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USB Going Wireless
NathanJ writes "Device Forge is running a technical whitepaper on wireless USB. The article states that 'Already there has been some progress with the definition of a WUSB specification with a targeted bandwidth of 480 Mbps. This specification maintains the same usage and architecture as wired USB with a high-speed host-to-device connection.' And that 'the WUSB host can logically connect 127 WUSB devices.' So what am I going to do with my Bluetooth desktop?"
Update Holy Deja vu batman... here is an earlier Slashdot article that I missed from 3 weeks ago. Oops.
Put it in the trash of course. Another victim of early adoption.
In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!
here
Oh, wait, it's the same one.
Bluetooth will still live on in the Low Power applications.
Being called a dork on Slashdot must be like being called the retard in special ed.
on Off The Hook a while back. They were concerned because the name and address of the radio's website is WUSB.
*twitch*
what makes this different than bluetooth, and what really are the benefits of wireless keyboards and mice and stuff anyway? Sure, I can sit far away from the computer, but then i cannot see to read the monitor.
I think we gave them enough of a chance! C'mon, enough is enough....specifications dont matter if there's no product suppor....
I don't think this is the product for me... I plug in my MP3 player, Digital Camera, Scanner, Printer and Bluetooth Gizmo in from USB (My keyboard is also a mini-USB hub). None of those really have to be a distance from my Computer.
There are already solutions for people who want their Keyboard or Printer a distance away from their computers without wires. What would make these people use this solution?
- Jax
Were one step closer to Cartmans Trapper Keeper!
I read through the paper, but I don't remember seeing anything about how far the transmission would go. If it is being compared to bluetooth, is it 30 feet. Or is this something that could also take over WiFi and go hundreds of feet? I would love to have a home network with a +400Mbps bandwidth.
-- johntracy.com, because everybody else is wrong.
Well wireless is going hardwired, so there.
Uh, one of the reasons I like USB is that it's a POWERED connection. Are we going to be sending energy through wireless connections with this WUSB somehow? And how much lead suit protection do I need to wear to not grow a third eye or extra thumbs when using it?
Check out the best P2P sharing website: MEDIACHEST.COM
"...WUSB specifications will allow for generation steps of data throughput as the ultra wideband radio evolves and with future process technologies, exceeding limits of 1 Gbps."
I could use my scanner from any where in the room! But now when I plug in my USB devices Windows can crash quicker! Also since there won't be plugging what will PNP be? Hope-N-Pray?
I heard quite a bit about wireless firewire a year or two ago, but it never got out of the lab. I wouldn't bet the farm on this until it starts bearing some realy fruit and the cards hit the shelves.
Abandon it. Bluetooth was too little, too soon. Where tech executives saw people exchanging business cards with their PDA's, the real world saw a wireless connection with a range of 3 feet and a mere kilobits of bandwidth. I think it was more of a prolonged back-patting session for "Bluetooth Special Interest Group" members and less of a means of providing function to the customer.
This specification maintains the same usage and architecture as wired USB
Well unless they've been reading a ton of Tesla, I would call it the same usage or architecture as wired USB. Because USB is not only data but power, and AFAIK, wireless power distribution is neither a commodity technology nor tested to be safe in close quarters with humans...
The impact is that now I will have to turn devices on and off, worry about batteries, and power cords. Best case is everything gets (expensive) AAAs. Worst case is everything gets a power cord. If I'm using wireless USB, why would I want a power cord? I mean I'm not too keen on trading plugging in one thing for plugging in another.
And I've used wireless mice. They become erratic way before the batteries die. I like my HIDs to be precise and reliable, thank you very much...
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
in compairison to standard wired USB.
Bluetooth is only useful for a very limited number of applications on a desktop computer (or even a laptop). A mouse, keyboard, and maybe a bluetooth cell phone or PDA (which very little people have). It's not worth the cost of having to buy a bluetooth setup or for manufacturers to include it on the motherboard.
