about anything). If you want speed, you're looking at the wrong technology !

Bluetooth's death knell...

[Zebra_X]

Was listed on palm's web site:
Tungsten|C Built-in Wi-Fi.

Bluetooth never caught on. In fact - we will find that Bluetooth is going to be used for wireless keyboards and mice - and that's about it. 802.11 is far more usefull from an application programming standpoint more bandwith, more range, more interop with other "connected devices", more versatility.

It used to be that BT had an edge becuase it consumed less power and fit into a smaller package, but with 802.11 CF adapters it's no longer a selling point. 802.11 is here to stay until of course 802.1394.

Re:Bluetooth's death knell...

[foog]

indeed, bluetooth is the betamax of wireless protocols, though you left out one big remaining bluetooth application: headsets.

There's also the nice market of serial and parallel cable replacements, where Bluetooth is almost ideally suited, but I don't think that's going to set the world on fire.

Re:Bluetooth's death knell...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bluetooth and 802.11 serve different markets, although admittedly there is some overlap. For instance, Bluetooth is great for low distance, low bandwidth communication; phones, headsets, printer adaptors, keyboardss, mice, that kind of thing. WiFi goes a bit further but tends to be used to connect systems together. PDAs form a kind of grey area; Bluetooth is great for sync'ing with phones, but WiFi is more ideal for wandering around the house with a net connection.

I think though, that we'll see devices that require less bandwidth than current devices appear with Bluetooth; remote controls, synchronised clocks - I live in the UK and British Summertime means wandering round the house resetting every piece of kit with a clock in it. Imagine if they all got the time off the web. WiFi would be overkill; Bluetooth would be perfect.

At the other end of the spectrum, you have stuff like DVD players and HDTV that could in theory use large bandwidth to deliver content. But what's the point? Why not wire them?

So, I'd see this kind of technology being used for projects such as campus-wide WiFi and streaming - small areas requiring many people to access the baandwidth. Remember, 802.11b maay be 11Mb/Sec, but that's shared between the number of users attached to the access point, not what each user gets.

Re:Bluetooth's death knell...

[mkldev]

Bluetooth can't be the BetaMax of wireless protocols. BetaMax was of higher quality than its competition, but failed due to lack of licensing.

No, Bluetooth is more like the Pinto of wireless networking. It's slow, blows up easily, and comes in your choice of puke green or silver.

Okay, maybe not the last one. :-)

Re:Bluetooth's death knell...

[foog]

Bluetooth can't be the BetaMax of wireless protocols. BetaMax was of higher quality than its competition, but failed due to lack of licensing.

Are you trolling? Bluetooth's biggest problem is that Ericsson's licensing policies makes it a pain in the neck, and expensive, to develop with it. Lack of licensing, precisely.

The other problem, that it solves problems (power consumption, authentication by pairing, better use of spectrum) that consumers are less concerned with than "easy-to-use high-speed wireless networking" is also pretty analogous to Betamax: consumers wanted a format that could hold a whole movie and were less concerned with image quality.

That said, I'm not impressed with the quality of current Bluetooth offerings either: a wireless headset shouldn't crash! I've heard similar reports about crashes during Bluetooth syncing of PDAs and mobile telephones, too.

Just look at it this way...

[Anonymous Coward]

Eventually, you'll be able to pop popcorn in your lap while watching TV. The ultimate in convenience.

Still Patent Encumbered?

[AlabamaMike]

Will this new wireless firewire standard still suffer from the same driver patent issues that surround current firewire implementations? I can only assume so if it's based off the same basic technology. It would be nice if they (IEEE) would clean up their act in regards to royalty-based patents finding their way into standards. IMHO, of course.
-A.M.

Re:Still Patent Encumbered?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, AlabamaMike, where in Alabama do you live? I am really hungry right now. I could really go for some tasty pocket pretzels. Mmmmm

Re:Still Patent Encumbered?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no license or trademark fee for FireWire: http://developer.apple.com/mkt/swl/agreements.html #firewire

Apple posted job...

[ennerseed]

Apple posted a job for a wireless/firewire developer almost a year and a half ago.

Re:Apple posted job...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, it will be one guy making this system! he will design the spec, the chips check in with the fcc and head the industry alliance. you know these apple guys are pretty smart!

Re:Apple posted job...

[Mikey-San]

Well, their newest board member /did/ invent the Internet all by himself.

