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An Introduction To Wireless USB (WUSB)
An anonymous reader writes "This technical whitepaper by Rafael Kolic, a technology marketing manager in Intel's Corporate Technology Group, introduces Wireless USB (WUSB) and explains how it will impact device performance and mobility. The latest iteration of USB technology, WUSB will offer the same functionality as standard wired USB devices -- but without the cabling."
Ummm.. don't we already have something for that called Bluetooth? Hrm.
From the Bluetooth SIG Mission Statement:
Develop, publish and promote the preferred short-range wireless specification for connecting mobile products...
Well, now that Bluetooth is dead, it's good that WUSB will come out soon. That way Netcraft can confirm that WUSB is dying.
They have to do something all day there...
Or the security.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Isn't this what bluetooth tried to do and failed at? I mean, I like the idea and everything, but why do we need multiple standards that perform the same function?
Douglas P. Price
So soon after the "Bluetooth is Dying" article we get this.
:)
Methinks a conspiracy!
In all honesty, this looks like quite nice tech though I can imagine some of the implementation will be a real pill. Problems like how to manage roaming a device from one cluster to the next will surely require some ingenuity, especially given that backwards compatibility with classic USB devices is a goal (though I presume that those will only be adjuncts to the cluster, sitting at a wirelesswired bridge).
Bluetooth has fulfilled quite well the idea of a truly ad-hoc network among devices, but I assume that will be a much more difficult thing to achieve with WUSB, making some, I'm sure, doubt the point of the project. I think the idea of devices beaming data around to each other at 480 mbits answers that one quite nicely. I look forward to this*
*linux and OS X support for this; until then, I ain't touchin' it
Wow, you'd think someone would have come up with that already... But wait, I think they did - it's called "Bluetooth".
Apart from the higher bandwidth I don't see anything in this article that isn't already possible with Bluetooth. And if you _really_ need higher bandwidth then there's 802.11.
Other than the "not invented here" factor, I can't imagine why Intel wants to invent aome new standard to do the same job as an existing one. Especially since that other one has taken 5 years to start catching on, and is now getting pretty popular. How long would it take for this one to do the same?
-- Your mother uses Emacs.
Will this have longer range than Bluetooth? If so, it will fly, especially if some sort of OS-transparent USB-WUSB adapter is available. If not, I doubt there's much sure for it. What about security? Will it be encrypted at all? Last thing I need is to be using a WUSB mouse on a plane and having some kid three rows back taking over and h4x0r1n6 my b0x3n.
You are not the customer.
Speed?
Security?
Power requirements?
Range?
Cost?
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
I really enjoy being able to power most of my devices over USB and not having to have an extra plug and/or wallwart to deal with. I for one would much rather keep wired usb and forgo the power adapter, than wireless usb and have to deal with yet another plug to have to find power for. I know most of you probably are already running fire hazards as it is now.
Tis better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt --Abraham Lincoln
I can only hope and pray that wireless USB will be very very secure. The thought of someone with a nice high-gain cantenna and a datalogger is none to comforting.
I can also see all many nasty opportunities for system flakyness when a computer gets intermitt-tt-ttant contacts with other wireless USB devices and tries to establish a connection.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
No thanks.
I've had bad experiences with wireless. I'll be sticking to wired devices for years to come yet.
One of the biggest advantages of USB is the power that flows through it. I just plug in my mouse, webcam etc and no bulky adapters required. Theyve also been around since the days of the Pentium1, and you can be sure a USB drive will work many places.
Now wireless.... you'll need batteries or adapters, wont work just everywhere and you'll have to pay motherboard makers to build it in.
Not too many people need short-range wireless interfaces outside of the 802.11a/b/g, which is different
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
All of the problems that immediately came to mind, fell under the unsurprisingly vague section Design Considerations.
And none of them seem solved...
Hell, did it even mention what spectrum was being targetted?
