Wireless Video Transfers 100X Faster Than WiFi

coondoggie writes "Later today IBM plans to announce microprocessor chipsets that can wirelessly transmit high-definition video at extremely high speeds. 'IBM will do this by teaming with MediaTek to launch a joint initiative to develop these ultra fast chipsets.The companies will be developing millimeter wave (mmWave) radio technology — the highest frequency portion of the radio spectrum — 60 gigahertz rather than 2.4 gigahertz — and digital chipsets that enable at least 100 times higher data rates than current Wi-Fi standards.'"

Comments

Walls

[PineGreen]

First post: does it go through the walls? It's going to be difficult at these frequencies!

Re:Walls

[Tuoqui]

I'm betting its useless through walls since 802.11a uses 5GHz band and it very reliant on line of sight (you might be able to put it through a single wall). There are good reasons to use these though like if you want to limit your WiFi to the inside of a building and such it might limit the range to an acceptable level outside where someone passing by on the road wont be able to pick up a wireless signal. Likewise using these ultra high frequency ranges may make it impossible for it to pass outside the house which would effectively be good if you wanted to design a system that neighbors could not catch what you're watching on their TV.

The thing is from what I understand is that in order to get data from A to B more quickly you either need A) Multiple bands/More Bandwidth or B) Higher Frequency because you can switch states faster.

Re:Walls

[Anonymous Coward]

does it go through the walls? It's going to be difficult at these frequencies!

For many practical application, it would be better if wireless did not penetrate walls. This would make it easier to plan wireless coverage when you don't want someone in your parking lot to have access.

Re:Walls

[Anonymous Coward]

There are good reasons to use these though like if you want to limit your WiFi to the inside of a building and such it might limit the range to an acceptable level outside where someone passing by on the road wont be able to pick up a wireless signal. That awfuly sounds like security through obscurity, but then again what form of security isn't. What you are saying also reminds me of "It's not a bug, it's a feature" syndrome.

Re:Walls

[Linker3000]

I understand you get a better, more penetrating, signal using MONSTER gold-plated mm wave antennae. Apparently they produce signal waves using gold ions so any streamed video has sharper definition and crisper sound.

There's a picture of one of these SupaAntennas here.

The normal selling price is $99.99/pair but I can do two for only $49.99.

Re:Walls

[Anonymous Coward]

Higher Frequency because you can switch states faster.

No, the throughput does not depend on the center frequency of the band. Only the absolute band-width is important. If you can use a 1GHz wide channel at 60GHz, then that's the advantage over 20MHz/40MHz channels in the 2.4GHz band. The base frequency does not come into it.

Re:Walls

[evilviper]

if you want to limit your WiFi to the inside of a building and such it might limit the range to an acceptable level outside where someone passing by on the road wont be able to pick up a wireless signal.

A very bad idea. You're likely to install it in a room with a window, which it will go through with no trouble and provide a strong signal to anyone outside, while you'll still struggle to get a signal in the next room (through a wall, not a window).

Re:Walls

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to say: "The security is out the window", but you beat me to it.

Re:Walls

[Nullav]

That awfuly sounds like security through obscurity, but then again what form of security isn't.

'Security through obscurity' doesn't refer to hiding data, but rather hiding the means by which the data was hidden.

What you are saying also reminds me of "It's not a bug, it's a feature" syndrome.

It may not be a good idea for covering an office building or school, but it's perfect for personal use if you only care about one room and you worry moocher trying to break into your network. Apartment complexes come to mind as one of the places to use this. Provided the '100 times faster' boast holds up, I can't see anything wrong with this for personal use.

Re:Walls

[BESTouff]

Parent shouldn't be moderated "funny". This thing should work through walls if it wants to go in most houses.

Re:Walls

[Anonymous Coward]

The typical use-case will be the elimination of the cable rats nest behind consumer electronics. You only need short range line-of-sight connections to beam movies from the player to the tv set. This technology will replace HDMI cables, not ethernet cables.

Re:Walls

[Red Flayer]

which would effectively be good if you wanted to design a system that neighbors could not catch what you're watching on their TV.

What I want to know is how you are watching something on your neighbor's TV. Reminds me to keep my blinds closed -- if you can watch my TV from your house, I'm scared to think of what else you've seen.

Then again, if you'd seen anything worth worrying about, you're probably still recovering from the horror. I am my own best defense against peeping toms.

Re:Walls

[jank1887]

yeah, but weren't we promised the same by UWB a few years back, until the FCC defanged it over fears of interference, and the two "standard" forms beat each other to death? I'm still waiting for my UWB stereo to get audio from my UWB enabled PC, while sending a print job over UWB to my UWB-networked printer, while watching a DVD being streamed over UWB from the player to my UWB-enabled TV.

Maybe this will hit the market with a little more momentum?

Re:Walls

[RadioElectric]

Then the way to go would be to put it in one room and then knock holes in the walls for the signal to go through. Even better, if you could concentrate the signal into a smaller width of broadcast you'd need a smaller hole to fit the same signal strength through. For absoulute security and extra directional power (and thus smaller holes) you could put the signal into some kind of insulated metal rope and send it along that directly into the target device. Am I on to something here?

Re:Walls

[Hatta]

You laugh, but it would be a lot easier to have a wireless outlet that just acts as a repeater between rooms, than to drag cables across the room and plug it into an outlet.

Re:Walls

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you're going to _coax_ people into running wires all through their homes...

Homes are floating in the air and so is everything in it, so they are meant to be wireless...

Re:Walls

[zippthorne]

... reminds me of "It's not a bug, it's a feature" syndrome.

It's not a bug or a feature. It's a design decision. It may be a useful compromise for your situation, or even a complementary benefit, or it may not. But you can't change the physics to suit your idea of an ideal wireless communications device, or indeed even make an assumption about what everyone's ideal wireless communications device even is.

