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Sony Starts a Standards War Over Wireless USB
Stony Stevenson alerts us to news out of CES that Sony has kick-started another standards war, this time over wireless USB. Ars notes that Sony "[never was] one to settle for an open standard when the opportunity to push a proprietary alternative presents itself." Sony's TransferJet technology uses low-power UWB at very short distances to transfer data at a nominal 520 Mbps. Almost every other large technology company — including Intel, Microsoft, HP, and Samsung — has embraced the W-USB standard, which promises transfer speeds of 480 Mbps at distances up to 3 meters, vs. TransfeJet's 3 centimeters.
Sony obviously hasn't learned any lessons from the failure of minidisc, atrac, memory sticks, r-dat, sdds, HiFD, 8mm video, SACD, UMF, etc, etc (I'm sure I've missed a few failed sony formats).
One of the many reasons I don't buy Sony products is 'cause of Memory Sticks, and I'm not alone - even non-geek colleagues won't touch cybershots anymore.
Bigger sufferers of not-invented-here-syndrome than Apple & MS combined.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
That doesn't seem to be long enough range for a wireless device. Heck, I'd prefer a 5 cm usb 2.0 cable than that.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I really don't have much to say here but to reiterate my wish that Sony would go away.
Sony is demanding the industry use their proprietary product / idea?
Sounds like they're taking hints from Apple.
What benefit is a 3cm range wireless connection? At that range you're practically pushing the devices against each other to get the antennas within 3cm. "Oh look, the contents of my pocket have shifted around and the pairing is broken."
3cms is as good as wired, for all practical purposes. Just one advantage I see... no physical contacts means no wear and tear / dust in the contacts. I see this as a blunder, yet, knowing Sony, I am afraid they are going to keep pushing their mutant child with every gadget they make.
Dont make a better sig, you insensitive clod!
why anyone would prefer Sony's version?
Okay, transfer rate is higher, and there's the "security" features... but those features also cripple it. Only useable over a distance of 3 centimeters? Wow... you can just see what will happen... a device with one of these gets nudged a half-inch and stops, well, working. (Before anyone jumps in that I can't do math, yes, I know 3 cm = 1.18 inches. But with such a short range, all it would take is a small nudge to put it out of range. And a half-inch is a very small nudge.)
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
"has embraced the W-USB standard, which promises transfer speeds of 480 Mbps at distances up to 3 meters, vs. TransfeJet's 3 centimeters." Considering there is 2.54 cm in an inch, this really doesn't sound too smart on Sony's part. Unless Slashdot is wrong....but what are the odds?
What website is this mocking? I want to, uh, laugh at it.
3cm wont be able to hit the G-Spot
Is it just me or is Sony compensating for something by making theirs faster? ah hell, I can see the -1 as I was typing that.
...In Asia 3cm is long!
(Tasteless humor I know, but I had to. Really.)
So what's wrong with a private company putting its money on the line and going to the market with an alternative standard? Last time I heard, forking was not a right reserved just to Linux distros.
3cm, it will be only usefull for small appliance like camera or pda, I will never let my printer or scanner at 3cm of my computer.
And I need more speed for camera or pda than I need for printer and scanner, but 520mbps is no enough anyways.
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
It won't make a lick of difference. Sony will just have customers complaining about why their new device won't work with Sony's device. Belkin and IOGear already have the reference designs for WUSB (USB-IF uses Belkin's implementation to test other implementations, if I recall correctly what Belkin's rep at CES said to me), and both have a really solid grip on that market.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Sony's mom is an open standard.
But really...3 centimeters? Are they joking? Why not just plug it in at that point...
they're pushing one format (Blu-Ray) and it seems to be doing well enough, why not try another? I can't believe anyone in a company would think limiting the control over transfers would be a good idea, but it is sony so if it was going to come from anywhere, that would be the place.
What leverage do they have with their technology (other than bandwidth) to compete in this arena? The average person isn't going to notice a difference of 80 Mbps (theoretical maximum difference) when they're transferring a few pictures from the digital camera. They will notice the difference between having to buy and have a base plugged into their PCs where they have to drop everything to get it to transfer versus setting it on the desk somewhere and having it hook up to the PC automatically.
I personally liked minidiscs for their durability, portability (even better than tape) and rewritability relative to burned CDs.
They probably also saw that they had enough engineering hurdles to overcome with Cell and didn't need to make life more difficult for themselves in other areas just for the sake of it.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Seriously, Memory Stick was the last straw? When it was competing with MMC/SD, CF, xD, and SmartMedia? And when MMC and SmartMedia are the only formats that have died in the meantime?