(YES, I know that isn't what he said, but dammit, I'm all for cheap jokes.)

Allright....

[mrklin]

'Fess up? Who's the idiot that created the name HiperLAN 2? Next thing you know someone will start to write ciberkinetics and giroscopes !

Re:Allright....

[unicron]

They shoulda went with Compuglobalhypermeganet.

Wireless HDTV!

[Anonymous Coward]

Man! If we could only devise a system where Hidef TV would be 'broadcast' over the air from a central transmitter at huge power so that it could be available to anyone who wants to receive it.

Man... it would be one-way communication, but what a revolutionary idea!

Firewireless

[Revvy]

Firewireless has been around a while. It even has DRM.

I don't expect to see this anytime soon...
Why would you? We've only been waiting several years already.

So much for being an 'early adopter'.

Re:Firewireless

[Revvy]

Check those URLs!
That should have been:
...has been around a while...

Wireless HDTV!

[Anonymous Coward]

Man! If we could only devise a system where Hidef TV would be 'broadcast' over the air from a central transmitter at huge power so that it could be available to anyone who wants to receive it.

Man... it would be one-way communication, but what a revolutionary idea!

Wireless HDTV!?!?

[anthony_dipierro]

Wow, if they had wireless HDTV, they could put that in the UHF spectrum and free up the VHF spectrum for other uses!

Re:Wireless HDTV!?!?

[pod]

Uh... I think the parent was aiming for a +1 Funny... :)

Too much layering here

[Animats]

Another layer underneath FireWire? Why?

FireWire as an electrical interconnect is good. FireWire as a protocol sucks.

Down at the bottom, FireWire is a LAN. You send packets with a source address and a destination address. It's a TDMA LAN, more like token ring than Ethernet, with assigned time slots.

Video is sent as broadcast packets, on a rigid schedule, with no ACKs. That's quite straightforward.

The ugly part is the layer which implements load/store emulation for 32-bit data items in a 64-bit address space. This was designed by people who think in terms of "device registers". Control functions are exercised by stores and loads from "device registers". Typically, these "registers" have no physical existence at either end; one end has a CPU issuing commands and the other end receives commands and executes switch statements. Register definitions are supposed to be standardized; in practice, the standards are more ambiguous than they should be. This results in FireWire devices coming with unnecessary "drivers". A command/response protocol like SCSI would have been far better. With the current system, generic drivers are hard.

There's already Ethernet on top of FireWire, SCSI on top of FireWire, and raw IP on top of FireWire. This is too much layering of pure packet protocols.

Re:Too much layering here

[drinkypoo]

I don't really see the problem with using a scheme like device registers. It makes it very easy to do a simple hardware implementation of the front of the protocol and it certainly does not make it difficult to do it in software.

I also don't see what's wrong with layering protocols over one another if they work, especially if they're simple. It's somewhat offensive to have a lot of really complex protocols layered on one another because each of them is difficult to grasp the whole of. Firewire sounds pretty simple.

I am concerned about the ambiguity that you suggest, however. I don't know enough about IEEE1394 to know whether or not the device classes are too ambiguous, or simply too few in number, forcing the use of a 'generic' command set with a custom software driver on the host.

In any case, the fact that you say that one can run ethernet (or even IP) over 1394, as well as SCSI, fills my heart with proverbial joy. This is exactly what I want; One protocol to rule them all. If you say it's like token ring, well, I know there's a pun around here somewhere, and I shall endeavor not to step in it. My point is that 1394 is supposed to be 800Mbps now (Hell, I've heard a rumor that the 1.6Gbps is in production now, which I can believe. I've also heard that the 3.2Gbps stuff is in production, which I don't believe. I guess it could be true, though.)

The point is that if it's not fast right now, it soon will be, and you'll be able to carry everything over it. Why is this not good? It doesn't sound very secure, I guess, except that you can encrypt files and data sent over the network at the OS level so at least your storage and communications over it can be secured. Most of the time if you're sending video or audio it doesn't need to be private, and if it does, you can hook it up to a separate 1394 link.

Layers are only a problem when you have layers complicated enough to be unreliable. If you keep them simple, like it sounds like 1394 is, then I don't see any reason to be alarmed.

Re:Wireless HDTV!

[Anonymous Coward]

Man! If we could only devise a system where Hidef TV would be 'broadcast' over the air from a central transmitter at huge power so that it could be available to anyone who wants to receive it.