Re:Walls

[afxgrin]

Thank you for that.

Re:Walls

[Anonymous Coward]

Replace the walls with glass windows...

..I tend to use the wireless from the bathroom too

Re:Walls

[Detritus]

The thing is from what I understand is that in order to get data from A to B more quickly you either need A) Multiple bands/More Bandwidth or B) Higher Frequency because you can switch states faster.

The relevant parameters are bandwidth and signal-to-noise ratio, not the frequency.

Re:Walls

[StCredZero]

I thought knocking holes in walls so you could watch porn got you in trouble like this guy?

Article is shithouse.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Article is shithouse - light on detail beyond belief. Check out IBM's 60GHz page.

What you want to know: Practical limitation is 10M, useless through walls.

Re:Article is shithouse.

[SeekerDarksteel]

What you want to know: Practical limitation is 10M, useless through walls.

Or 82 miles with a pringles can.

Re:Article is shithouse.

[DigitAl56K]

Practical limitation is 10M, useless through walls.

Bah. I've been able to see people in HD from ten meters for years!

Re:Article is shithouse.

[evilviper]

Or 82 miles with a pringles can.

At 60GHz? Not if there's any... you know... MOISTURE in the air around you.

Re:Article is shithouse.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

At 60GHz? Not if there's any... you know... MOISTURE in the air around you.

Or even any oxygen.

Re:Article is shithouse.

[Technician]

Or 82 miles with a pringles can.

You were modded funny, but you are not far off. As the frequency increases, the antenna size goes down to have the same beam angle and range. WiFi is near the frequency of C band satelite TV. This typicaly used an 8 to 12 foot dish. These used dishes are what are used for the long range WiFi. Instead of a pringles can, a Dish Network disk should have great gain at 60 Ghz as long as the surface is reasonably perfect to a 1/4 wavelength.

Re:Article is shithouse.

[abionnnn]

Well not quite, as well as the square power-law there's also an exponential attenuation factor due to absorption by the atmosphere. It is far greater at 60GHz than at 2.4GHz.

http://www.everythingweather.com/atmospheric-radiation/absorption.shtml (60GHz ~5mm)

Re:Article is shithouse.

[TheRaven64]

What you want to know: Practical limitation is 10M, useless through walls. This makes it pretty nice for a lot of uses, since it removes much of the potential for interference. A good use-case for this kind of technology would be your pocket computer talking to your TV for display when you were in your home. Throw in a wireless keyboard and pointing device and you've got an ideal pocket computer. With that much bandwidth, you can also talk to the NAS hidden in your basement with access points in each room.

Re:Article is shithouse.

[necro81]

IBM isn't the only folks working on this. IEEE Spectrum this month has a description of a competing 60 GHz technology.

Re:Article is shithouse.

[mwilliamson]

>The laws of probability forbid it!

Not quite...but you will need to have an infinite improbability drive card properly installed in one of your ship's spare PCI slots.

Different from military application?

[DigitAl56K]

Is this different from the previously reported military use of millimeter wave in anything other than power? If so, what are the dangers, or is it supposedly safe?

Re:Different from military application?

[jank1887]

difference = frequency (60GHz vs 95GHz). It's a coupling efficiency issue. One couples well to your nerve endings, creating a burning feeling, the other doesn't. It may also be safe to assume that in standard implementation, these would use omni (or near omni) antennas, not a focused beam targeted at a human target. But, the Pringles can types may have their own ideas.

Awesome. Just what we need!

[Anonymous Coward]

Perfect! Now IBM has their opportunity to present another wonderful product, just like SNA networking equipment back in the day!

Hmmm

[xrayspx]

Wireless Video Transfers 100X Faster Than WiFi

Philo Farnsworth called the technology Image Dissection. I hear they get pretty bitchin' range with it too. AFAIK it now also handles HD content.

Line of sight only

[scsirob]

60GHz signals do not travel through walls or anything else. You can't set up a central transmitter in your house and watch HD movies elsewhere. This is nice technology to 'beam' signals across a street or to prevent wiring mess in an ad-hoc meeting room, but it won't be a real WiFi replacement

Re:Line of sight only

[Spad]

It's simple, you just drill a small hole in each wall to let the signal through; about 5.1mm should do it.

Re:Line of sight only

[DigitAl56K]

It's simple, you just drill a small hole in each wall to let the signal through; about 5.1mm should do it.

And at that point it's better than using a cable because... ?

Re:Line of sight only

[femto]

I would modify that slightly by saying 60GHz will travel through a typical office partition (with attenuation), so it's slightly better than line of sight (ie. infrared). Bricks walls are out, you might get away with a plasterboard wall. You probably can put a 60GHz access point on the ceiling of an open plan office and get a useful signal to each desk through a combination of propagation through light partitions, reflection and directional antennas. It will save having to wire an open plan office with ethernet. I know this because I was involved in a 60GHz project, that included a propagation study, in 1995. Google for the paper "A HIGH-SPEED WIRELESS LAN", IEEE Micro, 1997.

Re:Line of sight only

[ozamosi]

But if my wifi chipset would support this, as well as 802.11a/b/g, it would lead to interesting possibilities. I'm thinking ad-hoc connections - let's say I'm at my friend's, and I have this DVD iso that we want to watch on his TV/HTPC. Currently, I can either transfer the file in 27Mbps (802.11g - "54Mbps - it's full duplex and 27 in each direction!"), or I can go find a cable and transfer it in 100Mbps. I hate cables, but for transfering files, I really need one currently. In a few years, we'll be using 802.11n and gigabit ethernet, which will help of course, but at that point the DVD iso will be a Bluray or HD-DVD iso, so we're stuck with basicly the same problem.

