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USB To Go Wireless
Troy Samuel writes "The WiMedia Alliance is planning to make the technology known as 'ultrawideband,' or UWB, work among a wide variety of consumer electronics devices. Various organizations, including the Bluetooth SIG, have chosen the WiMedia Alliance's version of UWB technology as the foundation for a next-generation short-range networking technology." From the article: "UWB technology can deliver data rates at up to 480 megabits per second at around 3 meters, with speeds dropping off as the range grows to a limit of about 10 meters. Real-world speeds will probably be a little slower, but this is as fast as the wired version of USB 2.0 and much faster than current Wi-Fi networks are capable of transmitting data. 'This stuff is plumbing,' Roger Kay, an analyst with Endpoint Technologies Associates, said of the newer-generation wireless technology. 'It's important that it be there, it's going to be handy for getting rid of cables hanging around your desk.'"
1600 x 1200 x 32bpp per pixel x 30 fps = 1.85 Gbps
http://kitties.b-log.ca
24 bits = 3 bytes
3 bytes * 1200 * 1600 = 5.76 Megabytes
Assuming a refresh rate of 50fps that's 288 Megabyte/second or 2.25 Gigabits/second A monitor's a rather pointless one though as it requires a cable for the power.
Video Game cheats, hints a
For that matter, one of the benefits of USB is that power is delivered along with the data--how often do you change the batteries on your thumb-drive, or plug in your 2.5" external hard drive? So, directly compared to USB I still need the same number of cables, unless they're delivering power wirelessly too? Hmm...
----- Connection reset by beer
It would be nice if the only cables on my desk were power cables.
No, wait! It's back up with an annoying alert that it's connected again!
Wait, no, it dropped again.
I love this game.
A monitor's a rather pointless one though as it requires a cable for the power.
So that's why my laptop keeps going dark whenever I move more than six feet away from my desk.
KFG
symmetric peer-to-peer interfaces like that provided by Firewire.
Firewire actually has rather strong master/slave relationships; there's a tree, and a tree root, and a master node. But there's a negotiation process during hot-plugging which establishes the master/slave relationships.
One big problem with Firewire is that it doesn't have a notion of device ownership. You can plug two computers together with FireWire, and that will work if both machines support IP or Ethernet over FireWire. But plug a peripheral into the same bus, and there's no mechanism to allocate it to a unique host computer. You'll get a control clash.
Underneath, FireWire isn't really a "bus". It's actually a local area network, and its controllers work more like Ethernet controllers, with packets and buffer chains, than bus adapters.
The "bus" aspect is that there are defined packet formats for loading and storing 32-bit data items in a 64 bit address space. In practice, though, what usually happens is that at the host end, some code formats such a packet, saying "set bit 22 of register 0x2490 at node 3", and when that packet gets to node 3, some little CPU in the peripheral decodes the packet, acknowledges receipt of the packet, a switch statement decodes the "register" address, and code notes that bit 22 means "turn camera on". No status for this event comes back; the host has to send a packet to "read" some other device register to find out what happened.
Giving FireWire a "device register" model turned out, in the end, to be kind of silly. Something more like SCSI, with function codes and statuses, would have made more sense. (And, in fact, there's SCSI over FireWire.) You'd get back better status info, and devices which don't implement some functions would have a simple way to report that. This makes it easier to implement generic drivers, reducing the temptation to have to have a special driver for every manufacturer's device. And we all know where that leads.
So if you're designing something like this, don't go with a device register model. Anything smart enough to talk it will have a CPU, so use it.
I've never seen the point in the recent uptake in wireless technology. I have a wireless network, but it's just so I don't have to run network cords around my apartment. I hate my wireless network - it's unreliable and slow, despite being all alone on its channel and usually running at 54 Mbps. However, despite my own issues with it, I understand the point of wireless networking. It's great for public access or situations like my apartment where running cables cleanly is difficult. I can also see the point of a bluetooth mouse for a laptop, or a bluetooth keyboard for your PDA. It makes things faster and more portable, and gives you more freedom.
However, I draw the limit there. My keyboard, mouse, monitor, printer, external storage, and occasional other things are all wired. I don't have to keep track of batteries, and I don't get poor performance near the end of my battery life. It's all sitting on my desk not moving anyway, and there are only a few cords present on my desk - the rest are hidden behind the desk. I also like the tactile effort cords provide. When I plug my graphing calculator into my computer, when I stick a USB thumb drive in, when I connect my camera, when I plug in my headphones, or when I hook up a USB card reader, there's tactile feedback. I know I have just achieved something. I also don't find it terribly inconvenient to stick my flash drive into a front USB port.
There's more than just reliability and feedback, though. When I unplug my flash drive or external hard drive, I know that the devices are powered down and safe from snooping eyes, and not experiencing wear and tear. I also know that when I sit down at the computer lab with my flash drive in my pocket, the guy next to me isn't stealing my files. I understand that the connection between the computer and device will probably be encrypted automatically, so that's fine. But what about the connection process? If I have to go through a lengthly process to associate the device before I can use it (bluetooth), then I'm not really any better off than I was with wired USB. If I don't have to go through that process, what's stopping the guy next to me from doing it? And in the same computer lab, with USB my mouse isn't going to suddenly decide to associate itself with the computer across the way. Now, we could password protect the flash drive. However, and perhaps I'm alone on this, I'd rather not have a password on my mouse. And what if I replace 'mouse' with 'keyboard?' You can't password protect a keyboard.
Computers need to explode more often.
but... if i've got one of these devices in my backpack and i walk past a whole heap of computers, lets say in an office for example... is it going to try and install it automatically?
"Windows has recognised your UWB vibrator and is installing it now......"