If it had higher bandwidth then it could be useful for printers, scanners, mp3 players, hard drives, etc.
If wireless usb does provide the speeds they claim then it will be a huge success. The U in USB does infact standard for Universal, and that's what bluetooth needed to be really successful.
Oh and not to mention bluetooth support is awful in windows.
In Bluetooths coffin. It's about time someone came up with an alternative that wont break my piggy bank. Seriously though more manufactures like the USB standard. Maybye this will help push a desk with no wires finnally.
Mmmmmmm... Just hope I don't get my wirelesses crossed!
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WUUSSSSSSB!
Sitting around, surfing the net.
True... true..
you could go toothing... www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,62687,00.html?tw =wn_story_top5
Awesome idea, 480Mbps wirelessly.
Security is going to be paramount here, but the spec says:
Wireless connections, on the other hand, due to environmental characteristics, may establish connection paths that are not obvious. In fact, it may not be obvious when a device is connected.
It goes on to suggest a remedy of configuring security at the time of installation. Should this technology exist in the future, that's going to pose a tremendous stumbling block to assume home users, where most USB device usage occurs, would do that. It's a step back from that plug-and-play that they're used to.
Then it would be more exciting, imagine a hard drive wireless at a real speed of 400mps, never mind trying it with FW800. You could stream the DV off a camera right onto an external HD, think of the time saved if it was automatic as soon as you walked through the door?
Jonathanjk.com
But if they can manage an implementation at least a little better than the "hit-or-miss" bluetooth, especially when used across devices (pocketPC > desktop Windows > Desktop Mac, etc), then they'll have a winner. If it's as easy as USB (finally) is to plug and play, then this could be huge! Definetely something worth watching.
Does USB still have the limitation of dividing the bus' time evenly between all devices regardless of how much bandwidth they're using? I remember that that was one of the arguments in the USB 2.0 / Firewire flamewars.
If so, I'd keep my keyboard and mouse off the bus. Besides, there's no reason to throw away working hardware.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
So what am I going to do with my Bluetooth desktop?
Put it there in the corner, next to the Cordless Desktop, the Logitech one that used proprietary radio. Yeah, right there, next to the infrared keyboard.
When you buy two burial plots you usually get a discount. I think BSD and Bluetooth should be buried side by side. Even better, I bet you could find an OSS developer that would 'contribute' some of their yard for the plots.
The article looks like WUSB is oriented toward device-to-host communication. Bluetooth supports connections between many different kinds of devices. Phones and accessories are a natural here. (After all, Bluetooth originated with Sweden's Ericsson.)
My favorite Bluetooth application is moving camera-phone photos to my laptop. My second-favorite application is laptop-to-bluetooth-to-phone-to-GPRS-to-internet.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
The benefits would be things like wireless printers and scanners. It's also a way to reduce wire clutter (never a bad thing), and, according to the paper, allow connection of up to 127 devices without racks and racks of USB hubs. It would also be nice for digital camaras, since you wouldn't need to worry about the correct adaptor. You could offload your pictures on any WUSB enabled computer. What abount wireless pen drives? Connecting multiple devices to a laptop? I think there's alot of use to this technology.
Apple has never claimed not to be evil, they're just very stylish about it.
why do i keep burning coasters?
<Tech> what connection you using?
<Dumbass> wusb
<Tech> stop talking on your cordless phone while writing to CD
This is not the Jessica Lynch / camel spider pr0n that I requested!!!
but then, how do you recharge it? My USB devices recharge when I wire them up, will WUSB be able to (eventually) do the same?
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
www.jameco.com, page 194, Phoebe Networking Wireless USB. Just not quite 500 MHz.
Go wireless USB! Now, with only a mere pringles can, I can "borrow" my neighbors printer, turn his keyboard satanic, and upload the latest Simpsons theme to his PDA!