It's wireless, but what does it have to do with USB? Can I plug my wired USB devices into some sort of wireless adapter piece and have wireless USB? What? Huh?
Everybody knows what it means (or what they think it means) and how to use it.
Even if this WAS just Bluetooth with a new name, it would become the odds-on favorite to replace Bluetooth.
If Bluetooth had the kind of mindshare that USB does, there would be little room for a replacement.
It doesn't. there is.
And now if we could just develop wireless power for all these wireless devices... other than batteries, of course. ;-)
a problem.
What?
Although you must wonder, with if wireless will affect the speed. Of course the first versions will be slower, but I can't but think about future versions.
I was thinking of converting to paganism, but where the hell can you find sacrificial virgins these days?
because USA failed
According to the information published by different media, Wireless USB will support up to 480Mb/s transfer speed over 4 meters and up to 110Mb/s over 10 meters.
Wireless USB will be based on the multi-band OFDM technology backed by an industry alliance that includes Intel. It also blends in the common UWB radio platform defined by the WiMedia alliance. The UWB and wireless USB specifications are in the early stages of definition. Systems using wireless USB are not expected to ship until sometime in 2005, CommsDesign web-site notes.
which one will the FPS gamer want?
Bluetooth mouse, WUSB mouse, or standard wireless mouse??
--
"WUSB will offer the same functionality as standard wired USB devices -- but without the cabling" - I moderate this line redunant - I mean really, if it had cables, then it wouldn't be wireless
So, then couldn't we relabel Bluetooth to be more patriotic? Yeah, United States Bluetooth. or USB for short.
SBC stands for Stupid Bell Company
AT&T stands for All Telephones Tapped
*Shrug* didn't intel just declare that bluetooth was dead? But hey don't mourn, we've got wireless USB ready to help console you...
I guess I needed some new peripherals anyways...
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Speed? 480 Mbps (USB 2.0 equivalent)
Security? unknown (better be good)
Power requirements?100-300 mW
Range? 10 meters
Cost? unknown
Number of Devices? 127
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Here are some highlights for those too lazy to skim the article (or in case it gets Slashdotted)...
the JoshMeister on Security
Will this have a standard way for wireless headsets to connect to phones and wireless headphones to connect to audio equipment?
If not, bluetooth is needed as well.
Apple or some enterprising group comes up with a great idea or the guts to produce and promote it, like bluetooth, or GUI, or wireless networking, or quicktime, and then some bigger, richer company comes out with their own usually weaker version. Happens over and over. If only ppl. supported the originator (with their pockets) rather than the copycats--no thats too good a word--plagerizers, we would have more grand souflees rather then milktoast. --cat
Wait a second. Has anybody figured out why we need batteries for our wireless keyboards and mice? Is it a conspiracy? I mean, seriously. You can't convince me that wireless mice -- which use all of 1 AA battery that lasts for, well, months I imagine.. couldn't be powered by some kind of capacity setup and a wheel that generated power from the mouse ball. Of course, this is different with optical mice, but there's no reason there couldn't be some kind of ball for generating power, and then optical sensors for the tracking, so as to avoid the traditional problem with conventional mice where the pickups get dirty..
And keyboards? Give me a break! Don't tell me there isn't enough energy coming from my typing, to transmit that information to my computer...
Has anybody worked on this?
I want my patent.
- reid
"The laptop is connected wirelessly to the radio tower via a serial connection
A wireless serial cable, eh?
got sig?
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mobile/display/200402 11101426.html
(thank you Google)
I figured that saying this would be more effective than just bombing the parent with all my mod points.
People get so caught up in the wireless craze..
But unless it's a PDA, keyboard, or mouse, it's not going to be wireless, you'll have to plug it into the wall for power. Unless of course, you like buying lots and lots of batteries. Rechargable you say? Find a wireless battery charger and I'll retract.
So, you still have to cable the power cord. I mean, I'm not really saying this wireless stuff is bad, it's not. You can plug in your printer across the room and not have to run the USB/LPT cable.
