The WiGig Alliance captured our imaginations back in May, but now it seems that the world of multi-gigabit streaming is so close, we can taste the data slipping over our tongues on their way to the next access point. Put simply, the specification that the group has been toiling on over the past few months is finally complete, and while some of its members have been prototyping wares along the way, this 1.0 announcement effectively opens the flood gates for partnering outfits to implement it into their gear. In case you’re curious as to how 60GHz will help you, have a listen: WiGig enables wireless transfer rates more than ten times faster than today’s fastest wireless LAN, and it’s completely backward compatible with existing WiFi devices. As we’ve already seen with those totally bodacious dual-band (2.4GHz / 5GHz) routers, having another band with this kind of speed potential can only mean great things for the future.

We had a talk with Dr. Ali Sadri (the group’s chairman and president) as well as Mark Grodzinsky (board director and marketing work group chair) in order to get a better idea of what’s at play here, and frankly, we’re anxious to see this get implemented into… well, just about anything. WiGig v1.0 supports data transmission rates up to 7Gbps, and if living in a house full of WiGig-enabled devices, you could finally envision streaming HD content from a bedroom PC to an HDTV and a living room netbook without any wires whatsoever. In the case of the netbook, there’s even a chance that the embedded WiGig module could support faster transfer rates than the sockets around the edges, which would simultaneously enable wireless to be faster than the wired (at least in this scenario) and your brain to melt.

Finally, the group has picked up four new members — NVIDIA, AMD, SK Telecom and TMC — though unfortunately, WiGig wouldn’t comment on the future availability of 60GHz products. We were told that they would be shocked if anyone had a prototype 60GHz device on the CES show floor, but you can bet that won’t stop us from looking. Oh, and if we had to take a wild guess, we’d surmise that companies interested in speeding up their own offerings will be jumping on this quick, so hopefully you’ll be ditching 2.4GHz once and for all come next summer(ish).

Continue reading WiGig Alliance completes multi-gigabit 60GHz wireless specification: let the streaming begin

WiGig Alliance completes multi-gigabit 60GHz wireless specification: let the streaming begin originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

If we’re able to avert this looming “spectrum apocalypse” we’ve heard so much about, it looks like 2010 will be the year that many of you get to partake in LTE. What better way to indulge your lust for airborne data than ZyXEL’s newest, the ZLR-2070S LTE CPE/SOHO router? Apparently “the world’s first,” this guy features two VoIP ports, a four port 802.11n wireless switch, a USB port for storage or printer sharing, and data rates up to 50Mbps. Not bad, eh? We expect to hear more about this one in short order — it will make its society debut at next year’s CES. In the meantime, peep the PR for more info — it’s after the break.

Continue reading ZyXEL to debut ‘world’s first’ LTE router at CES 2010

ZyXEL to debut ‘world’s first’ LTE router at CES 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

We’ve been waiting for what feels like an eternity for wireless HD to really have a place in the world (outside of the elite home cinema world, that is), and while the dream definitely took a hit with the FlyWire’s death, it sounds as if things may be rounding the ever-present corner. Amimon, a company responsible for bringing wireless high-def capabilities to all manners of pricey wares through WHDI, has just announced the 1.0 specification of its protocol. Mind you, there are already quite a few big players onboard with the outfit, so hitting the one dot oh could very well kick start a new round of devices (set-top boxes, HDTVs, media streamers, etc.) designed to handle wireless transfers of 1080p material. You can catch the relatively calm press release after the break, and rest assured we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled at CES for new gear based on the spec.

Continue reading WHDI specification hits 1.0 — is this what wireless HD has been waiting for?

WHDI specification hits 1.0 — is this what wireless HD has been waiting for? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Ah, the blessings of market fragmentation. If you thought that, in its efforts to differentiate the Starter Edition from its beefier Windows 7 offerings, Microsoft chopped off the ability to share wireless connections between compatible devices, we’ve got good news: it didn’t. Turns out that ad-hoc networking is very much a part of Windows 7 Cheap Edition, and the only thing missing from it is the dialog you see above. Thrifty Edition owners will have to find the application themselves — through the shockingly difficult process of a Start Menu search — but once they do it’ll behave exactly as if they’d bought the Extra Awesome variety. Great job, Microsoft — you keep hiding features and we’ll keep installing Chrome OS on our netbooks, deal?

Windows 7 Starter comes with hidden wireless connection sharing originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PC World  |  Within Windows  | Email this | Comments

The FlipShare TV is a new set-top box from the Flip video folks, and it looks like nothing as much as a smoke alarm. The little box hooks up to your TV (HDMI or composite) and receives video wirelessly from a nearby computer via a proprietary USB dongle (using a tweaked version of 802.11n). A small remote control lets you, well, control things from the comfort of your sofa. It costs $150.

$150 for plug-and-play wireless video connection sounds pretty good to me (or it would, if my TV screen wasn’t smaller than my laptop screen), but there’s a catch (you saw that coming, right?). First, you’ll need to be running Flip’s own FlipShare software, an you will be limited to the formats that you can play, just like the Apple TV. You can stream standard-def video in AVI and MPEG-4 format, and HS (1280×720) in MPEG-4. Any other formats (including some actually created by the software), will need to be converted.

There are some other features, like the ability to share your clips on a kind of private YouTube for Flip owners, allowing grandparents to watch videos of the grandkids, for example, but it seems like an afterthought.

These various “solutions” (Apple TV, FlipShare TV and the Slingbox) are all temporary fixes. Soon enough, our TVs will be computers, and this stupid differentiation between types of screen will be dead. Until then, I’ll stick to watching my RSS triggered BitTorrent TV shows on my MacBook. In bed.

FlipShareTV [Flip. Thanks! Jamie!]

Pure Digital FlipShare TV Review [Wired.com]