Man... it would be one-way communication, but what a revolutionary idea!

Wireless HDTV!

[Anonymous Coward]

Man! If we could only devise a system where Hidef TV would be 'broadcast' over the air from a central transmitter at huge power so that it could be available to anyone who wants to receive it.

Man... it would be one-way communication, but what a revolutionary idea!!

can it be used to transmit unauthorized music?

[u19925]

if yes, then it is a crime and must be banned!

Only in the US...

[ischorr]

"Of course Bluetooth is only now just catching on, so imagine how long it'll be before this becomes practical."

Bluetooth "caught on" in Europe quite a while back. It's just us backwards Americans that are just now figuring out Bluetooth and GSM (and I don't think we'll EVER move metric..)

Wireless HDTV!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ass! If we could only devise a system where Hidef TV would be 'broadcast' over the air from a central transmitter at huge power so that it could be available to anyone who wants to receive it.

Man... it would be one-way communication, but what a revolutionary idea!

Call me paranoid.

[Nathan Ramella]

But, sometimes it bothers me to think that 200 years ago that the only radiowaves we were subjected to were ones from space.

Does it really seem healthy to be constantly bombarded with gigabits of data?

Any tinfoil hat people out there that do tailoring? -n

Re:Call me paranoid.

[pHDNgell]

You might be on to something...maybe this is why the average lifespan now compared to 200 years ago is so much...longer?

Re:Call me paranoid.

[Nathan Ramella]

Well, duh. They didn't have tinfoil hats 200 years ago.

Re:Call me paranoid.

[evilviper]

I'm not too concerned. I am FAR, FAR more concerned by the exhaust from burring fossil fuels, the toxic chemicals floating around in the air and water, etc.

But, sometimes it bothers me to think that 200 years ago that the only exhaust we were subjected to were ones from horses.

I'll go eat my lead paint-chips now.

Wireless HDTV!

[Anonymous Coward]

Asses! If we could only devise a system where Hidef TV would be 'broadcast' over the air from a central transmitter at huge power so that it could be available to anyone who wants to receive it.

Man... it would be one-way communication, but what a revolutionary idea!

Other RF sources should be of more concern...

[StandardCell]

If you were to look at all the RF sources going through the air at any one time, including radio/tv station towers and all of the wide-spectrum junk from that massive nuclear explosion that keeps us warm 93 million miles away, then you should already be paranoid.

Unlicensed transmission devices are already limited to 100mW ERP transmit power. Most modern cell phones are under 600mW maximum IIRC. We probably would have seen much worse already had this been a major problem. What about cordless phones? What about the CRTs, even the low-radiation kind? Those make me more nervous than a simple radio device because we are more frequently and directly exposed to their radiation than a transmitter on a device connected to electronic equipment.

A few years ago, the IEEE Spectrum had an article that addressed the problems of RF from sources like power lines. One of the most interesting conclusions: the radiation along the center axis through an earphone was actually a significant source of radiation to the brain. Does that mean we ban earphones?

Sure, we need to do studies, but I'm suspecting that we won't have to wear tin foil on our heads any time soon, if for no other reason than that we should've already been wearing them a long time ago.

Call me paranoid.

[Anonymous Coward]

But, sometimes it bothers me to think that 200 years ago that the only radiowaves we were subjected to were ones from space.

Does it really seem healthy to be constantly bombarded with gigabits of data?

Any tinfoil hat people out there that do tailoring? -n

Call me Assanoid.

[Anonymous Coward]

But, sometimes it bothers me to think that 200 years ago that the only radiowaves we were subjected to were ones from space.

Does it really seem healthy to be constantly bombarded with gigabits of data?

Any tinfoil hat people out there that do tailoring? -n

Good news, everyone!

[jmoriarty]

I was worried I would have to wait years for WiFi and cell phones to give me brain cancer.

This should move up my timetable considerably AND increase the number of locations in my home I can place the HDTV that I cannot yet afford. Bonus!

Wi-Fi

[Unixinvid]

What ever happend to just using a aluminum hat like these people http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html

Re:Wi-Fi

[Anonymous Coward]

warning - that link is goatse!

hooray!

[Anonymous Coward]

HDTV at brain cancer speeds!

Have wireless devices ever been proved safe?

[BladeMelbourne]

Have wireless devices ever been proved safe?