What I'm thinking is that I walk up to the HTPC, identify it among the nodes in my wlan subnet, and tell it to use this protocol. A high-speed, link-local network is created, the file is transfered as fast as my hard drive (obviously a solid state one - this is the future) can read, and we can watch the movie in no time. Without cables.

Re:Line of sight only

[wvmarle]

It's simple, you just drill a small hole in each wall to let the signal through; about 5.1mm should do it.
And at that point it's better than using a cable because... ?

It saves you the cable of course! I mean, it's not that easy to push a cable through a 5.1 mm hole in the wall.

Re:Line of sight only

[clickety6]

It's simple, you just drill a small hole in each wall to let the signal through; about 5.1mm should do it.

of course, you could just leave the doors open ;-)

Re:Line of sight only

[wvmarle]

As it is line of sight: how about people walking around the room while watching? There must be a certain line in between the transmitter and the receiver - if someone walks or worse, sits in between those two points: no signal anymore! That doesn't sound very convenient to me. Wifi at least goes through a person. No need to turn around to get a better signal because the access point is behind you.

Sounds like quite a concern to me. Especially as the aerials will be really small, so it will be really just a line in between the two points.

Wouter.

Re:Line of sight only

[Whiteox]

I mean, it's not that easy to push a cable through a 5.1 mm hole in the wall. Unless you use a 5mm cable.

Re:Line of sight only

[markov_chain]

What about with lots of power and MIMO? Office environment has lots of reflectors...

Re:Line of sight only

[suv4x4]

60GHz signals do not travel through walls or anything else. You can't set up a central transmitter in your house and watch HD movies elsewhere. This is nice technology to 'beam' signals across a street or to prevent wiring mess in an ad-hoc meeting room, but it won't be a real WiFi replacement

Checkout my idea:

We know power lines can carry data. So, you buy little transformer-like devices that take this wireless video signal, transform it and beam the data in the power network.

Then you take another such transformer, and plug it in any socket at all in your house, or house around you even, which beams the data back to 60 GB wireless signal which hits your laptop, tv, console etc.

Achieved benefits:

1. no wires
2. works through walls
3. gigabits of bandwidth for your video and net
4. potentially getting brain cancer and dying young, but that's not important.

Well, what do you think? Can we file a patent here or what?

Re:Line of sight only

[femto]

Perhaps. As you have pointed out, MIMO relies on a "rich" multipath channel with lots of reflectors. Above 10GHz the channel starts to move towards ray propagation, reducing the amount of multipath in the channel. This might reduce the effectiveness of MIMO. I said "perhaps" because an open plan office might be a special case due to the sheer number of metallic reflectors in range. I gather some research groups are performing the relevant channel measurements, but I haven't seen the results.

Re:Line of sight only

[marcansoft]

But you can always just stream the content. 27Mbps is good enough for DVD and even decently compressed HD. 100Mbps Ethernet will stream HD without any trouble.

Re:Line of sight only

[Tanman]

And at that point it's better than using a cable because... ?

Because then there are no cables... ?

Re:Line of sight only

[darthflo]

Sounds like a nice strategy to me, but last time I checked this PowerLine stuff was slower and less reliable than WiFi. No multi-gigabit connectivity there, unfortunately.

Re:Line of sight only

[CastrTroy]

Also, I have to wonder what the power requirements of these chips will be. My cell phone currently drains itself exteremely quickly, when you're actually talking on it. Most cell phones get a maximum of 4 hours talk time. Same with my Laptop. Start doing heavy internet downloading, and the battery usage really drops. It seems to me that for watching video, it's much more efficient to just have it stored locally. Just download it from home, and put it on an SD card or the Harddrive.

Re:Line of sight only

[evilviper]

A high-speed, link-local network is created, the file is transfered as fast as my hard drive (obviously a solid state one - this is the future) can read, and we can watch the movie in no time. Without cables.

This is a rather ignorant and VERY Microsoft-centric world-view... Use any other operating system, and you can start playing the video while it's being transferred.

If your link can't transfer the video file faster than real-time, you might have to wait until some percentage of the file has been downloaded before starting playback, but that's not very likely to be a problem. Even 802.11g should provide more than enough bandwidth for real-time transfers for high-def videos, and in the future, you'll have 802.11n or other, even faster, standards.

Re:Line of sight only

[Chineseyes]

Leave the doors open? You do realize that HD porn will probably be the first thing viewed with such technology? Still want to have an open door policy?

Re:Line of sight only

[Ant P.]

It'd work great in open plan places like airports though. Replacing kilometres of AV cable to the information screens with a handful of wireless transmitters is a Good Thing.

Re:Line of sight only

[Hatta]

You can't trip over radio waves. They don't get tangled either.

Re:Line of sight only

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad power lines aren't twisted pair; you're going to get a lot of noise.

(And the Ham enthusiasts will hate you too!)

Yeah, I know, whoosh, right?

Re:Line of sight only

[Martin Blank]

Currently, I can either transfer the file in 27Mbps (802.11g - "54Mbps - it's full duplex and 27 in each direction!")

Most 54Mbps wireless networks do max out at about 30Mbps, but not for that reason. You miss out on the max speeds because of overhead from the 802.11 protocols and interference, not so much because it's flipping directions. If you've got 802.11b clients in the area, it can get even worse, dropping an 802.11g connection down to a practical throughput of about 15Mbps.

Anyone who claims wireless is full duplex doesn't know what they're talking about.

Re:Line of sight only

[Anonymous Coward]

No worries, I've already patented your idea using my own name!

Re:Line of sight only

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who claims wireless is full duplex doesn't know what they're talking about.