If you want to blame them for execution (bad licensing terms, slow, small, and expensive at first, and they had to break compatibility to fix all that), go right ahead. Sony bungled that, for sure. I had a pre-MSPro Clie PDA, so I speak from experience.
When my family got together for the holidays, there wasn't much swapping of memory cards. Of the five of us who brought cameras, two used Memory Stick, two used SD, and one used xD. I could add CF to the list, but my cousin left his Nikon at home. So there's still plenty of blame to go around.
Sony's apparatus looks like it's meant as nothing more than an idiot-proofed memory stick that you don't actually have to plug in anywhere, rather than a Bluetooth competitor. They're probably aiming it at the population that is intimidated by anything that smacks of networking.
Maybe I misread TFA, but this doesn't strike me as aiming to be competition to W-USB. The press release states that it's intended for transferring large files over short distances - for example, from your video camera to your TV.
It's meant to simplify file transfer, not power USB devices or peripherals.
So far most of the replies here are bemoaning the fact that the transfer distance is only 3cm, but from reading Sony's Press Release it appears obvious why the distance is restricted such.
The protocol is promoted to be "touch-and-go", not requiring any setup or user intervention. Thus you simply "touch" (meaning bringing within 3cm) a device and an action is performed automatically - such as downloading your photos or displaying a video.
This has the possibility of simplifying connections (we'll have to wait and see if it works) and the 3cm distance makes it such that you have to consciously activate the connection, possibly saving you from embarrassing situations.
"It appears to be for device->device transfers, where W-USB (like regular USB) seems to be towards host->device and device->host transfers."
Isn't that what bluetooth was suppose to be for?
I drive a desk most days, and purchased a Logitech Wireless mouse. Not sure what protocol it uses, but I ended up trading it in for the wired version, as I was tired of hunting for new batteries every month.
So now it's possible someone will have at their desk/home:
-Logitech's Wireless protocol (http://www.mstarmetro.net/~rlowens/?n=Logitech.Protocols)
-Bluetooth (which can be a PITA to associate two devices together)
-Wireless USB
-801.11a|b|g|n
All I ask is, can I have a few more wireless protocols? The first three do the same things. In LAN networking, we've gone through different speed iterations of Ethernet, I relish the day when 'short distance device connectivity' reaches the same maturity.
TransferJet Specifications Central Frequency 4.48GHz Transmission Power -70dBm/MHz or less (average power) Corresponds with low intensity radio wave regulations in Japan, and with local regulations in respective overseas regions. Transmission Rate 560Mbps (Max.) / effective 375Mbps It is capable of selecting the appropriate transmission rate depending on the wireless environment. Communication Distance Within 3cm No Joke.. heh ....
TransferJet is an extremely simple wireless technology which eliminates the need for complex setup and operation. For example, just touching a TV with a digital camera enables photos to be instantaneously displayed on the TV screen. Alternatively, downloaded music content can be easily enjoyed by touching a mobile phone to a portable audio player. TransferJet can be used as a Universal Interface among a wide variety of consumer electronics devices.
Mod me down im a newf (wiki)
I friend of mine holds the theory that the way to determine if a technology will be a success is to see if pornographers adopt it. ( Presuming that they can use it in some fashion. ) When they do, you can presume that it is established.
They were doing that before Apple was a company.
Patriot - A fan of expanding government power and spending while not wanting to pay higher taxes.
Actually, the last thing I heard was that the UMD format was growing in Japan.
I'm not sure, but from reading the article it seems that the technologies have different purposes. Sony's technology isn't even trying to address the same issues bluetooth, RF, or IR are. Sony's technology uses inductance, instead of antennas, this pretty much assumes that even though there is a 3cm range, the devices are touching.
With this technology, your PC or laptop might have a input "pad surface" on it which would start file transfers when you set your device on top of it, and end the connectivity when you lifted it.
I can see this having benefits for certain applications that the other, longer range technologies don't. With technologies that have a longer range, simple proximity to the machine cannot determine intent. You would have to manually start data transfer from one of the devices, because simply being within range would not necessarily mean someone wanted to transfer files.
Whereas the 3cm inductance tech, just setting the devices together would signify intent to start communication.