I guess you have to take the name "wireless" literally, it's not "wirenone" it's just LESS wires.
If this becomes a common standard, however, it would be nice being able to buy *any* wireless USB mouse and not worry about what brand reciever you have. Although, this really isn't a huge issue.. Logitech wireless KB/Mouse stuff is cheap anyways.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Look through his previous posts, and run them through Google. A lot of +5, but they are all cut and paste!
Bluetooth is dead, remember?
no they didn't. Rob Enderle declared that WUSB meant that Bluetooth was dead, and extrapolated from *his* inference to get to "Intel says Bluetooth is dead" Krill
By the time this ships maybe the mouse pad will be a power pad.
okay i admit it...
but seriously, this is a weakness of the slashdot system. i'm just trying to expose it and make it open for everyone to see.
it is also somewhat entertaining to see the moderators mod you up for something worthless, while MANY good comments are ignored or marked as flamebait due to non-conformity.
seriously.
I don't think this is a bad idea. Think of all the money saved in batteries and/or chargers. I wouldn't mind winding them up, as long as they generated power quietly and my mouse doesn't shoot across the room after I let go like my old Evil Knievel stunt cycle.
FireWireless
Should it be called Firewireless or just Fire?
Sure, wireless USB sounds nice and all. But I come to think of two things. First we got the health issues. Some "experts" say there are no risks and some say there are a number of health issues even with low-effect RF radiation. Even if there are no risk, people will be suspicious and avoid it. And if there is a serious health risk with RF radiation.. It wouldn't be the first time an emerging technology has turned out to be very, very bad for humans. The second thing is security. By making security considerations optional we will see most companies ignoring this due to costs and selling devices that send data completly unencrypted. Why are there no security considerations when it comes to hardware?
Real technical paper there. Same approach as wireless ethernet, just get rid of the transmission line, add another layer to handle the problem of limited radio spectrum, and voila! Three paragraphs dedicated to security. What does this mean? Simply that in the future, it will be even easier for hackers to read other peoples keystrokes and mouse movements.
Can't wait for the "wireless ATX power supply" specification and the "wireless ATA specification". Pretty soon, everthing will be "wireless", which means that there will be twice as many wires to untangle.
Then developer it, patent it, and sell it. You may get rich.
It doesn't make sense to "kill" bluetooth. The standard is there, although broken in some respects. Plenty of devices have started to use it. For it's purpose of low power use and simple connectivity, it has things going for it. Bluetooth's only real issue has been cost. When I can buy a bluetooth card for $220 or a lan card for $99, which do you think someone will invest in? However, consider the issue of the exploding WAN market. Everyone's battling over who makes 801.11b, g, and whatever new variant that comes along (dual channel, etc.) The single greatest problem with WAN is that you've got the idea of connectivity, but not the bandwidth or the standard for device connection for high bitrate media. I can buy a Wi-Fi DVD/Dixv/MP3 player, but I have to have the company's specific software to use it and I have to have the local network configured correctly. What would happen if you started with USB and added in your own wireless spec? You start with a device model that everyone has already agreed on and can instantly support plug-and-play device detection. They can by-pass the politics of getting an agreed upon standard networking protocal since it is not trying to tie into ethernet. They can just create a virtual networking device driver and route it over USB and we have 480 Mb wireless networking. Intel could easily become the dead center of media-centric, wireless conectivity.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
on my speakers... or using MY internet connection...
what about us apartment dwellers? I dont see this addressed in the article...
obviously you've no idea what ultra wide band is.
instead of explaining it here like many others, i'll point you to google, search for uwb wusb ultra wide band.
For the mouse, you could use a standard mechanical mechanism for the movement (as opposed to optical) and connect the movement to little tiny generators that would make a tiny amount of electricity. I bet this could gain a decent amount of energy. This could also be done with magnetic induction if you made a little mat that would be powered and the mouse would get it's power that way. Really this has already been done (not with induction, but radio IIRC) in Wacom tablets. They work fantastically.