While WiFi isn't, it's very possible for wireless to be full duplex, by using two channels at different frequencies. This is done all the time.

Re:Line of sight only

[Thundersnatch]

This is a rather ignorant and VERY Microsoft-centric world-view... Use any other operating system, and you can start playing the video while it's being transferred.

Huh? Windows Media player starts playing most media file types as they download. It's been like that for years, at least as far back as I can remember Windows Media Player existing (Win 98?). I just verified it with an mpeg demo file at this link.

Why?

[bpjk]

At that frequency, the signal wouldn't penetrate walls very well, would it?

Re:Why?

[jon287]

At that frequency, the signal wouldn't penetrate walls very well, would it?

At that frequency, the signal wouldn't penetrate PAPER very well. You can think of it (nearly correctly) as a very weak flashlight beam, much like a regular old TV remote. Only lots more picky about everything being just right.

Not *that* fast

[egarland]

Since Wi-Fi is generally 11-54 mbit they're only talking 1-5 gbit. The mentioned use is for video so it sounds like they are trying to connect displays to devices that generate output, i.e. replacing a monitor cable. For comparison DVI is 3.7 gbit, DVI-D 7.4. Most likely they are talking about the 1-2 gbit range since if it was in the 5gbit range they'd probably have said so instead of 100x wifi. That data rate would only be useful for low-resolution displays like HDTVs, not for general purpose computer monitor use. The devices would likely need to be close to each other due to the high frequencies. It sounds like they may be targeting removing the cable requirements home theater systems or something similar.

Personally.. I like cables for hooking up video. Wireless is buggy, snoopable, power hungry, and hard to set up (with 4 transmitters and 4 receivers, how to you configure what displays where?) Cables, while bulky and sometimes annoying have an incredibly easy UI. Plug one end here, the other end there, the things are connected. Want to change it? plug the wire in somewhere else.

Re:Not *that* fast

[feepness]

Personally.. I like cables for hooking up video. Wireless is buggy, snoopable, power hungry, and hard to set up (with 4 transmitters and 4 receivers, how to you configure what displays where?) Cables, while bulky and sometimes annoying have an incredibly easy UI. Plug one end here, the other end there, the things are connected. Want to change it? plug the wire in somewhere else. And until they can beam the power, it's doesn't get rid of the need for wires anyway.

Re:Not *that* fast

[wizrd_nml]

Personally.. I like cables for hooking up video. Wireless is buggy, snoopable, power hungry, and hard to set up (with 4 transmitters and 4 receivers, how to you configure what displays where?) Cables, while bulky and sometimes annoying have an incredibly easy UI. Plug one end here, the other end there, the things are connected. Want to change it? plug the wire in somewhere else.

You have a point in that, as with any new technology, the first few iterations of wireless video will probably not work very smoothly. But you gotta start somewhere. I'm sure that eventually all the quirks will be sorted out and we won't remember the days when wires were necessary.

Re:Not *that* fast

[Nazlfrag]

Yep, this new fangled wireless technology is bound to take off soon. If only it was invented, say 100 years back so we could have some time to accommodate it into our technology.

Re:Not *that* fast

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I wouldn't know about that. WiFi has been around for some time now and I still really don't like it that much, I don't consider it mature yet.

I think wireless video has been around for some time too.

It's hard to say if this video link is worth it yet. A person wanting the appearance of no wires should weigh the cost of installing an in-wall wiring system and this. The in-wall system can be easily set up to handle power through a second cable without hurting people too, without much additional cost.

Re:Not *that* fast

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what else transmits high-definition video wirelessly at extremely high speeds? A projector.

Re:Not *that* fast

[tepples]

And until they can beam the power, it's doesn't get rid of the need for wires anyway. The difference is that landlords are slightly more likely to permit pulling AC power wiring through the walls than to allow the same with Cat6 UTP wiring.

Re:Not *that* fast

[RobBebop]

Personally.. I like cables for hooking up video. Wireless is buggy, snoopable, power hungry, and hard to set up (with 4 transmitters and 4 receivers, how to you configure what displays where?)

Well said. Last Gen is better than Next Gen because it is easier to use, more reliable, more secure, and costs less in power consumption.

Pretty much the only advantage I see for this high bandwidth, line-of-sight 60 GHz protocol is situational awareness and communication for an army of infiltrating Terminator robots who might need to be able to receive and process gobs of data to kill us more efficiently.

Re:Not *that* fast

[aonaran]

Low resolution like HDTV? I wish my PC could do 1920x1080 I'm stuck at 1280x1024 on my general purpose computer monitor.
I really need an upgrade, but almost all the general purpose computer monitors out there are lower res than the HDTVs, and those that are better I think will be niche for a while as most folks seem happy with 1024x768 or less.

Re:Not *that* fast

[ColdWetDog]

The difference is that landlords are slightly more likely to permit pulling AC power wiring through the walls than to allow the same with Cat6 UTP wiring.

You've got some pretty odd landlords in your neck of the woods. Anybody who allows $RandomLuser to pull power cables through walls is asking for a nice, long visit with the local Fire Marshall or Insurance adjuster. Data cables are so much safer.

Re:Not *that* fast

[tepples]

You've got some pretty odd landlords in your neck of the woods. Anybody who allows $RandomLuser to pull power cables through walls is asking for a nice, long visit with the local Fire Marshall or Insurance adjuster. I might have been unclear. In the situation I imagine, the landlord allows an electrician to pull power cables. The same landlord allows nobody to pull data cables.

Re:Not *that* fast

[feepness]

I'm talking about removing my flatscreen from the box, hanging it on the wall, pushing a button to turn it on, and then select a video source.

Someday...

Errrrr

[Zouden]

Isn't millimeter wave the technology in the pain-inducing raygun?

