FireWire Gets Ready to Go Wireless

mindless4210 writes "The 1394 Trade Association has approved a specification for the development of wireless FireWire applications, which will let 1394-enabled devices, both wired and unwired, to connect with each other. The new spec will enable communication between a variety of devices, such as set-top boxes, HDTVs, tuners, and DVD players, all of which will be able to interoperate in home networks. Officials speculated that in the future there could be plug-in cards for set-top boxes enabling wireless connection to DVD players and hard-disk drives. The trade association also said it will work with the WiMedia Alliance to jointly develop collaborative products."

Comments

Like I said...

[Revvy]

It's been around a while.

Re:WiFi?

[Raindance]

Basically, yes, some are good for some things; others, for other things, and this usually centers around error tolerance- of the data you want transferred, and of your connection method.

Firewire, for instance, has error-checking and error-correction built into its spec (it'd be smarter about errors than, say, WIFI). You can build in the same with other protocols but you take a bigger performance and output hit and firewire might end up as more fundamentally reliable regardless. Some protocols do better with broadcast mediums as well.

Someday perhaps we'll standardize on one wireless protocol when we've enough over-the-air bandwidth and processing power as to make tradeoffs trivial, but that day has not yet come.

RD

802.15.3 = UWB

[FreeHeel]

"Enter 802.15.3, a specification being groomed for IEEE standard status that provides ad hoc wireless PANs - short range (1-50m) and ad hoc, in other words. 802.15.3 builds on the 802.15 standard by adding QoS specifically to allow the PAN to carry digital imaging and multimedia data. It also builds in data security, implementing privacy and authentication services. 802.15.3 operates in the 2.4GHz band at 11, 22, 33, 44, and 55Mbps.

Unlike 802.11 connections, 802.15.3 is designed for peer-to-peer operation rather than routing data through an access point, whether that's a base-station or a client machine configured as one. Access points can become network bottlenecks.

The final spec. is expected to be submitted for IEEE approval in June. In the meantime, an alternative spec., 802.15.3a, is under development to create a higher data PHY to replace the 55Mbps 2.4GHz PHY in 802.15.3. It's increasingly likely that 802.15.3a will be based on ultra-wideband (UWB) technology, but it has to get through selection procedures this month and in July first. However, it has the potential to reach data rates of 100Mbps and ultimately the 400Mbps (at 5m) offered by standard 1394 wired links."

Team targets 802.15.3 for wireless video networks

Re:Because cell phones aren't bad enough

[TexVex]

I wonder if this period will be remembered as the biggest soft tissue experiment in human history. Heck, I don't even sit next to people using cell phones or near micowave ovens.

Apparently you do sit near a computer monitor. Cell phones transmit RF at under one watt. You probably get more RF energy through your skull from all the nearby radio and TV stations. Do you really think microwave ovens could be sold anywhere, if they leaked even remotely dangerous levels of radiation? Radio waves and microwaves aren't even ionizing radiation (like X-rays and Gamma rays). Visible light is radiation as well. You should just wrap a towel around your head to avoid all this potential harm in the form of electromagnetic energy.

Re:Wireless (fill in the blank)

[LostCluster]

It means that the standard came from the same standard organization that set the original, so you can be pretty sure that they didn't do anything stupid that'd lock out the wired-generation devices from using a wired-to-wireless bridge.

In short, basing on an existing wired standard means all the wireless standard needs to do is to define a radio link that emulates a wired link. Only the radio bridges need to be aware that wireless is being used, the other end of the bridge can just claim to be a typical powered or unpowered hub. There'd likely be some sort of way to issue an "Are you wireless?" query to hubs so that appications that can't tolerate the small delay wireless creates can scream about not having a good enough connection, and things like that... but most of the heavy lift operations can just lean on the wired standard.

Re:Because cell phones aren't bad enough

[Anonymous Coward]

the energy absorbed is inverse square root to the distance away from the source. Hence a week source 0.03m away from the skull (i.e. mobile phone) is actually potentially more damaging than a strong one several thousand meters away (i.e. radio TV stations)

Re:Can't they all just get along?

[dgatwood]

Why are there two standards that seemingly do the same thing? Firewire and USB are both industry standards, yet they seemingly are designed to connect peripherals to PCs.

Simple. The two busses have little in common.

Firewire:

• peer-to-peer design (all devices are created equal)
• low CPU overhead due to an intelligent controller with DMA
• requires smarter hardware due to peer-to-peer design
• heavily standardized protocols for storage, audio, video.

USB:

• host-device design - devices can only talk to host, not each other
• higher CPU overhead since the host controller is relatively dumb
• really inexpensive hardware (both host and device), ideal for low-cost devices
• standardized protocols for pretty much everything, but particularly human interface devices

Firewire is well-suited to audio/video applications and storage, since those applications require heavy throughput, which would severely tax the CPU when using USB.

USB is well-suited to low-speed devices like keyboards, mice, and inexpensive still cameras, scanners, and other consumer devices, since cost is the primary factor in their design.

Just my $0.02.