I don't want to put wireless electromagnetic radiation around myself for 8+ hours a day. I sleep with my mobile near the foot of the bed, not beside my head on the bed side table.

Cables are cheaper, more reliable, presumably safer and less likely to interfere with other devices. Unsightly does not bother me. The risk is too great. Now if only I could stop drinking I will feel totally guilt free ;-)

Re:Have wireless devices ever been proved safe?

[zejackal]

Let's put it this way, wireless has never been proven to be unsafe. All of the science says you should be fine and studies show no conclusive evidence of any health risks inherent in wireless signals despite years and years of research. You might as well worry about incandescent bulbs being a health risk. Sure no one has shown them to cause any health problems, but no one has proven them to be safe either.

Point to the definitive study and statistical analysis that says the incandescent bulb is safe. Can't find it... well damn I'm going to change all my bulbs to fluorescent... oh wait, has anyone proven that safe yet... I guess it's sunlight for me... wait, doesn't sunlight cause skin cancer...

Re:Have wireless devices ever been proved safe?

[BladeMelbourne]

Thanks for your input.

Physics 101: no theory can ever be proved correct, they can only be disproved.

The reason I am concerned about EM radiation is:
1) When ever I talk on my Nokia 3310 I get an instantaneous head ache.
2) The things that you can't see are often the most dangerous.

Sunlight is natural (and quite unavoidable). The incidence of skin cancer has increased with man's activity depleting the ozone layer (I should know - I live in Australia).

I worry about wireless transmissions because there is substantial energy in those EM waves. Being in an enclosed building, surrounded by wireless radio waves transmitted every second may not be safe.

How many people would live next to a TV/radio station transmitter that services a large area? How many people would prefer not to live under high voltage power lines (the type that can light a fluorescent tube at night by holding it up)?

All I'm saying is if it can be done with wires, that's the way I am going to do it.

Re:Have wireless devices ever been proved safe?

[zejackal]

I like wires too. They're much more secure, and when a wire will work , why use wireless, you're just wasting spectrum.

While I have no doubts that you do indeed get a headache when you use your cell phone, I have friends who say the same thing, the power output is very low from those devices and is simply insufficient to cause any damage. Concern about cell phones today simply isn't warranted.

The transmitted power of old AMPS cell phones was much higher than todays digital phones... they needed the margin, but study after study has failed to show any real correlation with any type of illness. If there were a proposed mechanism whereby the RF engergy from a wireless device could induce your headache or other illnesses, I'd be a little less skeptical, but couple the lack of any realistic mechanism with the fact that large scale statistical investigations have failed to show any correlation with illness, and I'll just keep on using my cell phone.

Also, let's not forget that your entire environment is saturated with RF. Television, radio, telecommunications, lightning, etc., all of these generate radio waves that have been passing through you since the day you were born, and at times, at levels far in excess of the transmitted power of any of the wireless devices we are discussing. You talk about living near a TV/radio transmitter. Years ago (years ago in the US at least, Mexico still allows it) radio stations blasted out signals at ridiculous powers. Powers so great, that you could hear the AM signal just by walking by a chain link fence. There are no cancer clusters associated with these transmissions, no increases in migraines.

When RADAR was in its infancy, people were regularly exposed to excessive levels of RF radiation. A famous story involves a set of British researchers trying to find the source of a humming sound coming from their RADAR assembly only to discover that the sound wouldn't register on any microphones. It turned out that it was a side effect of the RADAR. The energy was so great that it caused the membrane around their brains to expand and contract thereby causing them each to hear a sound as the beam swept through them. They suffered no long term effects, and no headaches, even as they heard the sound.

RF can injure or kill (just think about a microwave oven) but the fact is that the devices we are talking about (cell phones, 802.11, the new Firewireless) do not even aproach the level necessary for injury. Maybe, like the sound that the British researches were searching for, it's all in your head.

qos issues with bluetooth

[moogla]

Bluetooth chipsets are currently not stable enough to guarantee sub 20ms delivery consistently. A jitter or latency that bad kind of sucks for interactive use, esp. for playing music.
Moreover, the presence of other bluetooth or 802.11 devices could mess it up. As they become more commonplace, you have to consider whether you want to add latency sensitive devices to the mix until QoS is part of the protocol (or at least enforced in the driver).