For the keyboard, I think you'd be in an even better situation. First you could put simple solar cells at the top of they keyboard. That would provide you most of the power under most circumstances anyways. But if you rigged up little things that give you a tiny amount of power with each keypress, you could generate a good amount of electricity there too.
For a decent sized business that uses lots of computers and wan't to be wireless for some reason, I be this could save them some real money, even if it's more expensive up front. Just an idea.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Are they just going to tack some new capability onto USB every time there's a superior competing technology?
USB was fine for what it was originally designed for. Then Intel had to juice it up a little bit to try to convince people it was better than FireWire. Now they've got Bluetooth in their sights.
I would much rather have several different technologies that each do one or two things exceptionally well, rather than one technology that's trying to be all things to all people.
Microsoft is trying to shoehorn Windows into everything, and look what we've got to show for it: PDAs that need more horsepower than a workstation from five years ago had, BMWs that develop a mind of their own, an albatross of a game console, etc...
It's like Intel is slapping a wig and fake tits on some big, burly truck driver and trying to convice people it's just as good or better than a real woman.
imagine all the cool stuff you could do with wireless USB!! The foremost in my mind when i read about it was wireless keychain USB flash drives!!! that would be a really cool new toy and useful too, as long as they could make it battery-efficient that is.
A wireless USB wifi adapter...
+5 Crazy
-- paper
You are trying to expose the problem by becoming part of it and making it bigger?
Gee, your powers of logic and reasoning astound me.
so what are we looking at here? wifi without the tcp/ip layer? cant they just use wifi and hotwire the usb protocol on top?
if this is going into the cellphone then forget it, its shooting birds with warship guns time. i dont have anything on my cellphone that needs that kind of transfer speed. maybe those pda/cellphone hybrids need them but they allready have wifi.
so end of story is, bluetooth for address book, wifi for files.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
You're missing the point. USB should never have happened either. Firewire already existed, was better, faster, and UBS didn't address anything that firewire didn't do at least as well. (And for many things, Ethernet might have been a better choice than USB too). But we got USB shoved down our throats. Of course, many of use still needed firewire adapters, and the USB built into my expensive notebook is pretty much worthless since it's USB 1.1 (too slow to talk to many devices like external hard drives or DVD/CD writers at a reasonable speed). No one but Microsoft and Intel wanted USB 1.1, but we got it. No reasonable person wants wireless USB (bluetooth and the 802.11x protocols each do better in their own areas and we certainly don't need WUSB interfearing with them), but you're going to get it.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Wacom uses a combination of RF and induction. Induction gives the mouse/pen power, and then it communicates with the pad via RF. Same as those keycards that can be detected through your wallet. Also the same as RFID. Really, a great idea that will only become more popular as time goes on.
...especially 'cause then I'll know that it was MY GAME giving me cancer!
Some cool links:
Doesn't this lose the main advantages of USB: Devices drawing power from the bus, and high speed? Give me Bluetooth over this anyday.
will offer the same functionality as standard wired USB devices
... lots of non-standard devices that only work in Windows.
Oh great
USB could have been good. There where standards for common types of hardware. Apart from keyboards and mice, I don't think any of the standards where ever really supported. And I've even started to find non-standard keyboards and mice!
Give me PS/2 anyday.
is shot to hell, (i hate that guy with the mod points you know who you are) so no one will ever see this in a million years but...
doesn't USB stand for Universal Serial Bus?