:)
Joy
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
I can only think of a few useful applications of this technology:
Web cams: You want to put in a camera to monitor the baby's room (or the driveway, or whatever). Provided the range is sufficient, this may be a decent way of handling it (though other means exist already).
Networking: It's higher-bandwidth than the current 802.11 standards. The question (as others have mentioned) is the range.
Laptop base stations: You can leave your devices plugged in for power, and you don't have to hook anything up when you bring your laptop into the room.
...be very afraid of the ensuing slew of pop up adds for WUSB X10 cameras.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Last I heard the preliminary WUSB standard was quite lacking in terms of security. Steal your co-workers entire Mp3 collection in only 15 minutes!
More than my PC. Really, there aren't many external devices I have for my PC that don't require power and a rather easily managed cable thanks to convenient hubs.
What I *do* need is an easier time with my A/V setup. Swapping out components is bad but adding anything new is nightmarish. Deciding which devices should be analog, S-Video, optical, or digital coax is mind numbing. I'd hoped I could firewire everything together but that hasn't happened either, darn it.
Give me a receiver, DVD player, Tivo, consoles, TVs and speakers with WUSB and I'll be happy. Plug the buggers into a power strip and watch as magic happens and everything chats. Sure, It'll probably need a PAN ID of somesort to limit bleed between setups but dang, it'd make it so much easier to drop a DVD changer and another console or 3 into the setup.
I've been on slashdot so long I'm starting to get out of touch with the cool stuff if it ain't on slashdot.
From the whitepaper:
The above is certainly a requirement for WUSB to take off. However, it does not specify either a means or a method to achieve that goal.
Also, what is this bit about, "Higher levels of security involving encryption should be implemented at the application level?" Will we need to replace our applications with WUSB-Security Enabled (tm) apps?
Finally, long range WUSB coupled with the same level of understanding of, and dedication to, security consumers re: WIFI could make WUSB truly exciting.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
Don't worry about it. I'm sure it's your first time, and it won't happen again.
For me, cordless will become useful as soon as they invent cordless power supplies. Why would I want a wireless desktop if I had to keep changing the batteries in everything?
Art Schools Dietzilla
Isn't this going to be a security problem (just like the UPNP network device stuff)? Of course, perhaps Bluetooth has the same problems, I really don;t know, but it seems - especially for the high speed products - that the 'it just works' functionality of USB would be a security issue once it's gone wireless.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
nt
So what am I going to do with my Bluetooth desktop?
cry over it.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
Buy Bluetooth! Ericsson is great!
My 1337 USB c4b|3z with red, green and blue LEDs will become obsolete.
im sorry i see WUSB replace usb in the same way 802.11 replaced ethernet..... yea its a neat trick but nothing says speed like a slab of copper going to the back of your comp.
I mean... seriously, man, get a grip.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Awesome idea, 480Mbps wirelessly.
I'm still waiting for USB to provide 480 Mbps with wires.
From the article:
WUSB security will ensure the same level of security as wired USB. Connection-level security between devices will ensure that the appropriate device is associated and authenticated before operation of the device is permitted. Higher levels of security involving encryption should be implemented at the application level. Processing overhead supporting security should not impose noticeable performance impacts or add device costs.
Does anyone else smell the security problem waiting to happen? Sure, device association gets some security. But by keeping encryption at the application level, each device vendor will decide whether or not to encrypt between the application (or device driver) and the device. The problem? Since it's not a required part of the standard, who thinks any hardware vendors will bother? I doubt any will. So anyone parked in front of your house with a very high gain directional antenna can sniff your WUSB keyboard, watch everything you type, intercept printer jobs to your WUSB printer, duplicate all the data you send to your WUSB hard drive, and watch the video you're playing on your WUSB display.
This is why encryption should be REQUIRED, a good strong algorithm for the WUSB standard. Then applications can ADD encryption on top if they feel the need (Hey, layerd security is a good idea!).