Perhaps this is helps reduce the interference... no pesky animals between the transmitter and receiver!

Re:Errrrr

[deander2]

Isn't millimeter wave the technology in the pain-inducing raygun?

yep. all part of sony's "painful as possible" drm strategy. =P

Re:Errrrr

[edwardpickman]

Isn't millimeter wave the technology in the pain-inducing raygun?

Don't all the bad movies lately cause enough pain without the transmition medium causing even more?

EM spectrum

[Anonymous Coward]

For perspective 10X this 30Ghx frequency is enetering the Infrared range of the spectrum. Thats only 5x for the 60Ghz devices. These are microwave technologies

Re:EM spectrum

[Anonymous Coward]

For perspective 10X this 30Ghx frequency is enetering the Infrared range of the spectrum. Thats only 5x for the 60Ghz devices. These are microwave technologies

I've been anticipating the "smoking hot desktop computer" for years. Unfortunately, Intel went the multi-core route instead of boosting clock speed. On the good news side, future reviews of "residential hotspot" equipment will include cooking timess for eggs, whining kids and small pets.

And how fast...

[G-News.ch]

...will it fry your brains this time? We already know WiFi and RFID are harmful to some extent, how bad will it be with even shorter wavelengths?

Re:And how fast...

[Molochi]

The frequencies THEY really don't want you to know about are in the 385 to 750THz range. Our governments allow us to be barraged by THOUSANDS of watts DAILY in this range without any form of regulation in the world. PERMANENT BLINDNESS is a PROVEN side effect for the unfortunate persons who simply fail to avoid optic nerve exposure!

Re:And how fast...

[networkassault]

In order to receive optical nerve damage, you have to look right into the transmitting antenna. Plus, there are plenty of regulations as to how much uncontrolled exposure people have to RF radiation. For insatnce, there is a limit to how much RF power any radio installation site can put out. I think that the limit is about 5000 Watts Effective Radiated Power, but it's been a while since I've looked over the IEEE regulations on RF exposure. Of course, strictly licensed broadcast stations can transmit up to 50000 Watts Peak Envelope Power.

Re:And how fast...

[Anonymous Coward]

You watched that one sail by, didn't you. He was talking about sunlight... Terahertz frequency.

Re:And how fast...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now why did you go and let him know?

I would have posted a rant about how we should ban terahertz radiation.

Nifty..

[scoot80]

This is not going to replace WiFi, nor it is probably supposed to. However for applications such as wireless monitors/sound systems and anything else which is going to be in close vicinity to the transmitter, but requires high bandwidth, it might be useful. Do we see a super resolution wireless gaming mouse coming out soon??

Sources?

[Adeptus_Luminati]

Would you mind quoting your sources?
Thanks.

Re:Sources?

[G-News.ch]

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=335219&cid=21069839 misposted the last reply

Post and Article a little misleading

[Bigjeff5]

They both seem to give the impression that the 60ghz wireless is a step up from WiFi, which it is not. It's more like a step up from your USB cable to a wireless equivalent. It will never be used for networking computers for the same reason USB cables will never be used for networking. They have a few severe limitations that prevent this from ever happening. The biggest problem is the fact that ANYTHING in the way blocks the signal. It can't even penetrate skin more than a millimeter or so as far as I know.

The real deal is this is going to make things like video cables and other short connections to computers and devices pretty much obsolete. I personally can't wait till you can stack a few stereo, video, and game devices on top of each other, plug them into the wall, turn them on and they all connect together. Combine this with the wireless power that's going to be coming out in a few years, and things are gonna be pretty pimpin.

Re:Post and Article a little misleading

[RpiMatty]

Except how much fussing will it take to make them all talk to each other? Just wait until your bored neighbor builds a pringles can antenna gun to beam goatse onto your tv/monitor.

Cancer risk?

[DoofusOfDeath]

I'm under the impression that the higher the frequency, the greater the risk of cancer because the transmissions pack more energy.

Is that true? Or do only certain frequencies cause cancer?

Re:Cancer risk?

[timmarhy]

incorrect. the frequency and the amount of energy the beam contains are 2 different things.

It's all about dosage and wave length. the stronger the transmitter the more exposure you get to the radio frequency it's putting out and that means more danger of one of it's wave lengths causing a cell to mutate. the wave length itself is what mostly dictates how dangerous a transmitter is, because the wave length needs to be small enough knock an electron off it's parent nucleus and cause it to spin off and join another one, there by damaging a cells DNA and possibly causing cancer.

Re:Cancer risk?

[gustolove]

... or turning you into a superhero.

Re:Cancer risk?

[fnj]

You're right that frequency and power are different. Mutations require ionizing radiation; basically alpha/beta/gamma rays, neutrons, cosmic rays, etc. Well into the ultraviolet is about the lowest frequency that can be mutationally dangerous - somewhere around 10E-8 m, or thousands of times higher frequency than millimeter wave RF.

All millimeter wave RF can do is heat objects. It can do this promptly and well below the surface. With enough power, it can kill you pretty quickly by simple heating, but that's all. With a well focused beam, your brain could be literally cooked basically before you notice it. But practically speaking there is no intensity or duration of microwaves that causes mutations.

Re:Cancer risk?

[m2943]

There are two kinds of radiation: ionizing and non-ionizing. For ionizing, it's dosage and energy that matter, but not narrow frequency ranges. For non-ionizing radiation, nobody really knows yet.

Re:Cancer risk?

[Eivind]

Sort of. Higher frequencies mean more energy in each photon. True. At some point the energy in a photon is sufficient to break up complex molecules, true. Molecules being destroyed in your body include the risk of DNA or other important molecules in your cells suffering damage, which leads to increased cancer-risk. True.

BUT, and this is a large BUT, the frequency of where this happens is a long way away from mm-wave, and fairly well-known.

