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Intel Wireless Networking Hardware

An Introduction To Wireless USB (WUSB) 330

Posted by timothy from the not-too-technical dept.
An anonymous reader writes "This technical whitepaper by Rafael Kolic, a technology marketing manager in Intel's Corporate Technology Group, introduces Wireless USB (WUSB) and explains how it will impact device performance and mobility. The latest iteration of USB technology, WUSB will offer the same functionality as standard wired USB devices -- but without the cabling."
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An Introduction To Wireless USB (WUSB) More

An Introduction To Wireless USB (WUSB)

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  • Doesn't this already exist? (Score:5, Informative)

    by JayDiggity ( 70168 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:12PM (#8352843) Homepage
    Ummm.. don't we already have something for that called Bluetooth? Hrm.

    From the Bluetooth SIG Mission Statement [bluetooth.com]:
    Develop, publish and promote the preferred short-range wireless specification for connecting mobile products...

    • Re:Doesn't this already exist? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by afidel ( 530433 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:17PM (#8352879)
      No, Bluetooth is much smarter because it doesn't require a PC. Bluetooth is peer-to-peer whereas USB is a stupid bus for connecting devices to a PC.

      • Re:Doesn't this already exist? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by the melon ( 89066 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:33PM (#8352970)
        I gusee you could say USB(2) is to firewire what WUSB is to Bluetooth. (W)USB are host-based where firewire and bluetooth are host independant.

      • Re:Doesn't this already exist? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Saturday February 21, 2004 @10:01PM (#8353118) Homepage
        If you read the posted article, it will allow limited host capability which would allow you to do things like print pictures straight from your cellphone to your printer without having to have a computer involved. This is a good thing too, because bluetooth allows the same thing, so to not include it would be quite stupid.

        Also, this is designed to compete in a different space. While it can do the things that Bluetooth does, it's also designed to be used by hard drives and other devices that require MUCH more bandwidth than is available with Bluetooth. Maybe when it's updated, but right now you just couldn't use it for a hard drive or to connect your 5MP digital camera.

      • Re:Doesn't this already exist? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 22, 2004 @08:54AM (#8355022)
        "Bluetooth is much smarter because it doesn't require a PC."

        Smarter in the sense of "the best networks are dumb, and innovation happens at the edges"?

        Let's have a protocol that's as easy to solder to a PCB as RS232 is with no licensing requirements, a spec that fits on 2 pages of A4, and controller chips that you can buy in Maplin. Then we might get somewhere with this wireless idea...

        • No! Re:Doesn't this already exist? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by samjam ( 256347 ) on Monday February 23, 2004 @09:25AM (#8361423) Homepage Journal
          RS232 is simple as you say although the spec is bigger than two pages.

          The Bluetooth specs include shared access to a noisy medium, so theres a lot of pages to the specification just to get that working. Want to see how many pages of specs relating to the various networks there are? Including the actual media, the signal as well as the bottom layer protocols?

          Bluetooth also includes a lot of bluetooth profiles. This are roughly equivalent to the HTTP, SMTP, IMAP etc specs as used for internet services. You want to see how many of those can fit on two pages?

          The only reason bluetoth has innovation happening at the edges is because the in-between is the ether.

          You want something as simple as 2 pages and a bit of soldering? How about morse code and AM modulation, cos thats all you'll get.

          Sam
      • but if the article's claim is true this is far far smarter than Bluetooth

        "WUSB will offer the same functionality as standard wired USB devices -- but without the cabling"

        does that mean that i can still have small devices draw power from the bus? wireless power transmision sounds good to me ;)

    • Re:Doesn't this already exist? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by eraser.cpp ( 711313 ) * on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:18PM (#8352883) Homepage
      Adoption of bluetooth technology has been very slow though. And since this would most likely see implementation on motherboards it is very likely to be bluetooth's successor if it actually ever enters production.