Re:qos issues with bluetooth

[Monkelectric]

3 - 5 ms latency is considered to be ideal for music applications.

wireless = worthless

[Adler]

other than for laptops, at our company, (a small consulting firm, that helps other small buisnesses with their computing needs) we have found wireless to be awaste of money. issues with configurations, signal strength, security conserns, costs and lack of speed keeps everyone away. Our personal view is until can get gigabit wireless for the same price as wired, then wireless is mostly a gadget, reserved for the gotta have it croud, before you flame me for saying that, think about it. in a buisness environment, where everyone is tethered to a desk, wireless is worthless.

Re:wireless = worthless

[div_2n]

I would say that there is plenty of potential applications for wireless.

Compare the cost of the wireless with paying to have a company come in and wire the building.

Or how about for a point to point WAN with two buildings in the same city?

Or for consultants so you can segment them off from the rest of your network?

Or for a company that has most of its employees out where wires are out of the question (a landfill comes to mind)?

How about in a warehouse where wireless scanners are the norm?

How about a business that is based in an historic building and doesn't want to drill holes in the walls (or can't) and doesn't want wires all over the floor?

Security over wireless -- it IS possible and you CAN do it at a reasonable price. Not knowing how might make it seem like a concern I suppose.

Signal strength really isn't a problem if you use the right equipment.

Configurations -- not sure what the problem is here. Configuring a wireless network is really VERY easy.

Cost -- If you are wiring up 30 clients I challenge you to prove to me that wiring a new building for those 30 clients is cheaper than doing it wireless.

Shannon's Law of Trolls.

[moogla]

Christ almighty. Say a bunch of stuff we already know, claim you're the head of Nintendo, and get modded up.

Please check the history before modding up, especially if you don't know what the fuck he's talking about.

SAMIR IS A TROLL.
YHL HAND

Oh, and ignore the fact that we contribute very little energy above and beyond THE SUN in higher energy bands, where you should be worried about your health.

BTW the total emf measured in free space near metropolitan areas is less than 1 mG, well below the accepted safe limit. In our datacenter, next to a PDU, it was 3 mG. It had a remarkably high proportion of energy at 60Hz, which caused monitors to wiggle, which is why we investigated. So to compensate we set all monitors at 60Hz.

Not in any way remarkable. You can get a higher exposure by sitting your ass on a copy machine. Got cancer yet, slashdot?

What shall we call it?

[evilviper]

Well, it's based on Firewire, but there's no wire... It travels through the air with no wire, kinda like a bird.

I've got it, let's call it "FireBird"... I can't forsee any problems with using that name, and I've done months of research...

Re:What shall we call it?

[WWWAvenger]

"Fireless" came to mind, but... what the hell does that really man?

Re:What shall we call it?

[evilviper]

You could go on with that for a while:

FireFree
FireAir
FireSpace
FireNothing

Re:What shall we call it?

[coene]

Better yet, lets just be more descriptive and call it "Phoenix".. Yeah, that's never been used before!

Re:What shall we call it?

[coene]

Come to think about it, maybe we should reserve this name for a while. I think it would work much better as a piece of database software, or perhaps a web browser...

small French dog?

[mcesh]

This will obviously be marketed by Apple as 'firewireless,' or maybe just 'fireless' until the mainstream public/press catches on, when the same wizards who brought you 'wireless fidelity' will start touting the cool features of 'fi-fi.'

Shoot me now.

never underestimate the powers of condescension - it knows not the bounds of time or space

Already is wireless HDTV

[zejackal]

The broadcast industry is already performing digital transmission of some television signals in some markets. By a certain date, all transmissions will have to be digital per FCC regulation. Whether or not a digital signal is HDTV or not depends on how many digital transmission channels a certain broadcaster want to utilize for a given broadcast. This means that digital TV signals come in several flavors depending on the content, and some carry HDTV feeds. Since these signals are broadcast they are, by definition, Wireless HDTV... so it's already here.

That said, yes, this new wireless Firewire (Firewireless?) could handle HDTV signals with minimal compression.

Still too slow.

[Jade E. 2]

100Mbps? 400Mbps? These are still too slow.

1024*768*32*75=1887436800

In other words, we need at least 1.75Gbps before I can play battlefield or raven shield with decent settings on a remote monitor. To play it at a better res (1600x1200), we'd need over twice that (4.29Gbps). Add the keyboard, mouse, etc. to the same link, and a few hundred Mbps for inter-computer communications, and I'd say that 5Gbps would be a good figure to look for before we can finally have completely wireless PCs.

Well, except the power cords... How are we coming on microwave power transmission? Anything anywhere near safe for use close enough to the family jewels to put it under the desk? (Jokes about geeks not needing those aside...)

Re:Still too slow.

[jandrese]

You may have heard of this nifty new technology called "compression" that allows you to get more effective data transfer out of a link. 10:1 compression on video is pretty trivial these days, which means you'd only need 175Mbps for that resolution (although you'd probably drop it down to 24 bit color).

Re:Still too slow.

[Jade E. 2]

10:1 compression on video is pretty trivial these days, which means you'd only need 175Mbps for that resolution (although you'd probably drop it down to 24 bit color).

I'm very interested in this. Please post a link to your 10:1 realtime effectively lossless video compression method, I'm sure the divx and xvid folks would be extremely excited over it.

Re:Still too slow.

[Tyler Eaves]

DivX is *VERY* high compression.

Think for a sec.

Let's use 640x480 as a sample res, 16 bit color, 30 fps.

640*480*16*30 = 147,456,000. 147Mbit/sec. Without audio. Most DivX files are on the order of 0.5 - 1MB/sec. With Audio. That's 150:1 to 300:1 compression.

Re:Still too slow.

[Jade E. 2]

Yes, you're right. However, it's extremely lossy, and nowhere near fast enough to run in real time on even a high end computer at the same time as an intensive video game, which was the point I was trying to make. If you could do effectively lossless 10:1 compression in real time, I would be impressed. That's what I'd like to see a link to. (Even more impressed if you could do with little enough cpu to make it practical for the application we're talking about, which if you'll recall was wireless monitors.)

Re:Still too slow.

[Tyler Eaves]

Two Words: Hardware implementation.

Hell, for most screens (But not a game, probably) a simple run length encoding scheme would get you close to, if not over 10:1

Re:Still too slow.

[vigata]

DivX/XviD/MPEG are all lossy codecs for natural looking video images. The math above just does not apply if you are thinking of a remote monitor situation.
You can already do a remote desktop with Remote Desktop Protocol on Windows XP at 802.11b speeds.

Re:Still too slow.

[ShadowDrake]

You know, blasphemy of blasphemies, it need not all be digital.

Remember, the signal going to your monitor is in all likelihood just analogue data. All you really need is three analogue signals -- red, green, blue. Perhaps use the traditional "vertical blank interrupt" period to handshake with the monitor to keep it in synch.

Re:Still too slow.

[drinkypoo]

Firewire is supposed to hit 3.2Gbps by 2005 or something. Look it up, I'm too lazy. I looked it up once already. They plan to do it with some funky connector with one piece of fiber and four electrical conductors, mostly for power I think. Hopefully they will drop power to two wires, or drop it entirely.

Re:Still too slow.

[Anonymous Coward]

It would make sense to incorperate the display driver in with the display. And then just shunt the textures and models over when needed. This obviously wouldn't work where there was lots of software rendering, but how much of that are we going to see in the future.

zzzzzzzz

[ubiquitin]

Ever heard of 802.16? Seriously, the microwave folks have been doing point to point wireless to project mad bandwidth across serious distances for a LONG time.

A couple of facts

[bryan1945]

I am a member of the IEEE Standards Association, and I've spent the last month writing a paper on WLANs.

1)802.15.3 IS Ultra WideBand.
2)The FCC has basically crippled the original version of this tech.
3)Cellular providers & GPS want their freqs eliminated from this (UWB goes from 3-10 GHz)
4)The original spec only went to 100 Mbps, and there is no official working group trying to expand this.
5)The outermost range is 10 meters, while 802.11 can max out at 100 meters. Great leapfrog action!
6)Only 4 companies can currently produce UWB devices- 3 for imaging systems and 1 for some kind of "toilet device". (seriously! but I couldn't find any more enough about this toilet thing)
7)Thomson's 802.11a & HiperLan product has nothing to do with UWB, yet they quote 802.15.3 (see #1)
8)TOTAL HORSESHIT STORY

Happy day!

Bluetooth Adoption Rate

[repetty]

"Of course Bluetooth is only now just catching on, so imagine how long it'll be before this becomes practical."

There is a big factor in the adoption of Bluetooth:

No one wanted it. :)

This is going to be good

[mcbridematt]

I'm definitely going to buy it when it comes. Now I can hold LAN's between my friends without a high ping.