We bathe in this thing called visible light every day. Visible light has a wavelength of around 400 to 800 nanometres, which is to say 400 to 800 billionths of a metre. 1 mm is a *thousandth* of a metre, so we're talking 6 orders of magnitude lower frequencies.

Once we get below 400nm damages start happening, most know that UV-light will increase the risk of skin-cancer, even higher frequencies such as x-rays will cause cancers generally, and not just in the skin since they're ionising *and* more penetrating that UV-light is.

Short answer: ir-wave radio is MUCH too low frequency to even start getting close to ionising.

Re:Cancer risk?

[Anonymous Coward]

there by damaging a cells DNA and possibly causing cancer.

DNA damage isn't the only way of causing cancer.

Re:Cancer risk?

[Hatta]

Yes, higher wavelengths cause cancer. We're still talking radio here. Visible light is even higher frequency than this, and no one freaks out about it. You have to get to the UV range before there's any real risk.

Re:Cancer risk?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cook my brain before I know it. I knew there was a reason for the tin foil hat.

How to practically implement

[Anonymous Coward]

It's obvious that millimeter waves don't go through walls, and if you step in front of them, I believe that's the military equivalent of a "get lost zone".

Hence, you put a slim, shielded tube over the distance you want to transfer. At each end of the tube is a transmitter/receiver. With further research it might even be possible to bend these tubes, so they go around corners etc. This would solve all the problems identified.

Re:How to practically implement

[Technician]

Hence, you put a slim, shielded tube over the distance you want to transfer. At each end of the tube is a transmitter/receiver. With further research it might even be possible to bend these tubes, so they go around corners etc. This would solve all the problems identified.


This tube has a name and has been in existance for many years. It's called a waveguide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waveguide
http://www.microwaves101.com/encyclopedia/waveguide.cfm

Drawings of some waveguides are here;
http://www.uniquesys.com/products/passive/waveguides/s111_2.html?gclid=COyF1u6coo8CFSI4YAod20h_aQ

You can buy eliptical waveguide here for frequencies up to about 22 GHZ.
http://antennasystems.com/ewassy.html
and rectangular waveguide up to 40 GHZ here.
http://www.antennasystems.com/waveguide.html

Re:How to practically implement

[Anonymous Coward]

There already is this newfangled device on the market, in various lengths and sizes, for all kinds of data transfer, usually with so-called "connectors" on each side.

It works like this:
1. plug one "connector" into the source device
2. plug the other in the destination device
3. ???
4. profit!

I think I heard someone call them "cables". Can anyone confirm?

Re:How to practically implement

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm I wonder what can also go around corners and has a tubelike appearance....? A cable?

Re:How to practically implement

[Technician]

Hmmm I wonder what can also go around corners and has a tubelike appearance....? A cable?

Makes sense. Here is some cable good to 65 GHZ.

http://www.gore.com/en_xx/products/cables/microwave/defense/high_frequency_microwave_interconnect_solutions.html

Re:How to practically implement

[Anonymous Coward]

WHOOOSH!

Sources

[G-News.ch]

http://capitalpress.com/Main.asp?SectionID=94&ArticleID=35165 http://crunchgear.com/2007/05/21/dangers-of-wi-fi-should-be-reevaluated-possibly-more-harmful-than-previosuly-indicated/ And about a zillion other articles debating the harmfulness of all the various wireless technologies. Of course you will always find a study that counters the previous one. Still, things like cellphones heating up body tissue are undebatable, long time studies aren't available for modern technologies, for obvious reasons.

Lame

[commodoresloat]

What you want to know: Practical limitation is 10M, useless through walls. "No prestidigitation. Less distance than a Pringles can. Lame."

Hopefully,

[Fengpost]

Let's just hope that this wireless solution is cheaper than the ridiculous pricing of the HDMI cable out there, because the only purpose of this solution is to replace the HDMI cable.

Re:Hopefully,

[JLennox]

Let's just hope that this wireless solution is cheaper than the ridiculous pricing of the HDMI cable out there, because the only purpose of this solution is to replace the HDMI cable.

Stop buying from Best Buy and start buying from Newegg. You'll see a bit of a difference.

24K gold-plated connectors enhance conductivity, resist corrosion and provide high-quality signal transfer

It's digital. The signal gets through, or it does not.

Not very relevant Sources

[hrvatska]

Neither one of those links could be considered source material for the harmful effects of this sort of tecnology. The first one reports on increased cancers at the site where RFID chips are implanted. It's not about exposure to radio energy so much as it is about having a radio receiver implanted in the body. The second one doesn't offer up any facts related to the harmfulness of wireless technology. It's purely a specultative 'what if fluff' piece. Got anything better?

Re:Not very relevant Sources

[G-News.ch]

Well, whether the radiowave is harmful or not obviously depends on its intensity. Cancer developing from RFID chips inside the body may not be directly linked to WiFi, but it does show that higher dosages seem to be more harmful. Knowing that the shorter the wavelength, the more energy is needed to reach a certain distance, we can conclude that shorter wavelength technologies do at least bear the risk of being more harmful. I'm not a physician, but there's a plethora of information about WiFi/cellphones being a possible threat to health on the web, and frankly, you can google it up yourself. This is a Slashdot discussion board, not a scientific review. I'm not making any claims, I'm just asking questions about a possible threat from this new technology the article discusses, based on discussions about possible threats from other wireless technologies. If that makes you feel uncomfortable, you're welcome to research further into the topic.

Re:Not very relevant Sources

[hrvatska]

Considering that having an RFID chip implanted in the body does not increase exposure, I'm not sure how the RFID article demonstrates anything about increased exposure. The issue of the medical dangers from implanted RFID was covered in a previous /.article.You don't need to be a physiscian to post relevant links. I was questioning the relevancy of you're links.