wouldn't this make WUSB stand for Wireless Universal Serial Bus? i can understand Wireless Universal and Bus in this context, but to me i don't get how exactly it would translate to be Serial? i mean with the fact that they want to use it for HDTV and streaming media and such if theres more than one device talking collisions will happen and i don't see a targeted frequency anywhere, i'd imagine probably somewhere in the possibly 5ghz range? thats 5000000000hz now assuming they can get a about 25% of the bits (which means it takes 4 times as long to send) at those frequencies for digital data that comes out to about 150MB per second, that might seem good, but if you remember thats half duplex unless they use more than one frequency, (in which case it wouldn't be serial would it) anyway, if there's only two devices, one sending one recieving you'll be fine, now if there are more than one, say you're in an apartment building and your neighbors have one, you'll end up cutting the bandwidth in half in a perfect world, which means 75mb/s (you could stream a dvd on that easily still) for the both of you from collisions and such, now as more of your neighbors say the 4 living (up down left right) around you get them, that'll bring it down to about 37.5mb for the first neighbor (they'd still get the 75 since they don't have anyone else to bother them) 18.75 for the third, and then 9.375mb/s for the 4th, now this is all assuming that things work perfectly during a collision and it sends the next one fine (which doesn't always work that way) and just because your neighbors got one your ends up having to send lower quality singals, and last i looked 9.375mb/s was no where near enough for uncompressed HDTV.
What would the latency on WUSB be? My understanding is that input devices like trackballs and keyboards have some noticeable latency lags in bluetooth.
Is the same latency issue true with WUSB?
evanchik.net
there is already power that could be easily adapted to mice at least. they make watches that are powered by moving your arm why not adapt that to a mouse. not working shake it back and forth across your pad a couple times. and you're ready to go!
With the keyboard, I think piezoelectrics in each key would generate enough power to run the thing. With the mouse, though, I wonder whether a "generating ball" would be enough to run the optics. Any mouse hackers want to comment?
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
1) powered wusb devices?
typical usb devices can be powered by the line, I see no current system be spoken of to use the wireless signal for power.
keep in mind that the recieved signal in % is the same as the power output of the hub/host/whatever. so a 100mw access point can deliver 60mw of power to a device that has 60% signal. Their is no reason that this power could not be used to power a device, like a tv remote control or power switch for a light. most devices could leech the 60mw of power(if thats what they receive!) and charge a small battery so that they have a little more power when needed. This would be usefull for night lights or something but still not enough power for a printer. speakers would be a definite no.
Although I would prefer to just power speakers off of the nearest power outlet, it doesn't completely elimintate the need for a wire. Game Controllers can use battery power and have a charging cradle and that would work well.
2)Wireless HDTV, component systems, speakers, etc
Some people are asking why this is usefull. here you go.
a)Simple setup with no routeing of wires, not rats nest behind your tv, lessened fire hazard of components.
b)zero tear-down time for moving the system. again, no speaker cables, video cables etc.
c)instant device assignment with no cable rearanging. for example: i walk the the living room with my laptop and set it on the coffee table, I can gain control of the speakers in the room and have full use of them for a game or some mp3s. I could also have access to the video and play some mpegs from it.
3)802.11 too slow? wusb ethernet adapters. Walk in the living room and have a WIRED Gigabit ethernet to the hub, and then 480Mbit via the wusb. 802.11g's 55Mb is pretty insignificant here.
4)wusb dvd-rw drives. have a single dvd-rw in the room, and have direct access to it via wusb. Now everymachine in the room can have direct access to it and be able to burn via nero or comprable software. current networking only allows the machine with physical access to it use the device in that manner and only linux with NBM could possible route hardware access over the network, and i'm not sure that's possible.
5)not to mention the options available for NAS(network attatched storage). some newer motherboards can boot from usb devices, so you could theoretically boot any number of machines across the 480Mb link(60MBytes/s) and not have drives in every machine, AND you can have a single CD-Rom drive to use in any number of machines. You could boot and entire cluster of machines up off a single cd-r and hard drive. AND you could have 480Mb networking on another channel and have disk-free systems.
AND I HAVEN'T EVEN GOT WARMED UP YET! the posibilities are nearlty endless. so yes, this absolutely destroys bluetooth in EVERY area accept power usage.