      • Re:Doesn't this already exist? (Score:5, Informative)

        by fyonn ( 115426 ) <dave@fyonn.net> on Sunday February 22, 2004 @06:30AM (#8354825) Homepage
        actually, I think that the adoption of bluetooth has been pretty quick and fairly widespread. I'm in the UK and a large percentage of mobile phones come with bluetooth already and most of the ones due out soon include it. most of the current crop of pda's either have bluetooth on board or can be upgraded via a card to support it. you can buy countless BT headsets and hands free kits for your car and many laptops have it onboard.

        thats pretty much bluetooth's market sewn up. while it's true that most desktop's don't come with BT as standard, some do and it's only a 17 usb dongle away. I got a dlink BT dongle for my mac and it works like a charm to speak to my siemens mobile phone, I just wish the prices of BT memory sticks for my clie weren't so outrageous.

        sure it's not overly fast but it is easy and convenient and works. I thought it was doing pretty well.

        dave

        PS. saying that, has anyone else seen a bit of incompartibility between apple's bluetooth stack and a siemens mobile phone? I can sync over BT fine but sending txt's via it is problematical. it says everything is fine but alot of the time the txt's don't get sent. anyone else?

    • Re:Doesn't this already exist? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:21PM (#8352904)
      Bluetooth is a low power, relatively low speed, low range wireless personal network. It's not meant to transfer large blocks of data.

      Unfortunately Bluetooth arose in an age where it was already outdated, as our devices quickly became too powerful for this dismal standard.

      I'm really excited about wireless USB, especially if cheap solutions allow us to convert wired to wireless. I work in a high tech classroom with digital smartboards and a stereoscopic wall, and one of the problems we're having is connecting devices (such as cameras and microphones for video conferencing) from the classroom back to the computer closet behind everything. The normal cables just don't reach, so we have to either use a series of repeaters, or USB to ethernet converters, both of which are nontrivial in price.

      Of course if they could develop cheaper wifi chips, everything could just have an 802.11x interface and you could network any devices, so maybe what we'll see is a happy medium between bluetooth and wifi.

      • Re:Doesn't this already exist? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Enry ( 630 ) <enry@@@wayga...net> on Saturday February 21, 2004 @11:54PM (#8353644) Journal
        Hey look kids, Rob Enderle showed up.

        It comes down to what you need.

        802.11* is a high speed standard for replacing much of the Ethernet wiring. Great for mobile devices that have good sized batteries (i.e. laptops).

        Bluetooth went the other direction. Instead of focusing on speed, why not power? Bluetooth has a much lower power requirement, and at ~760kbps makes a great way for cell phones (which are currently in the ~128kbps range) to talk to small, low power devices (like a palm or WinCE or Zaurus).

        I recently had the choice of PDAs to get one with bluetooth or 802.11. I took the bluetooth and so far have not had any regrets about it. Of course, my laptop has both 802.11 and bluetooth in it.

        • Re:Doesn't this already exist? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 22, 2004 @01:57AM (#8354178)
          I couldn't have said it better.

          It's been said again and again, but I'll do it again for fun if nothing else: if you need a very high speed connection, plug the damn thing in.

          Here's the design philosophy for wireless communications, and for all things, really:

          1: Make it cheap
          2: Make it fast
          3: Make it so it dosen't suck energy like a muscle car sucks gas.

          Chose two.

          It will hold true always. There will always be a solution that, while not the fastest, accompolishs most things that one could wish to do with it, be more cost effective, and use less energy.

          Guess what? Bluetooth is that solution.

    • Re:Doesn't this already exist? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Crypto Gnome ( 651401 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:33PM (#8352972) Homepage Journal
      Develop, publish and promote the preferred short-range wireless specification for connecting mobile products.

      And if you read this "introduction" it's CLEARLY positioning WUSB for things like in-the-home high-capacity connectivity for devices where you're rather not have wires (eg HomeTheater, they specifically talk about bandwidth consumption of HDTV streams etc).

      Very muchly *not* what BlueTooth is aimed at.

      • Re:Doesn't this already exist? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by khuber ( 5664 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @10:11PM (#8353168)
        What's wrong with wires? They're simple, cheap, and reliable. Not only that, but they tend to have better performance.

        I can understand a bluetooth iPod or other mobile device, but for electronics equipment that sits in your house, wires work better. For example, I don't see why people put up with crappy 10-55 Mb/s Wifi when standard cabling is so cheap! Likewise, why do you want wireless HDTV for home theater? It seems to offer little benefit for stationary equipment. I think it has more to do with conspicuous consumption (oh look at how hip I am with the tech!) than practical benefits.

        • Re:Doesn't this already exist? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by ergo98 ( 9391 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @10:46PM (#8353352) Homepage Journal
          For example, I don't see why people put up with crappy 10-55 Mb/s Wifi when standard cabling is so cheap!