Re:Not very relevant Sources

[G-News.ch]

I don't think Slashdot articles are any more relevant than any other site posting brief articles about some scientific study. The study itself might be more relevant, but they're often hard to get to publicly. However, I do think that having a chip inside you actually does increase exposure. Normally, high frequency radio might be absorbed very early in the outer skin. For the RFID chip in order to make sense, the radio must penetrate at least as deep as the chip itself, thus has to be more powerful, therefore likely more harmful. I don't see how this concept is so hard to grasp. Just think about the Slashdot articles about the military Microwave Raygun and the RFID chips, combine with millions of questions surrounding Wifi and cellphone networks, or even in general electrosmog, and you will start to ask questions, which is just what I did.

Re:Not very relevant Sources

[hrvatska]

The /. article linked to a Washington Post article that was easily accessed by clicking on a link. The /. article was followed by a ton of posts that had relevant information and links on the health risks of RFID. The tags being implanted in animals are passive tags that operate in the low frequency range. Whether or not the tag is implanted exposure still occurs, so again, I don't see how RFID tags increase exposure. It's not as if the chips some how concentrate radio waves, with the implant area receiving more exposure than any other area of the body. The links that you posted were so poor in quality that they didn't, and still don't, leave me with any questions about the health risks of a 60 gigahertz technology. Not to say that there aren't risks, just that the links you chose didn't offer anything to the discussion.

I have hard time combining low frequency RFID tags with microwave rayguns and coming up with questions about the health affects of 60 gigahertz technology.

Re:Not very relevant Sources

[G-News.ch]

RFID chips will increase exposure because the areas around the chips will be exposed to the radiation more often, when the RFID sender is held against the chip in order to read the chip. Making phonecalls from a cellphone will not heat your toetips tissue, obviously, but it will heat the part of your head that is next to the phone. Same thing likely applies to RFID. 60GHz then, being very high freq, likely requires more focused radiation, thus probably, PROBABLY, increasing the risk of damage. Again, I'm just asking questions and the links I provided where just the first hits from 2 google searches on the topic, because you wanted sources. If you want scientific sources or proof, you will have to ask the respective experts. Damn, you computer freaks have just way too much time on your hand to babble about pointless formalities.

Re:Not very relevant Sources

[evilviper]

RFID chips will increase exposure because the areas around the chips will be exposed to the radiation more often, when the RFID sender is held against the chip in order to read the chip.

In other words, it's the fact that someone believes you might have an RFID chip, and continually scans for it that (in your mind) causes cancer. Nothing to do with the chip, and whether it is implanted or not. In which case, there wouldn't be any statistical correlation, as those lab-rats without RFID chips get scanned just as much, and hence would be at equal risk.

Put simply, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Re:Not very relevant Sources

[G-News.ch]

It likely isn't the same whether you just scan (ie send) or if the wave is also received. There will be feedback from the chip, when it is read and that feedback is probably what is causing the problems. But yeah, I have no fucking clue what I'm talking about, I never said I did either. I'm just suspicious of ever more radio technology entering our lives without us knowing anything about long-term effects these technologies might or might not have on our health. There are several studies that show that cellphone frequencies do have an effect on the body. None of them have been conducted BEFORE the technology entered the market. That leads me to assume that we're eventually just being the labrats for the big tech companies. They have no idea whether it's going to kill us or not. They don't give a damn either, as long as we buy the latest gadget.

Re:Not very relevant Sources

[evilviper]

There will be feedback from the chip, when it is read and that feedback is probably what is causing the problems.

That 'feedback' is really just the RFID chips reflecting the same RF energy back to the receiver.

There are several studies that show that cellphone frequencies do have an effect on the body.

You could perform a study that would "prove" that the type of car you drive decides whether you will get diabetes or not... Correlation does not show cause, and it's a sad comment on society that news organizations like to report the results of every such study, as if they mean ANYTHING at all. It's crap like that which causes people to think that certain foods are unhealthy one week, and healthy the next.

They have no idea whether it's going to kill us or not.

After a century of understanding and studying electromagnetic radiation, it seems pretty unlikely that there's something significant we don't know its effects on humans.

Re:Not very relevant Sources

[G-News.ch]

"You could perform a study that would "prove" that the type of car you drive decides whether you will get diabetes or not... Correlation does not show cause, and it's a sad comment on society that news organizations like to report the results of every such study, as if they mean ANYTHING at all. It's crap like that which causes people to think that certain foods are unhealthy one week, and healthy the next." I certainly agree. However, the heating up of tissue by cellphone radiation is not a myth, you can even visualize it with thermal scans. Whether that heating up of the head, the brain etc is by any means harmful, remains to be proven, as far as I know. Still, there is an effect.

Re:Not very relevant Sources

[DarkVader]

I haven't read this study, but your suggestion that it would be the reflected energy that would be causing cancers is on the face of it rather silly. The reflected energy isn't going to be any stronger at the point of contact than what is being sent in.

If there IS actually an increase in cancers at the site of an RFID implant, I would suggest that the implant itself, being a foreign body implanted in tissue, is MUCH more likely to be the culprit. After all, we already know that continuous irritation of tissue can increase the likelihood of some cancers.

The obvious control to test this would be to use RFID implants that would never be exposed to RF energy, but as that's nearly impossible, you could use a control of identical implants with the RFID circuit disabled and look at your cancer incidence rate.

Re:mo3 0p

[ThirdPrize]

Is there any reason wht /. doesn't filter out any post with goat.cx in the url?

Lawsuit Ahoy!.....

[IHC Navistar]

Chipsets emitting wireless signals?

