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Sony Starts a Standards War Over Wireless USB

Posted by kdawson on from the don't-stand-so-close-to-me dept.

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.

3 of 401 comments (clear)

  1. 3cm is a Good Thing by enoz · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  2. Re:Sony obviously.... by utopianfiat · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sorry, SD for life.
    But mostly because it's a card that is supported natively by my laptop, my game console (wii), my digital camera (canon powershot a50), and my gps (garmin nuvi). At $40 for two 2g-ers, you can't go wrong. It's like my new floppy.

    --
    +5, Truth
  3. Re:Losing a battle to win a war. by DrXym · · Score: 5, Informative
    What it suggests is that they were heavily focused on pushing Blu-Ray.

    And since there is no "open" standard for high definition discs, I fail to see what your point is. If you mean the standard with the largest industry support by a mile then Blu Ray is that standard.

    And the PS3 is an incredibly open and standards compliant device, especially considering it is a games console. Want to upgrade your HDD? Just whack in a 2.5" SATA drive with no bullshit 2x markup for drive in a special case. Networking? 802.11b/g wireless with full WEP/WPA support and gigaethernet are there to support you. Want to use a keyboard / mouse / storage device? USB is there to do it? Want to use a wireless mouse / keyboard / headset? It has blue tooth support? Want to save / restore files? Use CF, SD, MS, USB to do it. Want to talk wirelessly in-game? Want to play CDs, DVDs? Yes it does that, and rips CDs to MP3 or AAC too. Want to play MP3, AAC, JPG, PNG, MPEG2, H263 ASP (divx), H264 AVC files locally or streamed over a network? No problem. Want to stream? No problem it implements DNLA, an open standard. Want to run Linux? It supports that too. Or browse the web? No problem.

    The PS3 is an amazingly open device and you bitch that Sony dare push their own (widely supported) standard for just one aspect? You don't have to buy the device you know.