The FBI, NSA, and Homeland Security probably like it the way it is proposed now.
nT.
nT!
Uhm, I believe I have a 4 port USB hub for sale. Anyone?
Wired USB devices tend to be able to suck necessary power from the USB port (v2.0 anyway)... unless we have made leaps forward in Tesla reseach, these devices wont be as wireless as you would thinks initially.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Could Someone please MIRROR my poor little Server before the /. effect breaks it
We already have Wireless Ethernet. Why not just build on that?
With WUSB, LAN parties are going to be a configuration nightmare:
-Hey, my joystick is controlling your PC, I'll switch channel, again.
-Hey, now my mouse isn't working
-OK, who's wasting paper printing this Hex crap?
You go to another LAN party with different players and the fun begins anew.
Any wireless device with a single antenna will act like a hub, broadcasting data to every client available and splitting the bandwidth between them. Currently, there is no way to point the transmission to a specific client (although it might be possible to create a wireless 'switch' with a few directional antennas).
So now my keyboard and mouse are going to have to plug into a giant wall wart for power. :(
Specification is good!
> Higher levels of security involving encryption
> should be implemented at the application level.
Basically this means that secure communications will be up to the vendors, since it's not part of the standard. What that means is that you can forget widespread compatibility. While BT has had its teething problems with compatibility, theoretically at least any headset should work with any phone. Using WUSB however that wouldn't be guaranteed at all, since each vendor could offer their own encryption implementation.
The article is also glossing over authentication, only stating that WUSB will use the same authentication as wired USB. What authentication?! AFAIK standard USB uses the tried-and-true authentication method of assuming that if it can talk to a device, it obviously must be connected to the bus, and since it's a physical local area bus, the person who plugged it in obviously had physical access to it and was thus "authorized". This particular chicken won't fly with WUSB, though.
The specification is good!
My WIFI setup at home already clobbers my cordless phone, and my low-power light bulbs emit interference and clobber them both. Now I need to cram bluetooth and WUSB into the same spectrum?
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Then why not have different tiers of external DC power supplies that differ not in connector shapes or predefined potentials but only in maximum power ratings, sensing the requested voltage based on the device?
Please put a bunch of magnets on a fan and have it swing past my hard drive. Why don't you save time and effort and not install a hardrive in my machine. Or am I missing something?
So what happens when my system and my wife's system are only 4 feet apart and I have a WUSB HD, printer, scanner, etc in between them and WinXP 'detects' and connects to the devices... on both machines? What happens when we both try to access a device at the same time? With typical USB, it connects to a single host, and that host can be setup up to share a device such as a printer or HD. But what happens when two systems contend for access to the same device? I know there are devices on the market that let you share a single USB device to two systems, but it includes a chip that manages things so that there's no contention.
Or worse, what happens when my neighbor on the common wall can wirelessly access my WUSB device and his Windows system simply connects to it. At least with WiFi I can use WEP which isn't perfect but puts hurdles up before he can connect. Will WUSB have anything better than WEP to allow restricted access to WUSB devices?
a few more abbreviations in that post.... please edit to accomidate
People seem to be missing the point regarding bluetooth: it's most important characteristic (in my opinion) is it's low power consumption. This is what makes it so suitable for cell phones, pda's, headsets, etc.
In deciding whether WUSB will replace bluetooth, you need to compare the power consumption of the two, not just the bandwidth.
OK, I've got a (hypothetical) PC with WUSB printer, external hard drive, MP3 player, MIDI controller, and mouse. The only thing is, so does my roommate, and his is 2 feet from mine. So, it seems like either there must be some sort of setup involved (like telling the device which PC it's looking for) in which case the just-plug-it-in-and-it-works aspect of USB is negated, or else you're in for lots of high-speed device conflicts.
.5 seconds and then you're done. With the above multiple-device/multiple-PC scenario, it seems like it might be considerably more trouble to configure the devices themselves then to just plug 'em in and not worry about it. Are we really that lazy? Do we really need wireless *everything*?