          Wireless is freedom, and it doesn't require you to snake wires through your walls (which is a major bitch in most cases if you want to do it right -- i.e. not running it through an air return and then hanging the wire around your baseboards). The few times I've really had the need for 100Mbps (versus the 36Mbps I'm currently getting over 802.11g, up on the second floor with the WAP in the basement), I'll bring the laptop to the basement and plug-in, but otherwise this whole wireless thing is fabulous.

    • Re:Doesn't this already exist? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's kinda interesting because if you look at the wireless tech we have now, nothing wired equated to Bluetooth:

      Serial > USB > WUSB
      Ethernet > WiFi
      ??? > Bluetooth

      Bluetooth is a much smarter protocol that allows you to build a PAN - something you'll need if you have 2 PCs with WUSB in the same vicinity...

      maybe WUSB stands for Wireless Ultra-Smart Bluetooth or something, but to all intents and purposes, it sounds like choice is getting in the way of standards again... *sigh*

    • No, no no... (Score:5, Funny)

      by commodoresloat ( 172735 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:48PM (#8353049)
      Bluetooth is dead [slashdot.org], remember?

    • Power Requirements (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Featureless ( 599963 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @10:44AM (#8355305) Journal
      Let me summarize why Bluetooth is not dead, and wireless USB is not really a competitor for bluetooth:

      Wireless USB Power requirements [deviceforge.com]: 300 mw ("with a target of 100 over time")
      Bluetooth power requirements [catc.com]: 100 mW, 2.5 mW, 1 mW (the last two are class 2 and 3, the variants widely used.)

      Frankly, wireless USB sounds less interesting to me. Well, it's a threat to Wifi, from the sound of it. It's really, really fast and power hungry. It sounds primarily for unwiring our desk-bound, non-mobile computer peripherals from the computer. But then we will have to plug them all into the wall instead. So there are a few that had power anyway and now we've cut the number of cables from 2 to 1 - OK. But quite a few the only cable was USB (and that was providing power) anyway. It wouldn't be a viable solution for things like wireless mouses and keyboards, for instance. And I don't think I'd want that instead of bluetooth for the PDA/phone or PDA/computer link.

      There are a lot of applications where very low power (1 mw!) is much more important than bandwidth.

  • Netcraft confirms, WUSB is dying. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:12PM (#8352844)
    Well, now that Bluetooth is dead, it's good that WUSB will come out soon. That way Netcraft can confirm that WUSB is dying.

    They have to do something all day there...

  • "...without the cabling." (Score:5, Insightful)

    by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:12PM (#8352845) Homepage
    Or the security.

    • Re:"...without the cabling." (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Ferretski ( 160396 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:24PM (#8352914)
      ...or the power

      • Re:"...without the cabling." (Score:5, Insightful)

        by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Saturday February 21, 2004 @10:05PM (#8353133) Homepage
        This is what I'm worried about. Let's take the home theater example. While it would be nice to have my DVD player talk to my reciever, they are both powered independantly. But what about connecting to my speakers using WUSB? Do I have to keep batteries in my speakers now? Will each speaker have a seperate power cord? Wouldn't EITHER of those be a large pain?

        To go back to computing space, there are lots of little USB devices that get power from the bus, and I wouldn't want to have to add batteries to everything. My GBA Flash Cart programmer get's its power from USB. What about USB->serial/parallel converters for when I want to use some of my older stuff? While this would be handy for hard drives and other things that often need seperate power anyways, this could be a pain in other circumstances.

        • Just use stick a largish tesla coil in the room, it'll power everything- wirelessly.

          Oh, and make sure to get big speakers to drown out the racket

          And make sure your sofa doesn't have any metal in it.

          And keep a fire extinguisher handy.

          But aside from that, i'm sure home tesla coils will be a revolutionary addition to the wireless house.
          • Haha!

            Yeah, the wireless power thing is a bit of a problem.

            Actually, I'd be happy if manufacturers could just stick to a standard for DC power, then you could buy DC power converters with multiple outlets.