I haven't read up on the technology, but if Sony's intent was for a way to transfer data from storage devices such as flash memory, the Host device could power the flash device through inductance, as well as transfer data through the same technology. I don't think this is in competition with any other tech.. It's basically a way of making flash memory with high data throughput that does not have to make electrical contact with the device it is in. No oxidation of connectors, no inserting devices in incorrectly.. solves a lot of problems, and makes things waaay easier for the average consumer. It basically gets rid of the need for different sized slots on your pc, because no matter what kind of storage you have, the devices DON'T HAVE TO GO INTO SLOTS.
I know bashing Sony is the trendy thing to do. But to me, this technology seems like it could have a lot of positives for interoperability. This doesn't really seem all that Anti-consumer to me t all..
Could someone out there give an explanation about why they are not just updating the Bluetooth specs? I know current bluetooth speeds are on the slow side, but that could be fixed.
You could have a wireless standard that is already backwards compatible with many cell phones, PDAs and laptops and lots of devices. Instead, we are going to have a bunch of devices trying to fit in 3 wireless standards, at least for a few years. This, bluetooth and Wi-Fi (plus the phone network stuff for cells).
I must say this is stupid of Sony, I am happy to hear of the recent likely win of the HD war, at least it'll settle things for consumers in the upcoming years, one standard is better, period.
That being said in the case of this one, that's just stupid, 3cm range is absoloutely pointless, when another option 15% slower works 100x further - sounds great to me.
On that note, I've been wondering for a few years, when will we have bluetooth (or wireless usb?) devices where you simply put your mobile phone near your PC at work / home each day and an explorer window opens up with a new drive window ready to work with? (as long as it's on the allowed list, of course) - that would be great.
Wireless USB seems to be about setting up a network of various devices without wires. Reduce desktop clutter, I suppose.
Sony's technology is based on touching your mp3 player to a pad connected to your computer-filling it up with new data-- no bandwidth to share, no strange interference problems to solve. It's one to one, rather than a network. It's simple, but it's not designed to connect scanners or printers or hard drives.
Matter of fact, why would you want your printer or scanner to use wireless USB instead of 802.11n? And why are wireless hard drives so important? Wouldn't you rather use a secure, reliable, fast USB3 connection?
What? You've never heard of Pocket to Pocket transfer?
What W-USB and Transferjet don't seem to have, but Bluetooth has had for a couple iterations is a decent form of device to device encryption.
If Transferjet was just a protocol that topped out at 3cm, and was totally unreceivable at 1 meter, encryption would be less of an issue. However, even at distances of 3-10 meters, that would be a target of opportunity in some cases. I know that even at the short ranges that Bluetooth works at, I can always find 2-3 people with a Bluetooth enabled phone almost anywhere, and that's with no special equipment, other than a Bluetooth enabled smartphone.
IMHO, encryption needs are a must for any wireless protocol. For example, if people start using W-USB for hard disks, it wouldn't be difficult for someone with a high gain antenna to detect and start injecting packets to read data off (or just format the drive). An attacker can also just passively watch what is shooting across the airwaves to slowly gain a picture of the hard disk's contents.
I think I'll start my own standards war. I went to the restroom today and streamed about a pint at a distance of two feet. Who wants to work on higher capacity and lower distance?
It's Wireless USPee.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
this is stupid.
if sony wants me to buy their thing, they need to focus on speed, not some stupid 3cm range wireless.
honestly, guys. you call 3cm wireless? yeah... it's wireless, but not tetherless. still tethered to 3cm, as far as i'm concerned.
Those of us who think they know everything annoy those of us who do.
After getting their butts handed to them on every other "alternative standard" they've tried to foist upon us (Beta, Memory Stick, MiniDisc, and ATRAC, to name a few), they finally got a win with Blu-Ray and now they've gotten frisky. I wish I understood why Sony keeps on trying to reinvent the wheel.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
3 cm from where?
From where the module is located on the laptop? So to use my Wireless USB drive I have to have it sitting under my laptop??
For crying out loud, what the hell is wrong with Sony??
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
... is now called "a standards war". This is a complex and self serving world that we live in.
I don't much appreciate you putting words in my mouth.
(Oh yeah, I'm sure I'll get a few interesting responses to this one...)
Given the distance WiFi actually works v. the spec, then that 3 centimeters means it has to actually be touching!! So much for wireless. I wish Sony would just die. What have they actually brought to the tech party?
(Just had to be said)
ISO certified == THX certified
The heading and summary is a load of horseshit.
TransferJet is intended for transfer at high speeds over distances of around an inch. It uses negligible amounts of power and is very fast.
W-USB has a range of 10 feet, it uses some power, but not much, and is a little slower. It has 100 times the range of TransferJet.