And on the tinfoil-hat tip, what's to keep Uncle Sam from driving by on the street with a WUSB equipped laptop and scanning all my files on that WUSB external drive? If my cable modem is WUSB, what's to keep the govt from just watching
everything I do online ever?
And why, if I might ask, is this necessary? Is the 2 seconds you spend pluggin the cord into the device really that important? Is it really that hard to plug the thumbdrive into an actual USB slot? I mean, we don't complain about plugging our headphones into our walkmans. You plug them in, it takes
They will never stop until somebody makes the
As usual, just because YOU don't use a technology doesn't mean that it has failed. Bluetooth is very much alive, try buying a cellphone today without it.
The decision to make Bluetooth a low bandwidth technology was a very conscious choice. This, together with many features to save energy can, and will, eventually make it ubiquitous. No commerical technology available today can even come close to the battery life of a Bluetooth device. WUSB will be great for using in your scanner or external harddrive which require an extra power source anyway, while WLAN will continue to be a replacment for the LAN and nothing else.
But for those devices that run on batteries (PDAs, cellphones, mp3 players, HIDs) Bluetooth is the manufacturers only choice.
Thanks for browsing at -1
Please vistit my blog: www.framtiden.nu
Ok so what is the truth?. html
Something religious?
http://www.nccg.org/FAQ109-Conscience
cause they are still putting handcuffs on me and drowning me in paperwork.
If we are not criminals, then we are soon to be made into criminals.
I don't see it that way. Bluetooth is a great technology. It's slow speed do limit it's applications, but for you mouse and your keyboard and syncing up your cell phone and such, it works great and there is no reason to replace it. It is also low power, isn't it?
Bluetooth is heavily targeted toward telephony applications.
One thing that "IP guys" are constantly missing the importance of is the need to deal with timing in streaming applications. (The telephone people missed it too, when they initially went digital, and spent decades fixing it up after the fact. Their latest generation - SONET - is orgznized around clocking. "Synchronous" is even the first word in the acronym.)
Basic idea is that, when you're sending a real-time stream at a constant sample rate, if you have a common timing reference at the transmitter and receiver things are a LOT simpler than if you have to infer the timing of the transmitter at the receiver. Doesn't matter if you propagate it with the signal or both ends get it from a common source by some complicated path - just get them clocked alike to make the endpoints' jobs enormously easier.
Voice signals, for instance, play out fine if the clocks at the two ends are synchronized, but have annoying clicks if not. These clicks can be cleaned up by adding heavy processing - which trashes FAX and high-speed modem signals. But that means adding a DSP (or equivalent computation) for uncompressed signals, or extra DSP work if you already having one doing compression. This takes power, at a premium in portable applications, and extra (or faster) silicon, which can raise costs. And even then the result is usually not as good as if the clocks were synchronized in the first place.
Phone companies synchronize nearly everything in their networks to a common clock, especially the 8,000/second sample rate of the A-to-D conversion of the voice signals, and distribute digitized voice (when uncompressed) as 64 kbit signals (8,000 8-bit samples per second.)
Bluetooth is organized around this. Time is broken up into 16,000 slots per second, with the master and the slaves taking turns - 8,000/second each. (What a conincidence that it's the voice sampling rate, eh?) The master sets the timing. The number of active slaves is limited, but a slave can extend the net to more active devices by becoming the master of a subnet. This makes little sense for net organization, but perfect sense if the slave is propagating timing from the master. Channel allocation within the net includes a fat general-purpose data channel plus three constant-rate bidirectional 64Kbit channels. (I.e. three phone calls.) A slave can participate in two separate nets - and can terminate all three 64K channels if in one net, or two of 'em if one is from each.