            Still I have visions of Tesla coils arcing across the room and frying random parts of the house ... hahaha ... a Red Alert defense system in my living room! :D

            • Re:"...without the cabling." (Score:5, Interesting)

              by TummyX ( 84871 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @08:35AM (#8354992)
              An even cooler idea would be to run both 12VDC and 240VAC throughout the house. A lot of devices people run now days run on low voltage DC. Think battery chargers, computers, LED lighting, routers, flat screen TVs, clocks, radios etc etc. I reckon I run more DC devices than AC ones and I have tens of inefficient AC-DC power supplies to prove it.
              • Do you relize the size and cost of copper cable that you would have to run around the house to provide decent wattage? Besides if you going to do something like that why not bit the bullet and run power over ethernet and kill 2 birds with one stone. You would have gigabit eithernet and enough wattage to run a lot of smaller devices (12 watts and change on cisco if memory serves) I say thing because running DC power in a daisy change to outlets would require some beefy cable at 12 volts as in you need ten
        • Every wire that's taken out will make a home theater system that much more usable. You could have one power cord for each component, one wire from each speaker to the central 6.1 amp, and one input wire from cable/digital cable/satelite. All the other signal wires from component to component would be done wirelessly. Selecting the source wouldbe easier, too, since a component that's turned off doesn't show up in the list of inputs.

          That would be cool.

      • Re:"...without the cabling." (Score:4, Informative)

        by gabebear ( 251933 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @10:56PM (#8353395) Homepage Journal
        These things are going to eat several times more power than a Bluetooth radio. The article says: "The power target for WUSB radio will be introduced at less than 300 mW and drive to a target of 100 mW over time."

        That's the same as lower power 802.11 cards [rfdesign.com]

        Bluetooth chips generally eat less than 40mW, some as little as 20mW [findarticles.com]. I wouldn't put WUSB in a cell-phone.



  • Neat (Score:5, Insightful)

    by __aavhli5779 ( 690619 ) * on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:13PM (#8352850) Journal
    So soon after the "Bluetooth is Dying" article we get this.

    Methinks a conspiracy!

    In all honesty, this looks like quite nice tech though I can imagine some of the implementation will be a real pill. Problems like how to manage roaming a device from one cluster to the next will surely require some ingenuity, especially given that backwards compatibility with classic USB devices is a goal (though I presume that those will only be adjuncts to the cluster, sitting at a wirelesswired bridge).

    Bluetooth has fulfilled quite well the idea of a truly ad-hoc network among devices, but I assume that will be a much more difficult thing to achieve with WUSB, making some, I'm sure, doubt the point of the project. I think the idea of devices beaming data around to each other at 480 mbits answers that one quite nicely. I look forward to this*

    *linux and OS X support for this; until then, I ain't touchin' it :)

  • What about range? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Limburgher ( 523006 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:14PM (#8352854) Homepage Journal
    Will this have longer range than Bluetooth? If so, it will fly, especially if some sort of OS-transparent USB-WUSB adapter is available. If not, I doubt there's much sure for it. What about security? Will it be encrypted at all? Last thing I need is to be using a WUSB mouse on a plane and having some kid three rows back taking over and h4x0r1n6 my b0x3n.

  • Power (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ween ( 13381 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:15PM (#8352863)
    I really enjoy being able to power most of my devices over USB and not having to have an extra plug and/or wallwart to deal with. I for one would much rather keep wired usb and forgo the power adapter, than wireless usb and have to deal with yet another plug to have to find power for. I know most of you probably are already running fire hazards as it is now.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:23PM (#8352907)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Power (Score:2, Insightful)

      by JunkDNA ( 123288 )
      Not so sure this is true. I took a look around at my setup (not that I'm assuming everyone has the same things, but I consider myself a typical geek). Most of my USB devices require a power cable: scanner, printer, Logitech Mx 700 mouse (cradle), Palm cradle, & external HDD. Then there are other devices that don't "need" a power cable: digital camera & MP3 player. The only two devices that I'd have to add a power cable to would be keyboard (could do batteries here) and webcam. Seems like I'd just ha

    • Or maybe wireless power! Imagine having a 4 foot diameter microwave transceiver dish on both your PC and mouse. Not to mention the migraine of biblical proportions you'll get after using said mouse for 5 minutes... Uhm... Scrap that wireless power idea...

    • Re:Power (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Crypto Gnome ( 651401 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:54PM (#8353072) Homepage Journal
      Ah the joy of being narrow-minded. I've already got MY needs met, screw the rest of you.