However, I think some ISP's with game servers would want to have a good hard look at this technology. It could help keep the bandwith choke down in metro areas

wireless HDTV tuners are bulky

[Anonymous Coward]

for those of you commenting on HDTV already being wireless, do you bring your hdtv tunner with a s-vid/rca dongle to capture that to watch stuff on your laptop.

why cant Quicktime broadcaster and/or streaming server be used to compress to MP4 and stream that

but will it bake your noodle?

[m1chael]

i guess i have microwaves absorbing into my flesh at this very moment, and 100Mbps is very fast for wireless.

Nomenclature

[alexburke]

Instantly "Firewireless" popped into my mind, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it...

And where the hell has the "Post Anonymously" box gone?!

mbps?

[_Splat]

mbps? Like 1 x 10^-3 bps? Thats some slow-assed connection.

Shannon Bound

[grahamsz]

I thought we were already pretty damn close to the shannon bound. I believe the paper you want is:

Claude Berrou, Alain Glavieux, and Punya Thitimajshima, "Near Shannon Limit Error-Correcting Coding and Decoding:Turbo-Codes", ICC'93, page 1064-1070, May 1993.

From what i recall, turbo codes let us get as close as we'd need to the shannon bound. Now the only way to get more data in a given bandwidth is to reduce noise (which will probably come in time as uwaves get better and people get more modern dect phone handsets..)

Leapfrog?

[quintessent]

So 802.11 is at 54mb, and they want to "leapfrog" it by going to 100 sometime, and 400 sometime later.

Since 54mb devices are already common and faster 802.11 will undoubtedly follow, how do they plan to "leapfrog" it?

HDTV bandwidth

[TheSync]

In the US, HD DTV terrestrial broadcasts are done with a MPEG-2 transport stream of maximum 19.39 Mbps using the ATSC standard.

In practice, most people will be receiving HD at slightly lower speeds to allow a multiplexed SD feed (2-4 Mbps) in the ATSC channel along with the HD feed (15-17 Mbps)

I am under the impression that most DBS HD will also be in the 10-20 Mbps department. HDNet programming varies from 10 Mbps to 18 Mbps, while DBS HBO HD only goes up to 15 Mbps.

Uncompressed HD is somewhere around 1.485 Gbps. The "standard" for broadcast HD tapes is HDCAM which is at 140 Mbps. Then it gets squished down to below 19.39 Mbps for broadcast. So there is a lot of compression before you get over the air.

Wireless networking & HDTV

[gbell]

There's always this company's products... (I work for them). There were five different companies demo'ing the chipset sending video at CES this year.

Doesn't seem that fast

[sharkey]

Initially 100mbps but aiming for 400mbps.

802.11b supports speeds up to 11Mbps, and 802.11a supports up to 54Mbps. Rates of less than 1 bit per second don't sound like much of a "leapfrog over 802.11" to me.

Re:So if I leapfrog 802.11 once...

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the title as "Java Android Complains".

Some HiPPI

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's implemented with HiPPI interconnects.

It's not either/or!

[Cybrex]

I have to differ with you, at least based on current technology. 802.11 and Bluetooth are both wonderful technologies, and complement each other well.

For example, my laptop is equipped with both, and I use both on a daily basis. I access 802.11b networks as my primary connectivity means at home and as a secondary option at work.

I use bluetooth to connect the laptop and my cell phone (and my girlfriend's cell phone as well). Being able to synchronize phone books between the two devices is nice, but there are two other uses which people seem to overlook.

1) If you send and receive a lot of text messages via cell phone, the ability to use the full keyboard instead of the phone's keypad is a godsend! I have some friends who are text message nuts, and I love being able to effectively use text messaging like a ubiquitous chat client even while my phone is in the next room.

2) My laptop is an Apple PowerBook, and the Sony-Ericsson Clicker software is a true killer app! It's functionality is limited only by what can be scripted for it (which is damn near anything the computer can do), and I'm able to do things with my phone and computer that are downright sci-fi. For example, I'm listening to music on it right now. If I get up and leave the room it'll pause all on its own, and resume when I come back. I don't have to do a thing- it's completely automatic, and I've gotten so accustomed to it that it seems perfectly natural now. It's an example where the range limitations of Bluetooth are an advantage.

Obviously the shorter range lends itself to greater security as well, which is also a consideration for Bluetooth headsets.

-Cybrex