What this means is bluetooth is perfect for things like wireless headsets for cellphones. The cellphone provides a clock to the headset to set its sample rate, and the headset sends and plays out uncompressed audio. So the headset requires no DSP, little silicon, and little power. (The Bluetooth modulation scheme also makes for a simple, low-power, DSP-free radio.) The cellphone already has a DSP for compressing audio on its way to/from the net. It can in principle propagate network clocking to the handset, making things better end-to-end. Or it can just use its local clocking to make headset/DSP communication easier.
So Bluetooth makes design of cellphone audio peripherals nice. Cheaper, lower power, longer battery life, lighter weight, compared to any of the other schemes which don't propagate a phone-network or piconet-local timebase accessable beyond the network stack and/or require heavy DSP processing to work at all. Thus it's unlikely cellphones will be moving away from it any time soon - and when they do they'll probably move to something else that also propagates clocking. Since bluetooth can also handle a moderately-fast data link for WAN traffic, you get wireless internet connection throu
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
OK but imagine if you have a lot of USB devices, maybe 10 or 20. It's not realistic to have them all going into a USB hub. This system would allow lots of devices to be used as and when without annoying cables cluttering the place up. I do admit that there seem to be potential issues with regards hardware conflicts and security; but it's stil something which should be looked into.
(http://www.e-consort.co.uk)
Basically UWB is a nasty piece of work that's being rammed through with corporate pressure and by lobby groups set up by manufacturers. Now that Intel has signed on and indicated it intends to make it ubiquitous, we're pretty much doomed. It seems to have passed certification in the US, but with any luck it won't pass in Europe. It'll hopefully go the way of broadband over powerlines - everyone finally figures out it's just a bunch of snake oil salesmen pedalling faulty goods.
I can see where this is going -- wardrive everything.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
The article claims a 300 mW power target for WUSB implementations - this is about the same as a WiFi implementation on a PDA, which is already a lot. WUSB simply *cannot* take over as a super-low-power wireless technology based on that number. Bluetooth implementations use 10x less power. For example, WUSB can't possibly replace bluetooth hands-free microphones for cellular. WUSB isn't going to connect PDAs to cellphones for internet connections. WUSB isn't going to succeed in a battery-powered wireless mouse. The list goes on... Bluetooth, for all of its failed promises, is truly becoming entrenched in these types of applications. WUSB can only complete if it has a low-speed, low-power "peripheral mode" ala USB 1.1 vs. USB 2.0.
It would be handy to have multiple wireless gamepads and other controllers for your GameCube/XBox/PS2. I gave up on a wireless mouse for a system where it would seem like I could use one, though, just because at times it became hard to find the darned thing. (I did keep the wireless keyboard.)
P.S. Although it has fairly few applications that call for it, the tilt-wheel on new Microsoft mice is a pretty decent controller for side-scrolling. The only weakness in the wireless MS mouse I got is that there are no detentes in the normal scrolling, so occasionally you'll try to side scroll and get a line of vertical scrolling at the same time.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
But you can divide the bandwidth in the frequency domain instead of in the time domain, giving each client a continous bit stream but at a lower bitrate.
In that case you've still divided it - it's just a matter of how.
Using one big channel for your piconet and splitting it in time means you can divide it any way you want, and reconfigure the division on a message-by-message basis. Except for streaming applications, IP traffic is inherently "bursty" - so you can't predict what bandwidth each link will need in the next instant.
Dividing things up in the frequency domain means you have to reconfigure the radio links to adjust the bandwidth. This can cost you bandwidth for agreing to make the adjustment and time while things are settling. (Also - the radio is at the bottom of the comm stack while the info about traffic, to the extent there's any available beyond what's in the queues, is at the top - which may not be local.) And you can't participate in broadcasts - which means broadcast traffic gets replicated before transmition and chews up more bandwidth. You also have "receiver quieting" isuses, as another loud talker on a nearby frequency slice makes it hard for your receiver to pull the farther-away signal YOU want to hear out of the noise.