      Read the article, it (for example) talks about using WUSB to connect your HomeTheater setup to your PC for streaming HDTV. Personally I'd prefer to keep my PC in one room and my HT setup in another (for acoustics if nothing else) in which case I'd much rather not have to run cables between the two.

      Clearly they're positioning this for the in home digital network. Digital Convergence While you *can* sortof achieve these things with WiFi and IP Streaming, the bottom line is that neither WiFi nor IP Addresses are trivial enough for Grandma to connect hreself.

      They envision a world where everyone has a computer (for internet and email) and they want to provide "consumer level" (ie plug it in and it just works) connectivity to it for "just about any computing device in the home".

      PLUS this spec talks about device-to-device (USB doesn't do this now?) so think along the lines of Digital Camera-to-Television for viewing Photos (or even videos).

      A high-bandwidth plug-and-play connectivity spec without wires opens up a Whole World of opportunity. Suddenly your computer in the study becomes a back-end server to the entire home, display on my HomeTheater Widescreen TV, stream HDTV from my computer (recorded from my DTV STB), pull up photos from my camera onto the TV, pick one and then email it to someone. and none of these devices are wired to each other. When I have guests around, all they see is "a normal living room" big TV, nice speakers and a digital camera on the coffee table. A complete lack of messy wires everywhere (without having to wire everything into the walls - which is generally not an option if you're renting). And the best thing (from a business perspective) is that if you have enough 'tech skills' to drive AOL then you can have a digitally-converged household like this (ie just about anyone is a potential customer, the only limit is disposable income - and we're taoking 'consumer level' here, so it's not big bux).

      • Re:Power (Score:3, Informative)

        by dublin ( 31215 )
        Digital Convergence While you *can* sortof achieve these things with WiFi and IP Streaming, the bottom line is that neither WiFi nor IP Addresses are trivial enough for Grandma to connect hreself.

        No, actually, it *is* easy enough for Grandma, but the problem is that corporate egos are trying as hard as they can to keep this from really working. The problem, as usual, isn't that we have no standard, but rahter that we have at least one too many.

        The bottom line: we (users and product designers) are all ca

  • Wireless keyboard loggers, anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:15PM (#8352865)
    I can only hope and pray that wireless USB will be very very secure. The thought of someone with a nice high-gain cantenna [turnpoint.net] and a datalogger is none to comforting.

    I can also see all many nasty opportunities for system flakyness when a computer gets intermitt-tt-ttant contacts with other wireless USB devices and tries to establish a connection.
    • RTFA, essentially they say "no encryption in the connectivity spec, feel free to add it at the application layer if you need it".

    • Re:Wireless keyboard loggers, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Doomdark ( 136619 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @10:19PM (#8353212) Homepage Journal
      This seems bit obvious, but what's so wrong about actual end-points (devices) handling security (encryption, authentication) ABOVE transport layer, end to end, using a standard protocol. Why is everyone assuming there can be no security if the low-level protocol itself doesn't bolt-in everything needed? I mean, TCP/IP doesn't do encryption either. That's why (non-stupid/ignorant) people use ssh instead of classic telnet, and can get decent security against loggers, sniffers, men-in-middle etc.

      Of course if so, protocol designers should just define that at lowest protocol level such features are out of scope.. that is, to indicate they had done conscious decision, not that they were ignorant of obvious needs for actual appliances.

      • How long did it take to convert people from insecure telnet to ssh? There are even systems still that do not have encryption imposed that some twit I have to deal with doesn't see any reason for setting it up. The main problem is that if policy is not dictated people will be lazy. It's easier to not have encryption in the protocol and make devices that don't use encryption, or maybe they do encrypt but it's useless (WEP), or maybe they then require drivers to support it (so no Linux support or some such
      • Why is everyone assuming there can be no security if the low-level protocol itself doesn't bolt-in everything needed?

        Because I can't just run an IPSec application on my mouse...
  • No thanks.

    I've had bad experiences with wireless. I'll be sticking to wired devices for years to come yet.

  • Will die like bluetooth (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mnmn ( 145599 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:16PM (#8352868) Homepage
    One of the biggest advantages of USB is the power that flows through it. I just plug in my mouse, webcam etc and no bulky adapters required. Theyve also been around since the days of the Pentium1, and you can be sure a USB drive will work many places.