They are intended for completely different markets. TransferJet is a intended for "base station" or "cradle" type applications where you would want to transfer data very fast, and don't want to have to muck with yet another cable. So, for example, you sit your HD Videocam on top of the DVR and the DVR gets a copy of the footage you just took.
They don't compete. They are for different things. There is no standards war here. It's like complaining that Xerox PARC were starting a standards war with keyboard manufacturers by releasing the mouse.
So, credit to kdawson for posting inflammatory drivel.
---
The great thing about standards is you have so many to choose from!
Unlike Betamax, Blu-Ray is not just Sony. The original tech was developed by Sony and Pioneer, with final contributions by several other companies. Though still proprietary, Blu-Ray is a true multi-vendor format, with more companies involved than HD-DVD (which is primarily owned by Toshiba and NEC).
So, I don't mind seeing Blu-Ray win. It's the technically-superior format, though the players are currently more expensive. (That should change as production volume increases.)
As far as Betamax: it was arguably technically superior to VHS, but it was owned only by Sony, and so deserved the waterboarding it received, followed by a merciful death.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
A friend of mine showed me MS-Windows Media Center, as displayed through his XBox 360. The menu system was *very* similar to XMB, only arranged horizontally, and much more cluttered.
I guess plagiarism is the best form of flattery.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I know that Sony is one of the most evilest corporation for /.ers, and more generally geeks, but I just can't keep wondering why.
First, even the summary, as the linked article, is FUD : obviously, as InstantJet supports only ranges up to 3cm, it is not meant to be a competitor to Wireless-USB as all. It practically needs physical contact between appliances, it works with induction! Do you really think that Sony oughts to see this technology used to connect say a computer and a printer, which are obviously more than 3cm away?
Instead, it seems it is meant to be used between a camera and a printer: you lay the camera on the induction surface on the printer, you select the photos you want to print, and voilà! Of course, this use-case is not meant for smarter people, who will retrieve the photos on their computer thanks to Wireless-USB, and send them to their printer over Wi-Fi, and for geekier, who will connect using USB 3.0 (or retrieve the memory card and put it on their computer's slot), and send the photos to their printer thanks to 10Gb/s Ethernet.
I see this technology as being meant for Alice and Bob, who want to easily and wirelessly interconnect appliances without a computer. They get security for free (comparing to radio-based technologies).
But it seems not so much people sees that, and does instead see this news as a mean to keep on flaming on Sony.
Think '3cm', the maximum coupling distance according to the article. Definitely not a stereo hookup alternative.
I'd say the most obvious use is a universal sync (and mayby charge) pad. Set your Sony camera, mp3 player, phone, etc. on the pad and it automatically syncs with the computer. Set them on top of your printer and auto transfer photos. Set them on top of your TV and auto slideshow the contents.
That I agree with. It's more about getting rid of contacts and connectors. No more plugging stuff in, but you still have to physically put them together.
The Blu-Ray drive was there because Sony realized next-gen games were going to need a bit more room than DVDs could offer. Sure, they could've gone with HD-DVD, but that's not the format they chose to support. (Blu-Ray was developed by Sony, Pioneer, and several other companies-- not just Sony.)
They included Blu-Ray because it's a true next-gen console, and they needed next-gen storage.
They probably also saw that they had enough engineering hurdles to overcome with Cell and didn't need to make life more difficult for themselves in other areas just for the sake of it.
That might be true. But it doesn't matter-- it's still a hell of an open system. Significantly more open than any other console to date. My PS3 + Linux + 1080p has pretty much replaced my x86 desktop.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
...only arranged horizontally...
It's arranged horizontally when you're drunk and lieing on the floor. Like I obviously am right now.
Normally, MS-WMC XMB rip-off is *vertical.*
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
... my computer's shiny metal ass!
A proprietary standard that isn't better in any meaningful way than an existing non-proprietary standard. Yeah, that sounds really great. Maybe they can use a Memory Stick as the interface to it, and I'll be happy to tell them where they can Stick it.
But they won on blu-ray, apparently, and thanks to some short-sighted decisions by studios on that topic, we'll be treated to one of these every time anything to do with technology comes out, because Sony will make more on blu-ray than they have lost on all the others put together.
Simple strategy, really.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
I can just hear the same idiots who love the PS3/PSP/Bluray chanting what a great idea this is, and how w-usb is dead without a chance. how I wish they'd all get struck by lightning
It is a competitor for plugs.
Think about it, the range is 3 cm. For how many Bluetooth applications is that relevant? Basically just those where you might as well plug the two devices together.
