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.

Comments

Re:Losing a battle to win a war.

[ivan256]

Now it seems Blu Ray has won it will be interesting to see if PS3 development starts to be more tightly focused on directly making money with the PS3.

Considering their announcement that the PS3 now costs under $400 to manufacture, you're probably right there. But that doesn't imply they're going to make the system less open. Their fancy graphics chip is still only accessible to licensees, and they seem to think that is sufficient for them to milk cash out of developers. It *is* sufficient.

The PS3 seems to me to be more born of learning the lessons of their failings with the PSP, and not of their focus on BluRay.