    Now wireless.... you'll need batteries or adapters, wont work just everywhere and you'll have to pay motherboard makers to build it in.

    Not too many people need short-range wireless interfaces outside of the 802.11a/b/g, which is different
    • One of the biggest advantages of USB is the power that flows through it

      FireWire, with 12V, is much more capable. Examples are pocket drives....the USB models all require a brick/adapter. It's a bit of a stretch to give USB too much credit in this department :)

  • All of the problems that immediately came to mind, fell under the unsurprisingly vague section Design Considerations.

    And none of them seem solved...

    Hell, did it even mention what spectrum was being targetted?

  • Wireless power (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Fragmented_Datagram ( 233743 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:18PM (#8352884) Homepage
    And now if we could just develop wireless power for all these wireless devices... other than batteries, of course. ;-)

  • Uh...this could be (Score:5, Informative)

    by iminplaya ( 723125 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:18PM (#8352886) Journal
    a problem. [arstechnica.com]
    • They plan to get it certified, they are just forming their own group and bypassing them for now because they say that it takes way to long to get it certified. This way they can start making things and we'll all see it soon. If they didn't, they could end up not getting aproval untill it would be time to update it anyway because of bandwidth needs (or something else). Just an example, I don't know how long it would take.

  • So... (Score:2)

    by niko9 ( 315647 ) *
    which one will the FPS gamer want?

    Bluetooth mouse, WUSB mouse, or standard wireless mouse??

    --

    • Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)

      by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:31PM (#8352965)
      which one will the FPS gamer want?

      Bluetooth mouse, WUSB mouse, or standard wireless mouse??

      They'll want a standard wired mouse, thank you very much. All others risk downtime for battery changes. :)

    • Re:So... (Score:3, Informative)

      by mcbridematt ( 544099 )
      probably the standard wireless mouse. USB in it's own right eats up CPU power, which in turn, eats fps. WUSB probably won't be different. The usage for USB mice wouldn't be much, but any extreme gamer might take it as too much =(

      Not to mention any lag factors with wireless.
      • I agree. I don't like the amount of CPU that USB can eat up. I prefer PS/2 over USB. I hope they fix this in WUSB. CPUs may be getting faster, but that's no excuse to stick us all with cruddy WinModems, WinPrinters, WinSoundcards, etc. I'll pay the extra $5 for something that works well, thank you.
    • what about a mouse that has an actual tail on it?

  • Obvious (Score:4, Funny)

    by linux_warp ( 187395 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:23PM (#8352913) Homepage
    "WUSB will offer the same functionality as standard wired USB devices -- but without the cabling" - I moderate this line redunant - I mean really, if it had cables, then it wouldn't be wireless

  • Highlights (Score:5, Informative)

    by the JoshMeister ( 742476 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:27PM (#8352940) Homepage Journal

    Here are some highlights for those too lazy to skim the article (or in case it gets Slashdotted)...

    • The Wireless USB Promoter Group consists of (of course) Intel and MS, as well as HP, NEC, Philips Semiconductors, Samsung Electronics, and Agere Systems
    • WUSB hosts can connect to as many as 127 WUSB devices at a time
    • Targeted bandwidth of 480 Mbps (same as USB 2.0)
    • The biggest selling point seems to be that it "will offer the same functionality as standard wired USB devices but without the cabling"

  • Handsfree Headsets (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Knetzar ( 698216 )
    Will this have a standard way for wireless headsets to connect to phones and wireless headphones to connect to audio equipment?

    If not, bluetooth is needed as well.
  • "The laptop is connected wirelessly to the radio tower via a serial connection
    A wireless serial cable, eh?
    • Wireless is all a serial connection, unless you broadcast bits in parallel at different frequencies.

      Spread spectrum is still serial.

      I know your post was supposed to be sarcastic, but really it doesn't make much sense.

  • It's not really wireless... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cbreaker ( 561297 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:42PM (#8353030) Journal
    People get so caught up in the wireless craze..

    But unless it's a PDA, keyboard, or mouse, it's not going to be wireless, you'll have to plug it into the wall for power. Unless of course, you like buying lots and lots of batteries. Rechargable you say? Find a wireless battery charger and I'll retract.

    So, you still have to cable the power cord. I mean, I'm not really saying this wireless stuff is bad, it's not. You can plug in your printer across the room and not have to run the USB/LPT cable.