I'll bet that not too long after they start putting these chipsets in laptops, some idiot will sue IBM saying that the chip signal radiation made him impotent.

Hey, it's AMERICA..... People actually do stuff like that.

However, for those that want protection from the signal radiation, I *do* carry lead underwear. If you are worried about overheating/exploding batteries, check out my line of asestos/kevlar-blend undergarments.

Re:mo3 0p

[xSauronx]

its a very complicated, and new, technology. you may recall, if you read their blurb on what hardware and software the site runs on, that they still use RH9 on some boxes. Obviously theyre too far behind for "filtering" of any sort....

Prime Intellect

[hpycmprok]

Does anyone remember http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/mopiidx.html ?

Pringles Can

[F4_W_weasel]

which flavor??

Yeah, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that's nothing. I hear he also developed the Smelloscope.

WERNSTROM!

Radio and optical "windows" in EM spectrum

[tepples]

Well not quite, as well as the square power-law there's also an exponential attenuation factor due to absorption by the atmosphere. It is far greater at 60GHz than at 2.4GHz. But it's less at 450 to 750 THz, right?

Re:Radio and optical "windows" in EM spectrum

[dakameleon]

There does seem to be a valley at 60 GHz according to this chart

Radar

[ruinevil]

Isn't this going to interfere with Radar. I thought radar worked in the millimeter wavelength.

I thought we already had wireless video

[t_ban]

Excuse my ignorance, but how is this different from / better than TV?

Teletubbies

[camperdave]

Well not quite, as well as the square power-law there's also an exponential attenuation factor due to absorption by the atmosphere. It is far greater at 60GHz than at 2.4GHz.

But it's less at 450 to 750 THz, right?

You antenna geeks frighten me. First it's exponential attenuation factors, and atmospheric absorption by frequency. Next you'll be arguing about which teletubby gets the best reception.

Re:Teletubbies

[GigG]

The one with the triangle. He is a receiver.

Re:Teletubbies

[Anonymous Coward]

You just HAD to go there, didn't you.

Well that's easy to fix

[TheAxeMaster]

You can pull a vacuum in a pringles can, right? I think we just solved the big problems with 60GHz AND what to do with all those waste pringles cans from all night coding sessions. You just cut the ends off and duct tape them together and viola! Miles of range with high speed wireless! All you need is a ~3" vacuum pringles can duct from one antenna to the other...easy.

How is this for video?

[professorguy]

OK, higher frequency generally means higher bandwidth, I get it. But how does this get translated into "wireless for video?"

When we upgraded to 100Mb ethernet, we didn't say that was "for porn." It was for whatever happened to be on the pipe. Why is this different? It's a fatter pipe. It will be used for video, sure, but can't it be used for, I don't know, any DATA?

Check out my new 1Gb network connection. I've got the new chipset specially made "for downloading cake recipes." Hope they've got another chipset waiting in the wings when I want to download cookie recipes.

Re:How is this for video?

[Rorian]

Of course we didn't _say_ it was for porn, but if the managers and bean-counters ever knew that typical office users are still responsible roughly the same 1-5kByte/s bandwidth usage they were 10 years ago, before 100Mb ethernet they never would have given the rubber stamp of approval to upgrade.

The fact is, the only people to benefit from 100Mbit and now gigabit networking ARE the IT guys, who can stream all the porn they can handle between their segmented IT departments all day long.. so, 100Mbit IS for porn, you just haven't clued on yet..

microsoft did it 3 yrs back

[luvtheedragon]

wel guys, while most of us always bickering abt M$ 's stupid policies n its endless bugs in software, n all the stuff it doesnt do right....they do do a lot of R&D....and atleast in this case they had actually given the fundamental platform for this kind of products....

for more details...check out the mesh networking research .....
http://research.microsoft.com/mesh/

D'oh! Purchased Gigabit equipment too soon

[Gilmoure]

Man, I totally blew it, setting up the house networking equipment in house we're building (ordered Apple WAP and Netgear Gig switch; ran Cat6 cable to main rooms). I might end up losing a geek ranking if this gets out on the web.

Replacement for Cables

[mrops]

This technology is better suited to replacing wires and cables that connect your TV to a next gen HD player. I have a mess of wires in my home theater setup as I have cables running to speakers, tv and recevier plus power to all of these. If I can get rid of all these wires then all I will really need to worry about are power cables, i.e. until wireless power comes buy :) I believe this technology is better suited as bluetooth off home theater where all the components are close by.

Riddle me this

[Techx9]

I really can't wait for the day when HDTV can be beamed directly into our brains, similar to what was depicted in batman with Jim Carrey as the Riddler. We can then be mindless slaves to the almighty broadcast systems of the future.

Wireless gaming...

[SanityInAnarchy]

For an xbox, maybe, but there's still a significant disadvantage.

I thought IBM already invented Bluetooth. . .

[Iowan41]

Except it had a greater range. This wouldn't be the first time that IBM's left hand didn't know what its right hand was doing. Timing suggests a manager who didn't want to get her budget cut for next year.

No need to go to mm waves

[XNormal]

There's no need to go to 60 GHz for this. Amimon already has a chipset that transmits low latency HD video on the 5GHz unlicensed band. It uses a combination of MIMO and Joint Source-Channel Coding.

Fry me to the moon...

[peas_n_carrots]

Something... smells like.. bacon!

Get a good firewall!

[Bob-taro]

Isn't this the same frequency range that let's you see through clothes? And it's specifically for transmitting hd video?

Offtopic Question

[AP31R0N]

Why do they call it Wireless Fidelity? Fidelity isn't really the issue. In the term HiFi, fidelity was significant because high fidelity was novel at the time. HiFi systems had higher fidelity than previous systems. So is the use of fidelity meaningful, or just to hijack the sound of familiar term?