Slashdot Mirror
Wi-Fi Direct Gets Real With Product Certification
CWmike writes "Wi-Fi Direct officially became a concrete technology today, with several new laptop components certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance. That threshold was reached before most people even understand what Wi-Fi Direct is, reports Matt Hamblen. Wi-Fi Direct is a new technology designed to allow peer-to-peer Wi-Fi connections between devices like smartphones and cameras without a traditional Wi-Fi network or the need for Wi-Fi access points. This means that a camera with Wi-Fi Direct installed could communicate via Wi-Fi to a digital picture frame or printer, uploading picture data over the same range of existing Wi-Fi, about 200 yards at speeds of up to 250Mbit/sec, said Wi-Fi Alliance CEO Edgar Figueroa. 'Imagine if two people were on a train and wanted to play a game in real time on their separate handhelds but had no cellular or Wi-Fi hot spot. They still could play with Wi-Fi Direct,' he said."
I wonder how long it will actually take to phase out bluetooth. I mean, that tech has been around forever and never really caught on outside of phones.
I've been able to have two Wifi laptops communicate in an ad-hoc network forever, so how is this really different?
The article quotes Enderle. It's validity as journalism just got -3 mod points. As Enderle only makes stupid and pointless commentary about wi-fi tethering, it avoids the full -5 mod pomt deduction it could have suffered if the main point of the article was based on something he said.
It's cool man. It's cool.
No, really, it may have technical differences, but it all boils down to fucktards colonizing the industry that should be for smart people.
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
All of the same benefits of Bluetooth, plus the WiFi congestion and interference headaches we already enjoy just to get Internet access???
Where do I sign up???
*rant off*
I second that motion. How is this new and different.
You didn't even read the summary did you?
Peer-to-peer for "dumb" devices, like of a high power, long range Bluetooth.
this is so amazing. now i can not communicate with anybody else on a train because they would have to pay for the same game & it cant be copied from phone phone to the next, and their operating system is different, and i cant show them how to get the game because their phones GUI is different.. its like.. bluetooth!
Whats the harm in yelling 'Computer, end program!'? You could be living in Star Trek! Go on.. give it a try.
'Imagine if two people were on a train and wanted to play a game in real time on their separate handhelds but had no cellular or Wi-Fi hot spot. They still could play with Wi-Fi Direct,' he said."
Pfft, old news.
http://guidesarchive.ign.com/guides/12865/images/linkcable_top.jpg
Whale
I've been able to have two Wifi laptops communicate in an ad-hoc network forever, so how is this really different?
Exactly. When I saw "Imagine if two people were on a train and wanted to play a game in real time on their separate handhelds" I thought of Wi-Fi on the Nintendo DS, which in effect turns player 1's machine into an access point.
Because you didn't have to pay for the privilege of using ad-hoc
This is just a brand name for ad-hoc networking, then?
Funny funny - try stealing both devices with your Vegas Valet service.
then goes on to give an example of 2 people playing a game, which has been done on the psp and the DS for getting close to a decade
its just brand naming ad-hoc and does not show or explain how it is different
And it goes to 13 in Japan.
Over the weekend I was configuring my thermostat and sprinkler system for Fall, and wishing I could cheaply and easily use a web browser interface instead of the tiny, arcane LCD screens currently used to do this. These interfaces only have a few buttons and it's pretty hard for me to imagine configuring ad-hoc wifi on them. I think the problems solved by Wi-Fi direct, such as agreeing on a WiFi channel and encryption key, are fairly simple, but if they can make it a push-button operation that actually interoperates on a wide variety of devices, I'll be there.
Maybe there's more to Wi-Fi Direct than what Ad Hoc networking offers - I really don't know..
So you could take a minute to post the fact you are uninformed to slashdot, or you could have spent that same minute informing yourself...
Well, yes, but my point still stands: that "gaming on a train" thing is a terrible example of what Wi-Fi Direct has to offer. Playing a game wirelessly between two or more devices? We've got that already. That feature has been available at retail in mainstream gaming devices for at least six years. And that's what they chose as an example of why Wi-Fi Direct is a new and exciting feature? Pathetic.
Bow-ties are cool.
According to Wikipedia, Wi-Fi Direct is ad-hoc mode Wi-Fi device with a built-in Wi-Fi Protected Access setup daemon, optional access point software (e.g., routing to other networks) and an as-yet undefined service discovery mechanism (e.g., UPnP, Bonjour). Basically, they are writing a standard which ties together several existing standards and best practices. This sort of meta-standard is quite common.
One example they give is a picture frame, which offers only the required ad-hoc mode Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Protected Access daemon, and a simple service for file upload. The user would connect to it, upload pictures, and then disconnect. Nothing else would be offered by the frame, but the user would not need to do any manual setup or buy any additional devices.
A more complicated example is a cell phone which offers tethering. In addition to the required ad-hoc mode Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Protected Access daemon, has full blown bridging/routing and service discovery daemons built-in. The user would expect to treat this device more like an infrastructure mode network in a single package; perhaps some setup would be required on the Wi-Fi Direct device, but virtually no additional setup would be required on each connected device.
So basically they are just making a standard, the implementation of which requires doing all of the things we have done manually for our own networks. This is just one step further in simplifying network setup, but not any kind of new revolution.
The preceding comments reflect the author's personal opinion and are public domain, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Ok, so I'm well aware that unless done correctly this would have security concerns, but... Could this type of technology be used to build a wireless mesh network, allowing people to access the Internet via wi-fi where ever they were so long as there were multiple Wi-Fi Direct appliances that could be chained together to connect to the data?