It will be convenient for transferring photos from your camera to your laptop, just place your camera on your laptop, and the transfer will happen automatically with no questions asked. [ Yes, people will be able steal data from you this way, but it almost requires physical access to the device because the range is so short. ]
But it won't do anything for your wireless mouse, keyboard or headset.
MD is still used since most mp3 players do not work as recorders.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
Which only leaves the question of how to 4.
Of course, I imagine the customers' expressions will be priceless.
I can't wait.
--
I'm applying to work in customer service, preferably Best Buy, in a couple of weeks. Wish me luck!
A techno;ogu for 3cm and onw for 3m do not compete. The first cannot replace the second in allmost all situations. It used to be thet Sony made good technology. With their entry into the computer business, they have an increasing record of not only abysmally bad technology, but also very unwise marketing decisions. I hope they die soon, so the rest of the world can move on.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I don't think these technologies have the same purpose. Sony's technology is for something like communicating between a cell phone and a printer; the fact that it's short-range is a feature, since placing the devices close together apparently initiates the connection. WUSB is for replacing USB cables, for devices that are several feet away. You could probably adapt WUSB for the same functions as Transferjet, but that's not WUSB's primary use.
I don't see any problem. This is a different standard targeting different applications with a diffrent usage model.
Instead of complex pairing rituals required for longer range wireless communication at 3cm it's pretty clear which device you are communicating with so this has a completely different user experience. I also suspect that it's much cheaper and serves applications at a different price point. The close-range standard should work very nicely with the various wireless power schemes using magnetic induction that have about the same range.
So "war" is only a problem if you get stuck on which one of them gets to be called the wireless USB. In other words, it's only an issue for technologists. From an end user's point of view they have little in common.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
From TFA
... Because the spec is designed to be both 1) low-power and 2) close range (to avoid interference problems), Sony went with an electric induction field coupler instead of more traditional radiation field antennas. Induction is the same tech used to charge cordless electric toothbrushes, and it's also being used for wireless charging in some consumer electronics devices. Because induction only works over very short ranges, TransferJet devices need to be within 3cm of each other; essentially, the couplers need to touch.
The system is designed for maximum ease of use, which means limited options for controlling the transfers; devices will transfer their contents automatically to another device within range.
In other words it looks like the Sony device is more like a "plug without physical connection", working when devices are touched together with little or no configuration. It may also be suitable for very low power devices, for example you may be able to "touch" a PC to a battery-powered data collection device to download data.
The W-USB on the other hand seems to be more like bluetooth, connectivity for "nearby" devices.
Sony are trying to get user loyalty by adding proprietary technology, because they are worried about losing market share to, particularly, Samsung. The only way they can compete is by getting their customers to buy endless gadgets that won't work with Samsung.
The question is whether end users are getting clever enough to understand the risks of vendor lockin.
Meanwhile, the Koreans continue their quest for a world presence. Samsung is no longer a second tier vendor, they are definitely of the first rank. Hyundai/Kia is no longer a joke car manufacturer. And, how do I put this politely? Whatever the Koreans say in public, defeating the Japanese commercially would make them happy bunnies, owing among other things to certain events towards the end of the first half of last century. In this one, I would be putting my money on Samsung for the long term.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Just what we need, more invisible flying data clogging other invisible data up.
In all seriousness, though. I'm as much for ease of use as the next guy, but come on. 3cm? I realize the whole idea of using a wire (or just plugging the drive into a computer) is extremely old-school, Web 1.0, pre-21st century talk, but 3cm kind of defeats the purpose. This seems more like a gimmicky thing than an actual tool, and'll probably see as much use as all those IR ports built into laptops: slim to none.
Objective-C is _not_ proprietry....hell it's not even Apple's.
Would you say that C++ is proprietary just because Bjarne worked for AT&T?
What's a wireless bus? Is wireless ethernet next?
I'm not surprised. Just look at the NetMD example, as many have pointed out. You had to install their (buggy) proprietary software (called NetMD Jukebox iirc) to transfer songs between the computer and the NetMD. Of course, this software ran only on windows. Many attempts to reverse engineer the NetMD protocol and many open letters and petitions to Sony later, the situation hasn't improved.
Sony should embrace open standards like everyone else. I don't see the point of pushing a proprietary protocol. You're not going to gain customers and therefore make money by doing so, but quite the opposite.
rendezvous : less configuration time, works over wire and wireless distances greater than 3cm, is open source.
Plus, 3cm of additional walking is worth it, just to avoid touching another SONY product.
I bet Sony is gonna try and put a rootkit into their drivers for UWB.