In my mind, the real killer next-generation interface technology will be a single standard/protocol that will combine all the best attributes of USB, Firewire, Bluetooth, and WiFi together into a sort of gestalt. We need this so we no longer need to build every new system with the currently necessary 4 different interfaces.
A single tech would save everyone money: the manufacturers, marketers, and users. It would also make our lives easier.
I see USBlueWiFiFire working seamlessly with or without wires, and scaling throughput accordingly, depending on distance, wire length/quality, etc. It has the best auto-discovery and auto-config attributes of BlueTooth and USB, the max speed matches that of FireWire 800, and it can create a seamless kind of area-mesh network, with multitudes of devices joining and extending the network.
I really like the idea, however much it might seem like a fantasy. I hope we have something like this within 10 or 20 years.
It'll probably be just like the original USB spec - the distance had to be less than 2m to work.
-- If we don't stand up for our rights, now, there will be no right to stand up for them later.
Someone (Toshiba? Micron?) was working on a power-generating notebook keyboard a couple of years back. I'm not sure if it ever resulted in a product. Each key had a little coil that generated a tiny current over its travel. It wasn't supposed to be enough to actually power the computer, just lengthen battery life, but might be enough for a wireless Bluetooth keyboard. Depending on the type of work, and the typist I suppose. ;)
For the mouse, your best bet would probably be a flywheel or gyro type arrangement similar to a self-winding watch. Kind of like one of those cool gyro-sensing mice in reverse.
There are other sources of energy available, of course, like heat from human hands, ambient light, etc. Anyone can come up with something that barely works for a patent application; making it cheap enough to be ubiquitous is the tricky bit.
Stereoscopic wall? What's that?
Stupid like a fox!
Interesting idea,
One problem might be that in order to drive an inductor or other type of charging mechanism you would necessarily need some friction from the mouse ball, the more friction, the more power generated.
I'm not sure how much friction a user would put up with using the mouse, certainly gamers would have none of it.
"...that wireless USB will be very very secure"
..... eh heh heh"
That should read "Vewy, vewy secewr
Really? I want to be able to stick a battery operated harddrive in my back pocket and automatically have my entire desktop setup and all my files at any computer. Yes, yes I very much do.
That kind of ability to have your own files at any computer in the world would change everything. Forget screens... forget cramped keyboards... you'd have YOUR computer almost anywhere you went, because hotels and internet cafes will set up terminals the way they now provide WiFi. Cheap.
802.11x can't give us this easily... you need a whole system in there to handle the file access from the network. Yes, you can put in an ARM9 and have a server... but why? WUSB is much more reasonable, just as we don't have portable ethernet-cable harddrives in common use now.
Bluetooth can't give it to us at all... it isn't fast enough.
There's definitely at least one use.
Many people have reported problems with using USB devices through a hub (especially unpowered ones). Perhaps this is the "fix" to the problems of more devices stating they should not be used with a hub...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Looking over the other posts there was some concern about security. But the thing that I saw that made me bulk was the idea of WUSB hard drive. The problem I see is what happens if you turn off your computer, and your WUSB hard drive is on? Does that mean that some punk can then access your hard drive? Some things should be left with the security of a wire. I am all for innovation, but this is one area that I can see problems. Brings wardriving to a whole new dimension. Forget trying to hack the computer, just hack the hard drive. A hackers dream. And the whole idea of security being implemented on the software level -- something tells me that it means that WUSB may not be open source friendly. What vendor is going to want to release open source drivers for something that they most likely half-aced? Somehow I see a problem akin to the WiFi drivers -- few selection for those of us that want to use open source and use WiFi. A nice idea, but I nessarily like the idea of having my printer hijacked because some smuck walks by with a laptop.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
I may be going crazy, but hopefully not. /. a while back which mentioned some sort of "power pad" device? Something that you plugged into the wall, and it would charge your cell phone or pda, etc by simply setting it atop the pad?
Wasn't there some post on
Maybe I read about this somewhere else, I'll go try and find a link...
