Tag: wireless

White space will speed up your connection

Posted on February 13, 2015 by - News

Screen Shot 2015-02-13 at 14.57.04A technology that makes use of gaps in radio and TV frequencies has been approved by regulator Ofcom.

Academics from Strathclude University tested the technique by producing a prototype system in Glasgow which Ofcom has approved.

Ofcom believes that the technique will allow internet access for ships and boats, machine to machine networks and other wide ranging applications. The white space technology can pass more easily through walls and has a greater range than wi-fi.

Ofcom will guide the industry on how to use the white spaces in the frequencies without affecting other channels.

It said it was likely that commercial applications of the technology will be available by the end of this year.

The wireless technology is also expected to be useful when products and services based on the internet of things finally kicks off.

A number of organisations and companies are already experimenting with the technology.

Cisco makes bold wearable claims

Posted on February 3, 2015 by - News

ciscologoNetworking giant Cisco believes that by the 2019 there will be half a billion people using wearable devices.
Cisco said that 2.8 million wearables shipped last year and by 2019 there will be 16.4 million of us wearing gadgets of one sort or another.
The Daily Telegraph reports Cisco’s belief that each gizmo will churn out 569MB of data a month.
By 2019, according to Cisco, 4G networks will represent 88.2 percent of data traffic.  Last year, 4G traffic amounted to 42.2 percent,
Cisco believes too that there will be 5.2 billion mobile users in 2019.  It estimates last year there were 4.3 billion mobile users.
Where does Cisco get these figures from?  No doubt it gazes into its crystal ball and extrapolates current figures using an abacus.
The jury is still well and truly out on wearable devices however – not everyone is totally convinced that having a gizmo built into your clothes is necessarily the flavour of the day.

 

Intelligent keyboard invented

Posted on January 22, 2015 by - News

Screen Shot 2015-01-22 at 14.42.37Scientists at Georgia Tech claim to have come up with an “intelligent” keyboard they believe will change the face of computing.
The self powered non-mechanical keyboard, they say, will give better security.
It generates electricity when a person’s fingertips contact the multi-layer materials that make up the device.
Zhong Lin Wang, a professor at Georgia Tech, said: “Every punch of the keys produces a complex electrical signal that can be recorded and analysed.”
The scientists believe the keyboard can also generate enough juice to charge portable devices or to turn a keyboard into a wireless keyboard.
Wang said: “This has the potential to be a new means for identifying users.  With this system, a compromised password would not allow a cyber criminal onto the computer. The way each person types even a few words is individual and unique.”

 

LTE to boost broadband access for homes

Posted on September 19, 2014 by - News

wirelessmastThe widespread  adoption of LTE for fast internet access on smartphones and tablets will have a knock on effect on the broadband wireless market.

That’s according to ABI Research, which foresees the widespread adoption of LTE making it easier for people without DSL, cable or fibre optic broadband to have fast internet connections in their home.

And a number of chipset and other vendors will accelerate that push, according to Jake Saunders, 4G director at the market research company.

Those include vendors including Huawei, ZTE, and Netgear, which are all readying routers based on LTE that will let people have 4G connections at home. Chipsets from Intel, Sequans, Qualcomm and GTE are all competing in this space.

Shipment numbers for residential and commercal LTE gateways is set to grow to 44 million units by 2019.  Many people living in rural areas who have been excluded from fast net access are likely to have an answer to their problems sooner rather than later.

Intel talks up wi-fi cunning plans

Posted on August 22, 2014 by - News

cunning-planChipzilla is telling the world about its cunning plans to move to “wire-free” computing by 2016.

Writing in the company bog, Intel is apparently developing a smart dock through which laptops can wirelessly connect to monitors and external peripherals.

Intel said that this will remove the need to plug HDMI or DisplayPort display connectors directly into laptops. The wireless dock will provide USB 3.0-like speeds to transfer data to external peripherals.

“When you walk in the office with your laptop, it will automatically link with your wireless-enabled monitor or projector to deliver an HD streaming experience without the hassle of plugging into your HDMI or DisplayPort,” Intel said.

Intel is developing technology so wireless monitors automatically start and link up when laptops are within a specific distance. Intel calls this “proximity-based peripheral syncing” technology.

People could also log on with face recognition, without the need to touch the keyboard.

Most of Intel’s wire-free computing is based on WiGig, which is faster than the latest Wi-Fi technology. Intel is also considering WiGig to connect wireless keyboards and mice to laptops.

Power adapters will also become outdated in Intel’s wireless world. It is developing wireless charging technologies for laptops. So far we have already seen charging pads based on A4WP’s Rezence magnetic resonance technology.

Intel is expected to explain its wire-free computing for business PCs plans at the Intel Developer Forum next month in San Francisco.

But it will have to move fast. Rivals bought Wilocity, which develops WiGig technology, last month and will put WiGig in its Snapdragon mobile chipsets so smartphones and tablets can wirelessly stream 4K video to external displays.