They've shown several times in the past they cannot be trusted.
We need to keep a close eye on them...
Automatically? Heh, I can just picture it.
Geek bringing home a girl...
Him: "Just make yourself comfortable. Lemme put this laptop down and I'll get you a coffee."
(Puts the laptop bag next to the TV.)
Her: "Aiiieee!"
Him: "What? Oh, crap! I got tricked into clicking that goatse pic again. Seriously, it's not like I watch that for fun."
(Takes the laptop bag hastily away, dumps it on a table, throws jacket on top of it, with the PSP in a pocket.)
Female voice from the laptop: "Oooh, yesss... put it up my ass, baby. *moan* *squeal* Oh god... oh yess..."
Him: "Aargh! I swear I don't know how that movie got on my PSP. Honestly. Must have been, uh, among those files I backed up on its stick when I, uh, formatted a co-worker's workstation."
Her: "Maybe it's better if I leave now..."
Him: "No, wait, it's an accident. Why don't you show me the cute rabbits you photographed in the park?"
Her: "Umm, ok..."
(She fumbles for the camera in her purse, turns on the little LCD display and he squeezes closer to see anything. A photo of a porn star with two cocks up her ass pops up.)
Her: "Whaaa... I never had anything like that!"
Him: "Hmm, weird... oh, wait, you're wearing that USB watch I gave you for your birthday. Maybe it picked it from there?"
Her: "But I never had anything like that on there! I only used it once to get a wallpaper from home to work!"
Him: "Oh fuck... we held hands on the way here, didn't we? Must have picked it from mine... err... from somewhere else... Wait, don't go!!"
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
No, 3cm does offer security, because at that range you can assume to be free of interference from other *licensed* devices.
What does that mean then? First of all, if the devices were to use public key encryption, simple snooping wouldn't be enough. You'd have to be able to perform a man in the middle attack, and that means sending signals of your own. Now, because of the assumption above, either device could simply terminate the connection if it were to receive multiple transmissions, timing errors or a key broadcast at the same time as it was its own turn to send. At worst, one device would end up connected to the attacker with the other one warning you of what has happened. With, say, a five second handshake, that would leave the user time to cancel the connection manually on the other side.
Technically, you could have one attacker exactly behind one device and another behind the other while somehow blocking the signals in between, but I think this is enough security for vacation photos. I'd love a system like this. Everything else is so easy nowadays that connecting cables or setting up passwords is the biggest hassle.
I'm not a security researcher, though, so correct me if I've missed something.
My Sig: SEGV
This is not a competition with wireless USB.
This is a very consumer freindly vs USB (anyone ever had a usb device not work)
You touch the camera to the device, the connected then you set it down while it plays or offloads is content. Its not a USB replacement. This is about as silly as saying wireless USB is starting a standards war with Wi-fi.. different uses. Everything with a cable isn't "more of the same" everthing that is now wireless isn't overlapping..
Geeze some people's ignorance is amazing
Oops, I forgot to say that your pickpocket example could be taken care of by not having the antenna activated if the user hasn't touched the portable device for a couple of seconds.
My Sig: SEGV
Hey, it's been known to happen. I know I got to hang around two different girls in college (though not at the same time) for just doing their assignments.
:P
:P
Mind you, it went nowhere anyway, because I had no clue how or where to go from there. But, "come over to see if it does what your prof wants" seemed to work
Who knows, maybe _because_ it must have been blindingly obvious that there's no risk of anything more happening
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
What good is 3cm range?
Let Sony waste their money, they never do learn do they?
USB's data rate isn't the problem, it's the protocol and how twitchy it can be when transferring a lot of data. Firewire is still superior even though it's 80MBPS slower than USB2.
it comes up with some kind of new standard?
Of course, they have a very lowsy record of promoting closed interfaces/standards, but if you read the press release throughoutly, Sony doesn't seem to promote this as a closed one. I guess (and hope) that Sony finally realized that if they promote any interface as a closed standard, 1) someone will come out with an open standard with a similar feature set, 2) everybody except Sony will gather around it, and 3) only Sony loses.
Since so many people have given explanations why the 3cm range is a feature not a flaw, I don't think I would need to mention it furtuer more.
Although many would think that there may be many devices which aren't capable to have a 'contact point', I don't think so - they can design moderately-sized pads which are connected with wires to the host (e.g. TVs, maybe via an open standard interface such as USB or IEEE1394), and simply placing the device (e.g. camcoder) on the pad would be connecting it to the host.