    I guess you have to take the name "wireless" literally, it's not "wirenone" it's just LESS wires.

    If this becomes a common standard, however, it would be nice being able to buy *any* wireless USB mouse and not worry about what brand reciever you have. Although, this really isn't a huge issue.. Logitech wireless KB/Mouse stuff is cheap anyways.

  • I am waiting for.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by lunartik ( 94926 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:57PM (#8353093) Homepage Journal
    FireWireless

  • What about wireless Firewire? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ada95 ( 183169 ) on Saturday February 21, 2004 @09:57PM (#8353097) Homepage
    Should it be called Firewireless or just Fire?
    • Well, since it's firewire, and it goes through the air, I think the perfect name would be "Firebird".

      I've done months of research, so I'm sure the name is not being used by anyone else...

      </SARCASM>

      (BTW, this post was plagarized.... from myself... circa a wireless firewire topic from months ago)

  • This isn't about bluetooth.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by beldraen ( 94534 ) <chad...montplaisir@@@gmail...com> on Saturday February 21, 2004 @10:08PM (#8353150)
    It doesn't make sense to "kill" bluetooth. The standard is there, although broken in some respects. Plenty of devices have started to use it. For it's purpose of low power use and simple connectivity, it has things going for it. Bluetooth's only real issue has been cost. When I can buy a bluetooth card for $220 or a lan card for $99, which do you think someone will invest in? However, consider the issue of the exploding WAN market. Everyone's battling over who makes 801.11b, g, and whatever new variant that comes along (dual channel, etc.) The single greatest problem with WAN is that you've got the idea of connectivity, but not the bandwidth or the standard for device connection for high bitrate media. I can buy a Wi-Fi DVD/Dixv/MP3 player, but I have to have the company's specific software to use it and I have to have the local network configured correctly. What would happen if you started with USB and added in your own wireless spec? You start with a device model that everyone has already agreed on and can instantly support plug-and-play device detection. They can by-pass the politics of getting an agreed upon standard networking protocal since it is not trying to tie into ethernet. They can just create a virtual networking device driver and route it over USB and we have 480 Mb wireless networking. Intel could easily become the dead center of media-centric, wireless conectivity.

  • Is Intel going to do this with everything? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 21, 2004 @10:30PM (#8353270)
    Are they just going to tack some new capability onto USB every time there's a superior competing technology?

    USB was fine for what it was originally designed for. Then Intel had to juice it up a little bit to try to convince people it was better than FireWire. Now they've got Bluetooth in their sights.

    I would much rather have several different technologies that each do one or two things exceptionally well, rather than one technology that's trying to be all things to all people.

    Microsoft is trying to shoehorn Windows into everything, and look what we've got to show for it: PDAs that need more horsepower than a workstation from five years ago had, BMWs that develop a mind of their own, an albatross of a game console, etc...

    It's like Intel is slapping a wig and fake tits on some big, burly truck driver and trying to convice people it's just as good or better than a real woman.

  • WUSB Hardrives? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by utlemming ( 654269 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @02:18AM (#8354274) Homepage
    Looking over the other posts there was some concern about security. But the thing that I saw that made me bulk was the idea of WUSB hard drive. The problem I see is what happens if you turn off your computer, and your WUSB hard drive is on? Does that mean that some punk can then access your hard drive? Some things should be left with the security of a wire. I am all for innovation, but this is one area that I can see problems. Brings wardriving to a whole new dimension. Forget trying to hack the computer, just hack the hard drive. A hackers dream. And the whole idea of security being implemented on the software level -- something tells me that it means that WUSB may not be open source friendly. What vendor is going to want to release open source drivers for something that they most likely half-aced? Somehow I see a problem akin to the WiFi drivers -- few selection for those of us that want to use open source and use WiFi. A nice idea, but I nessarily like the idea of having my printer hijacked because some smuck walks by with a laptop.

  • One major adantage of USB over WUSB (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Karora ( 214807 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @05:23AM (#8354735) Homepage


    A supply of power to the device.

    No, seriously, one of the advantages USB is supposed to deliver is that it has a 5v supply that can deliver power to devices so they don't need a power adaptor any more. Sometimes it even works, too - I have an unpowered USB doohickey that I plug my camera media into, for example. Do that with WUSB :-)

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