So you're far ahead to do your division in the time rather than the frequency domain, and save frequency domain splits for separating unrelated piconets.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
isn't that just begging to be pronounced "wasabi?" And wasabi's always a good thing.
WirelessUSB isn't meant for keyboards and mice really. It's built around attaching storage and other high-speed current-USB devices without all the damned wires. Just think, that FireWire or USB2.0 harddrive you have won't need the wire anymore. You won't have to find plugs in certain areas or string wires through hoops anymore. As more wireless adds on, the mess under my computer (and some others in the office) gets smaller. Things are getting better. I just wish they'd stick with one F'in standard. Why can't this be Bluetooth 2.0 so that all my current bluetooth stuff still works? It sure would be nice. But no, I'll have bluetooth plus WUSB at some point. Oh great, another piece of hardware to buy!
So this could effectively be called a "triple-USB," right? Saying "W.U.S.B." is just silly.
Today = 2004-04-15
Linked article = 2004-02-21
Difference = 54 days ... maybe then I could get everything done on the weekends!
Oh how I wish there were 18 days in a week
it took just one LAN party for me to vow never to buy a radio-wireless keyboard or mouse. Two friends of mine had different model kb/mouse combos, making it interesting in those heated games of Quake 3.
At least every 5 minutes you would hear "Click, Kerry, dammit, CLICK!"
---- Design. Invent. Cheese.
While many devices use powered USB or an alternate source (such as my digital camera, which will use USB power or battery power as convenient), others (such as my webcam/scanner) are powered only by USB. In this case, I'd say that you'd probably be looking at a powered USB hub - which could be detached from the computer but would still need to plug into your devices and/or have a wall plug and/or batteries.
What planet do you live on? USB doesn't carry enough power to be useful: I have 11 USB devices, 10 have their own power bricks and cords. Now even the damn mouse has a power brick, leaving the keyboard as the only USB-powered device.
The KVM, Hub, Scanner, Inkjet Printer, Laser Printer, Label Printer, Speakers, Palm Cradle, HD, and Zip Drive all have bricks and cables. My digital camera doesn't have a power cable, but can't charge its batteries off USB either.
My iPod mini charges off the firewire cable, which is genius. All external devices and data busses should work this way.
I'd be more than happy to accept a heavier CPU (for the larger power supply), thicker cable, and bigger connectors in order to be able to run only one daisy-chained cable from device to device.
There are 60+ cables and FIVE full power strips behind my computer desk. Last time I rewired it took two days to get it organized. Combining data and power would be far more useful to me than wireless USB.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
are you confusing bytes and bits!?
GrimRC
USB should stay in use for low bandwidth serial devices, like keyboard, mice...
Im not trying to troll here, but I would love a WUSB drive that is accessable by more then one box. It would put a new meaning to "household" storage if each system in the house could access it, as it was its own drive. Think of the posibilties for cluster systems. One could create one boot hard drive, and have every computer attach it via WUSB and boot. Or look at a lan party sistuation. I want to spread out a copy of some freeware client out, so I put it on a WUSB drive, and put it in the middle of the room, and everyone attaches to it easly. Theres alot of reasons I could see this being useful for storage if it can attach a few times. Even think about WUSB monitors.
Don't know whether it's cause I read at 4+, but nobody has mentioned that the Wireless USB consortium intends to run WUSB _ON TOP OF_ 802.15.3a. Right now the standardization of 802.15.3a is being held up by Motorola who is bitter that their proposal isn't going to be the winner. The competing proposal (supported by everybody and their dog) is being released anyways and is having WUSB built around it to drive adoption.
If you really want to know what's going on you can read the minutes from the standards committee meetings.
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through massive tesla coils on your roof. your neighbours may complain about the unusual localised weather over their house, but you'll be able to charge everything up wirelessly, and light your home by simply propping flourescent light tubes in the corner - they'll glow by themselves...
Tesla Rocks.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."