Please elaborate. BluRay isn't proprietary. Also the drive plays cds and dvds. The hd is sata and replaceable. there maywell be on-processor DRM but that doesn't mean you can't play open media.
So what was your point?
A 3cm range is useless, as many people pointed out you might as well just plug the thing in with a range that low.
I put sorny in my vagina
Why? Because their device can only work within 3cm, that is a FUCK of a lot more secure than a device that works at 3m (that's about 10 ft to you pre-metrics). Think - some hacker has figured out how to make your device start beaming data. If you have Sony's device, you're OK, because you normally aren't letting anyone get within 3cm of you. 3m? You wouldn't even fucking know that your precious files were being copied as you stood there dumbly.
The article is rather sensationalist, it is NOT a competitor to wireless USB or Bluetooth 3.0. In fact, it should be a complement rather then a rival. Transferjet can only broadcast 3mm.
Its meant to be a new way of interacting and transferring data. For instance you would be able to tap your TV, Computer, or Cellphone with your digital camera and the data would be transfered. Being its very short-range it won't be meant for wireless devices such as harddrives or headsets, but rater something that works in conjunction.
Sony moves up one notch, displacing Steve Jobs Apple in second place, for now.
1) Microsoft
2) Sony Corp
3) Apple Computers
4) Google
5) Facebook
6) The Mormons
Salut,
Jacques
> vs. TransfeJet's 3 centimeters
Reminds me of Gameboy's IR connection, where, in theory, two Gameboys could compete against each other in the same game. Gameboy recommended they be only a few inches apart, pointed directly at each other, and played flat against a table. I.e. not the way the game was designed to be played, and essentially unplayable that way.
Nah, I'll take a 20% degredation in speed so I can keep the damned thing in my pocket instead of doing this idiotic "virtual" plug-in-that's-technically-wireless.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Sony's UWB actually works. Real data throughput of most of the others around 20-40 Mbps. Sony 500+, Pulse Link 890.
Don't believe everything you read on the Internet, dude. Sony's tech, according to Ars, "appears to compete" with W-USB. Personally, I think that's retarded, because the Sony interface is meant to work only if you hold devices very close together, which OBVIOUSLY wouldn't work with most USB peripherals.
Hey, I'm not saying Sony hasn't tried to push their own stuff (which I think there's nothing wrong with in a FREE MARKET) but this isn't one of those times. Ars is just trying to drive traffic to their site with another "bash Sony" editorial.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Its bad enough that SACD, Minidisc, Betamax and all of your other formats failed, why do you have to introduce another one? Do you LIKE to fail 90% of the time?
There's a rather large gap between the need to plug a device into a physical dock, and the need to wirelessly transmit data quickly from a distance.
One is quick and secure, the other is broadcast to your whole neighborhood and needs setup in advance (pairing, WLAN config, encryption, etc).
This technology is a universal docking system that complements existing wireless standards. One step closer to being free of wires, gimmick my foot.
I don't know if I would like a big thick ethernet cable connecting my mouse to my PC
As was explained in the presentation, Bonjour is an IP-level technology. Consequently, it can run over any physical medium whatsoever, including radio and any existing type of wiring, so the point you were trying to make doesn't exist.
The real gem is over at MSNBC/MSN. Sony mum on WUSB
Which raises a familiar question: Are we now faced with another war of competing standards delaying the widespread adoption of a highly attractive new technology? Is this HD-DVD-vs.-Blu-ray all over again? It raises familiar questions: Does Microsoft manipulate the media? Is Steve Balmer the Devil? Would Microsoft give you a reacharound?
/palmface
---
Time destroys the speculation of men, but it confirms the judgment of nature. - Cicero
If you have a PDA, mobile phone or rechargable camera, or some other mobile device, the two big compatibility headaches are power connectors and data connectors. It's not such a problem with "weeny" MP3 players (because they can usually plug directly into a USB port), but with other devices its a pain. If you want to interface with your device at multiple locations, the pocketful of custom connector leads can take up more space than the device itself.
With PDAs and mobile phones, manufacturers often like the idea of a combined connector that allows the device to connect (and perhaps sync) automatically when it's dropped into a cradle, and which can also used as a way of connecting peripherals.
Snag is, different manufacturers use different connectors, and sometimes connectors are incompatible even with a single manufacturer. You're unlikely to get a recent Sony or Siemens phone, or a recent Sony PDA, to work with an older Sony or Siemens cradle or data cable, and the custom connectors and cables can be a real PITA on Sony gadgets. It also makes spare cables and cradles difficult (and expensive) to get hold of.
