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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.
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."
...In Asia 3cm is long!
(Tasteless humor I know, but I had to. Really.)
Sony's mom is an open standard.
But really...3 centimeters? Are they joking? Why not just plug it in at that point...
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
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.
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..
Imagine a stack of AV components with no wires interconnecting them. Buying a new DVD/BluRay player and adding it to the pile aand everything "just works", no cables or anything. Perhaps popping your MP3 player down on the stack and having it sync up (and probably charge too), still with no wires.
That's what this is for. It has nothing to do with PCs, and it isn't a competitor to W-USB. It's unrelated. This story was written so this guy could get ad revenue off of links from sites like Slashdot, and all the other places guaranteed to pick up an inflammatory anti-Sony story.
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.
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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.
...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.
I see both sides, but in this case, I think they're right.
When companies compete and the consumer wins, it's competition.
When companies compete and the consumer losers, it's a standards war.
For instance: Tech X is created. Company A and B compete to create the best and cheapest device that uses Tech X, including interface, style, functionality, etc. This is competition.
Tech Y and Tech Z are created and basically do the same thing, but a little differently. Company A works on devices for Tech X, but B works on devices for Tech Z. The consumer is stuck with one company after they buy the initial product. There's no way for them to use Z's new accessory with Y's original product. Worse, the price competition isn't as sharp since the companies can leverage the accessories to garner sales, instead of using how good and cheap the product actually is.
As far as HDDVD and Bluray, though... I don't think there's a need to have a 'standard' at all. Let them both exist, and movie producers can create discs in all formats. For the number of movies produced, there won't be any real difference in cost to do it that way. The only reason it makes any difference to the consumer is that they are signing everyone to exclusive contracts and screwing the consumer.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM