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Xbox Wireless Adapter Info Leaked
cdneng2 writes "Yahoo!/Reuters has an article on the a new official wireless LAN/broadband adapter for the Xbox, details of which were unintentionally leaked on the FCC's website ahead of Microsoft's product unveiling. There's even a
picture of the adapter, which has '54 Mbps' printed on it, in a Digitimes.com article." According to this latter story, "The chipset in the MN-740 wireless adapter appears to be supplied by Atheros Communications, possibly its 2.4GHz AR5002AP-G chip, which supports 802.11b/g. The device also features user-configurable 128-bit WEP (wired equivalent privacy) security."
Why shouldn't MS make a wireless adaptor for the X-Box? Let's face it, X-Box Live is something that many games want to use, but it requires broadband. And while you can use a modem anywhere, most people don't keep their broadband adaptor in their living room, it's usually by a computer. So what does that leave the person doing? They either have to run Cat-5 cable, use something like HomePNA or HomePlug, or use wireless. Why shouldn't MS make a wireless adaper? I wouldn't be suprised if there was a new X-Box bundle by Christmas that inclues the wireless adaptor. I would be willing to bet that wireless internet access is more common in homes than having ethernet jacks in your living room (slashdot croud excluded ;).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Wouldn't it be cool if all the up-and-coming (and currently available) wireless input devices using IEEE802.11something could work with any access point/wireless card in infrastructure mode? You could play all your games from your neighbours house while the xbox is safe in your livingroom....
Errr.....
It *would* be cool! IPv6 force feedback gamepads! Yay!
My cats ate my karma. They also wrote this comment.
Actually this has been done, except with a standard wired connection!
Check out the High Speed Highway Halo video, it's pretty kewl, I'd like to try it sometime.
I just want to know what sort of communication is going on that requires WEP encryption? Seeing as how it is intrinsically flawed, WEP key rotation isn't mentioned and the fact that it will slow down the ever so important FPS?
Any thoughts? Is Microsoft planning on mergin this with their Internet TV concept? Will you be emailing via hotmail through your XBox in the years to come?
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Well, that is a strange view of PCB design. After many years in the industry, I don't share that view. That would imply that everyone who uses chipsets is simply "buying a design."
In the case of a USB wireless adapter, there are some significant translation layer issues with converting the 802.11x layer to USB that are not solved by the Atheros chipset in question. I'm not saying that this problem hasn't already been solved by several other add-on chipsets, but I'm pointing out that there is at least one more layer that must be designed into the board. And this is not performed by outsiders.
In the industry, "buying a design" implies contracting out the entire board design to meet your specs. Buying a chipset to use in your own design is most certainly not "buying a design." It's just common sense system integration.
Look, I'm not saying that MS had a hard time designing this box. And I understand that as chipsets continue to evolve and BiCMOS featuresets expand, PCB designs (generally) get much easier. But PCB layout isn't a pushover by a long shot, and a well designed board can spell the difference between a buggy piece of crap that's in your face all the time and a well-behaved utility that quietly goes about its business.
Are we in agreement there at least? :-)
We published several Xbox wireless adapter MN-740 images. Besides the standard photo that you are seeing all over the Web, we also published several close-ups of the internals of Microsoft's 802.11 access point, something that's sure to pique the interest of geeks everywhere.