The obvious solution might seem to be for everyone to standardise on the "mini USB" connectors (this seems to be happening with digital cameras), but this still means that manufacturers can't build future-proof docking stations, because the location and orientation of the USB port will be different on different devices and models. Mini-USB also isn't a good choice for docking stations, since the small size of the connector means that alignment is more difficult, and forcing a slightly misaligned device can result in gouge-marks on the casing, and/or damage to the device terminals. To get around this, PDAs and other "dockable" devices tend to have customised large, wide, shallow docking connectors with large-surface-area terminals, to allow the device to naturally seat itself and make a good connection when it is casually dropped into place. Unfortunately these connections tend to pick up dirt and finger-grease and chocolate crumbs and whatever else you have in your pocket.
So the idea of this wireless interface isn't so much to get rid of the wires, as the range of incompatible docking connectors. Once you have devices that support this system, you have a docking location ... a USB "docking tray" by your keyboard (probably connected to your 'puter by a conventional USB cable), and any device you want to connect to gets dropped onto the tray. No worries about missing interface leads, or dirty connectors due to pocket-gunk, or accidentally damaging the socket on your expensive camera. Lots of people now carry data around on USB keyfobs, with this system you could lose the USB connector, shrink the device and make it any shape, and when people wanted to access it they could just drop their housekeys onto the tray. ... you can imagine a stand-alone Kodak photo printer aimed at the home market having a tray on the top surface to place your mobile phone or camera. It might also sell to offices as a security device, with an employee only being logged in when their device in in the tray. You grab your key from the tray when you go for a coffee and nobody can play with your terminal under your ID when you're gone. Same thing at home ... your kids drop their tokens onto the tray to log in. There's nothing here that you couldn't theoretically do here with wired USB, but to be continually plugging and unplugging connectors is a hassle, and risks damaging the the connectors.
A few specialised devices might have these trays built-in
This still leaves the problem of how you get external power into the device, but techhies are already planning inductive-coil solutions to that, so I imagine the Sony guys are visualising an all-in-one device, a USB tray that could double as a recharging tray ... or you could hav
Eric Baird
"Sony obviously hasn't learned any lessons from the failure of minidisc, atrac, memory sticks, r-dat, sdds, HiFD, 8mm video, SACD, UMF, etc, etc (I'm sure I've missed a few failed sony formats)."
...they just need to think about the world wide market a little better.
Maybe some of these aren't popular in the US of A and Europe? (never been there, so i have no clue). But I can tell you for certain that minidiscs were no failure in Japan my friend! Everybody and their mother had a minidisc player back in the day. Any decent home stereo system will have minidisc built in or no one will buy it because everyone has a stack of recorded MDs laying around with their favorite music from the last 10 years or more. (Over here people regularly RENT music and record it to MDs or more recently just rip to MP3/M4A/WMA, encode to SD music formats, encode to ATRAC even depending on their mobile music device choice... a system that does not exsist in Japan. BTW, video game rental does NOT exsist in Japan... which might be a factor for why video game systems make a better profit here and why so many smaller scale games can be published here.)
Memory sticks may only be used in Sony products... but a hell of a lot of people use Sony products over here. And almost every family has a sony Hi8 camcorder laying around (thats no longer used of course) and a majority have a Hi8 deck or combination Hi8/VCR that they would use not only for recording the camcorder videos to standard VHS, but also just for recording their favorite tv-shows or rented VHS tapes to Hi8 tapes.
I think sony understands the dynamics of the consumer market in Japan very well...
I can see this "TransferJet" being something that would work great in Japan. Why would you have a peripheral device 3 meters away anyway? For most poeple here, thats the next guys apartment! 3cm is a safe distance... its more secure, i would imagine it's more battery efficient too? (haven't read the specs)
Perhaps Sony is just giving its Japanese consumers (and probably South Koreans too) another choice that will fit their lifestyles and culture better?
...the MSX computer platform was gaining in popularity too. So said the last article I saw about MSX computers.
You cite an article that is 2.5 years old on the popularity of UMDs? 2.5 years might as well be 25 years when you're talking about consumer electronics, and besides that, there is soooo much stuff that's "big in Japan" that is 100% unknown everywhere else in the world.
I'm still trying to figure out the appeal of a technology that has only has 1% of the range of range and no significant throughput advantage over the prevailing standard. From the TFA I see little to nothing in the advantage of the Sony invention that cannot be handled at the application layer. Oh well...lots of stuff that comes out of Japan seems puzzling to observers outside of Japan.