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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."
Or the security.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
No, Bluetooth is much smarter because it doesn't require a PC. Bluetooth is peer-to-peer whereas USB is a stupid bus for connecting devices to a PC.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Bluetooth is a low power, relatively low speed, low range wireless personal network. It's not meant to transfer large blocks of data.
Unfortunately Bluetooth arose in an age where it was already outdated, as our devices quickly became too powerful for this dismal standard.
I'm really excited about wireless USB, especially if cheap solutions allow us to convert wired to wireless. I work in a high tech classroom with digital smartboards and a stereoscopic wall, and one of the problems we're having is connecting devices (such as cameras and microphones for video conferencing) from the classroom back to the computer closet behind everything. The normal cables just don't reach, so we have to either use a series of repeaters, or USB to ethernet converters, both of which are nontrivial in price.
Of course if they could develop cheaper wifi chips, everything could just have an 802.11x interface and you could network any devices, so maybe what we'll see is a happy medium between bluetooth and wifi.
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
I can understand a bluetooth iPod or other mobile device, but for electronics equipment that sits in your house, wires work better. For example, I don't see why people put up with crappy 10-55 Mb/s Wifi when standard cabling is so cheap! Likewise, why do you want wireless HDTV for home theater? It seems to offer little benefit for stationary equipment. I think it has more to do with conspicuous consumption (oh look at how hip I am with the tech!) than practical benefits.
For example, I don't see why people put up with crappy 10-55 Mb/s Wifi when standard cabling is so cheap!
Wireless is freedom, and it doesn't require you to snake wires through your walls (which is a major bitch in most cases if you want to do it right -- i.e. not running it through an air return and then hanging the wire around your baseboards). The few times I've really had the need for 100Mbps (versus the 36Mbps I'm currently getting over 802.11g, up on the second floor with the WAP in the basement), I'll bring the laptop to the basement and plug-in, but otherwise this whole wireless thing is fabulous.
I couldn't have said it better.
It's been said again and again, but I'll do it again for fun if nothing else: if you need a very high speed connection, plug the damn thing in.
Here's the design philosophy for wireless communications, and for all things, really:
1: Make it cheap
2: Make it fast
3: Make it so it dosen't suck energy like a muscle car sucks gas.
Chose two.
It will hold true always. There will always be a solution that, while not the fastest, accompolishs most things that one could wish to do with it, be more cost effective, and use less energy.
Guess what? Bluetooth is that solution.
"Bluetooth is much smarter because it doesn't require a PC."
Smarter in the sense of "the best networks are dumb, and innovation happens at the edges"?
Let's have a protocol that's as easy to solder to a PCB as RS232 is with no licensing requirements, a spec that fits on 2 pages of A4, and controller chips that you can buy in Maplin. Then we might get somewhere with this wireless idea...