I hate to reply to my own posts, but I just thought of an additional comment to add.
In the example of the picture frame, likely all of the extra Wi-Fi Direct magic will be baked into the firmware.
On the other hand, for devices like laptops, I doubt that they would put this amount of software into firmware. It is likely that the extra components that turn plain Wi-Fi into Wi-Fi Direct will be entirely software that is delivered by a package of drivers and helper programs that are all provided by the OS or via a setup disc. This sort of of all-in-one setup will likely be offered to Windows and Mac users. However, users of independent operating systems, like Linux, will likely not see this, and will likely still have to manually setup these subsystems. Therefore, for Linux users, I imagine that we will see no real difference at all between a plain Wi-Fi chipset and a Wi-Fi Direct chipset.
The preceding comments reflect the author's personal opinion and are public domain, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Ad-hoc/IBSS was never widely adopted by consumers, and is a very connection-centric technology. You create ad-hoc profiles on each participating machine, activate the network, and that's it. Security and services are up to the user- and generally the ability to create ad-hoc networks is relegated to the "advanced" section of most WiFi UIs. WiFi Direct uses WPS so average-Joe users can create and join secure "ad-hoc" networks without really knowing anything about the underlying technologies. It also provides the ability for devices to discover each other based on specific services (device features, like printer, projector, etc) instead of relying on a static SSID or credentials set.
IBSS also has some timing requirements that rule out the possibility of using the host radio for anything other than the IBSS network. WiFi Direct allows for radio multi-purposing, opening up possibilities for wireless devices that I don't want to get into right now.
So it's a similar idea to traditional ad-hoc, but it's much more geared toward novice users and/or WiFi-capable devices with limited (or no) WiFi user interface, and has built-in security without compromising the user experience. To be honest the underlying implementation of WiFi Direct is fantastically complex. It's WAY more advanced than ad-hoc/IBSS... but the whole point of it is to make WiFi networking SEEM simple, so in that regard I feel it's a success.
It would probably be similar to that "one touch secure" thing you see on wireless routers these days. You push a button on the router, another button on your device (or click the button on your laptop) and automagically the router and your laptop are communicating via WPA2 security. Except expanded for more devices (that one-touch setup really is only for PCs to APs - I don't think I've ever seen it implemented elsewehre).
So Linux might get it yet - all it takes is someone to figure out the protocol and how the keys and such are derived. After all, you push two buttons and the SSID and WPA2 keys are exchanged somehow. A Linux implementation would also happen because there's still a number of embedded Linux devices out there (including stuff like TVs) that would benefit from this.
Though still - given the Nintendo DS, Sony PSP and I think even the iPod Touch/iPhones all support wifi ad-hoc gaming (I think the iOS one is via WiFi or Bluetooth)...
So basically this is just another way of saying "ad hock".
An option, mind you, that most individuals with any concerns over privacy and/or security take great pains to ensure is turned off on their wireless-enabled devices.
I must admit, however, that I particularly enjoyed the fact that he answers the question of security with "security is baked in to every connection with WPA2 authentication and encryption", then later on appears to elaborate on this with "...any computer could become an access point. If you have had problems with rogue access, oh boy, watch out.... You may need to rethink your security procedures.".
I wonder how long it will actually take to phase out bluetooth. I mean, that tech has been around forever and never really caught on outside of phones.
Bluetooth passes the 8KHz network timing natively, by timing its frame rate to the network clock and having built-in provisions for picking a good clocking master. This is very handy for cellphone peripherals because it makes them cheap: The phone provides an accurate and (if appropriate) network-synchronized clock to the the A/D converters in microphones, which only have to synchronize to the frame rate from the phone's bluetooth signal rather than have a stratum-III or better clock built in.
With WiFI any solutions to timing-transfer issues (other than those of the link itself) are add-on kludges.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
An interesting extension would be to add service discovery at the WiFi beacon level, so you could see what services were on offer from surrounding devices without connecting to each ad-hoc network. That would be something new, rather than just a standardization of a combination of existing technologies.
Basically, they're doing BonJour?
you mean that in the US, it will be completely crippled and used only for headsets because the manufacturer fear getting sued for copyright infringement and the service provider fear it could be a concurrent ti paid services ?
while at the same time europeans will enjoy beaming files wirelessly, synching, etc. ?
seriously : yes, bluetooth featured all of this and even more since ages. But functionnality has been limited in some market. In fact i partly expect that we're going to see Zune- and eBook- style limitation on WiFi direct, for fear of enabling piracy and whatnot.
Can existing Wi-Fi devices, like notebook PCs, just upgrade software (downloaded from the Internet) to get the Wi-Fi Direct function? Or does it require new hardware?
--
make install -not war
Could this be the tech for sending messages to nearby phones without knowing in advance their specific network address (eg. phone# or IP#)? Phones could accept connections over Wi-Fi Direct from other nearby phones, locate them physically and show the message recipient just where the message is coming from. It would let us use our phones to say "hey, you!" or "psst" to people without everyone around knowing we did. People could shut off the messaging or screen it, or just see every message cast at them. But a way to do this would let us use our phones to augment behavior that we've appreciated for thousands of years, if not forever.
--
make install -not war
If anyone has it, please email it here: charles.peter.picard@gmail.com.
I can't find it anywhere.
I can see it now: wardriving for picture frames and uploading goatse to each one.
I, for one, welcome our new WiFi Direct overlords.
I want my Cowboyneal
Don't you just love buzz words that just relabel an existing tech or methodology? Kinda like how everything is about "the cloud" now. Ugh.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.