About the problem of devices that draw their power from the USB cable, and not wanting to add cords or batteries to these items...
What about supplying power via a pad that you could simply set your devices on?
For example, something like at http://www.splashpower.com/
This would allow the devices to still not have a battery or power cable, they'd just have to sit atop one of the "power pads".
Eh?
We could achieve the same thing with different design and product methodology - philosophy, if you will.
Instead of focusing on "how to get the money", we could focus on providing the technically most advanced solutions that are desired by the users. Instead of crowding the products with features just for feature's sake to make the things more attractive during the purchasing event, we could do things differently. We could define the features which are needed, which benefit the most people (and devices) in a wide horizon, and then build those devices.
We could ask users what do they want, and what do they need, what would be a scenario they have only dreamt of. Make the users build the product roadmaps, and not the marketing people.
In other words, there would be a single point which collects the innovation and makes sure the requirements are heard. And to prevent this idea from dying because of "committee-paralysis", the design, specification and feedback processes should be open for all.
And, if we were to adopt this world view, this philosophy, we could just have one modular design for a factory doing certain things, and after that we could replicate our factories - a meta-mass production, mass produce the factories themselves! - and get things done more efficiently and with less cost.
Choice in some areas is wasteful, especially so when the choice does not stem from the needs of the users, but aims to maximize profits. In such a case we get choice for the sake of choice, which is unconstructive and not functional.
A supply of power to the device.
No, seriously, one of the advantages USB is supposed to deliver is that it has a 5v supply that can deliver power to devices so they don't need a power adaptor any more. Sometimes it even works, too - I have an unpowered USB doohickey that I plug my camera media into, for example. Do that with WUSB :-)
> WUSB will offer the same functionality as standard wired USB devices -- but without the cabling."
Except that my mouse for example takes power from the usb bus which is impossible with wusb.
pretty big loss of functionality to me...
n/t
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
This reminds me of something.... Can we say, Bluetooth?
- OohGodYeah!
WUSS!
How about a coil in the mouse, and magnets in the mousepad? Fits in pretty well with the optical no-moving-parts philosophy and it generates the electricity pretty directly (straight out the coil). I think you might also need a capacitor to hold a reserve so you can get instant response whenever you start moving the mouse.
If nobody's already patented this... well, I call prior art!
Ultraviolet mousepad, and a solar panel on the bottom of the mouse?
You can get rechargeable cordless mouses quite commonly, and with USB allowing you to have several plugged in you could use one while the other is charging...
The thing is just that you (and most other "Bluetooth is dead" sayers) are not on the right continent. In Europe Bluetooth is big, particularly for mobile devices. AFAIK the same goes for Asia, although I think that it's not quite as big as in Europe.
Considering that Intel is nobody on the mobile market I don't really see how this has any relevance to competing with Bluetooth.
You're right... sorry about that, I didn't have a chance to read the previous article I was alluding and was jumping to cynical conclusions...
Disegard... move along people nothing to see here...
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Let me summarize why Bluetooth is not dead, and wireless USB is not really a competitor for bluetooth:
Wireless USB Power requirements: 300 mw ("with a target of 100 over time")
Bluetooth power requirements: 100 mW, 2.5 mW, 1 mW (the last two are class 2 and 3, the variants widely used.)
Frankly, wireless USB sounds less interesting to me. Well, it's a threat to Wifi, from the sound of it. It's really, really fast and power hungry. It sounds primarily for unwiring our desk-bound, non-mobile computer peripherals from the computer. But then we will have to plug them all into the wall instead. So there are a few that had power anyway and now we've cut the number of cables from 2 to 1 - OK. But quite a few the only cable was USB (and that was providing power) anyway. It wouldn't be a viable solution for things like wireless mouses and keyboards, for instance. And I don't think I'd want that instead of bluetooth for the PDA/phone or PDA/computer link.
There are a lot of applications where very low power (1 mw!) is much more important than bandwidth.
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"Higher levels of security involving encryption should be implemented at the application level."
Uh-huh. As if wireless keyboard manufacturers will bother implementating encryption -- thereby preventing the keyboard from working until proprietary drivers are loaded -- and do it correctly. It's completely unrealistic to lay this burdon of adding proper security on consumer electronic manufacturers. They'll either ignore it or blow it (standard procedure: use single DES with a fixed key; add "secure!" to bullet list; when customers come crying about stolen data, point to license agreement and issue a PR spin).
Note the amusing claim:
"WUSB security will ensure the same level of security as wired USB."
They must mean the same security as 802.11's "Wired Equivalent Privacy" (WEP) -- that is, none at all.
No; when it comes to infrastructure, standards are a good thing. You can complain about monocultures all you want, but for infrastructure -- a category I am using to describe things like the language you speak, the voltage coming to your house, the broadcast standard encoding your TV signal -- uniformity is good.
New wireless standards should be introduced because they provide added functionality and can be reasonably expected to eventually replace the old standard; not just for diversity of choice.
With all that said, I think bluetooth's drivers are so miserable and its range/speed/power consumption such a poor choice that I'm ready to send it to the scrap heap. A zigbee/wifi breakdown seems like a much better solution to me than a compromise wireless standard that's not only slow and short range, but uses too much power to be left on all the time on mobile devices.
When I am in the UK, I use bluetooth because it is comparatively ubiquitous. Not so in the States.
However you slice it, that means an opportunity for something similar to become more widely accepted in the Americas.
RS232 is simple as you say although the spec is bigger than two pages.
The Bluetooth specs include shared access to a noisy medium, so theres a lot of pages to the specification just to get that working. Want to see how many pages of specs relating to the various networks there are? Including the actual media, the signal as well as the bottom layer protocols?
Bluetooth also includes a lot of bluetooth profiles. This are roughly equivalent to the HTTP, SMTP, IMAP etc specs as used for internet services. You want to see how many of those can fit on two pages?
The only reason bluetoth has innovation happening at the edges is because the in-between is the ether.
You want something as simple as 2 pages and a bit of soldering? How about morse code and AM modulation, cos thats all you'll get.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
In fact, a lot of the security inherent in wired USB is tied to its inconvenience. Effective security requires that you "introduce" the two devices (the computer and the peripheral) to one another such that there's no ambiguity. If the two float out of range and float back in again, they have to pick each other up correctly.
With wired USB, it's clear how you switch a peripheral from one computer to another: I either switch the cables back and forth or plug in to a USB switch. What would a wireless USB switch look like? You can't automatically glom onto whichever device is closest, especially if you're in the middle of something like disk defragmentation or burning a CD.
None of these problems are unsolvable, but the solutions won't yield a wireless USB technology that's a transparent replacement for wired USB.
Sorry, Intel, but wireless is different.
> The point is, bluetooth doesn't live up to
/. shows that traditionally americans don't "get" bluetooth. First we had the whinging that it wasn't wireless LAN, now we have the whinging it isn't wireless USB.
> what it originally promised. Look behind
> your TV and tell me that bluetooth could
> be used to solve that mess of cables.
What kind of freaker promises have you been listening to if you though bluetooth was going to replace your audio and video cables?
You must be american,
Bluetooth is ad-hoc low power short distance small communications even between small devices.
You guys think it will fail because it isn't something different that you like.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
Several PDAs use those Class 3 radios, which are 1 mW or less. Most USB dongles are 2.5 or less mW (the ones my company sells are about 2.1, according to the FCC). And don't get me started on the 100m for the measly price of 100mW. Let's see 802.11b get 330 foot range (no special attennas, neither).
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This is fascinating, but it contradicts the text of the Intel white paper...
They try to get those numbers right for these things.
Please, site some sources! I'd love to know how you plan to do 480 Mbps with 0.2mW!
Right now it just looks like you're a troll, making up numbers to try to be funny.
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