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Tag: wireless

  • Race towards wireless HD hots up

    Sony and Samsung join new consortium supporting technology that could replace tangle of video cables with wireless transmission of HD video

    A group of consumer electronics manufacturers and wireless technology firms has joined forces to develop a new standard that could send HD video signals wirelessly from a set-top box to screens around the home.

    The consortium – comprising Sony, Sharp, Samsung, Amimon, Hitachi and Motorola – expects to have specifications for its Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI) technology finalised by the end of the year.

    Based on technology from Amimon Ltd of Israel, WHDI is the latest addition in the race to replace video cable.
    A key ingredient of WHDI technology is a new video-modem that operates in the 5GHz unlicensed band to enable robust wireless delivery of uncompressed HD video (including 1080p).

    WHDI allows secure, encrypted HD video delivery through multiple rooms and other potential signal obstructions, such as people and furniture, while maintaining superb quality and robustness with less than one-millisecond latency.

    The consortium plans to enhance the current WHDI technology to enable wireless streaming of uncompressed HD video and audio between CE devices such as LCD and plasma HDTVs, multimedia projectors, A/V receivers, DVD and BD players, set-top boxes, game consoles, and PCs.

    The new interoperable standard aims to ensure that CE devices manufactured by different vendors will simply and directly connect to one another.

    TVs with Amimon’s chips could reach stores by next year, costing about US$100 more than equivalent, non-wireless sets.

    Noam Geri, co-founder of Amimon, said: “If you have a TV in the home, that TV will be able to access any source in the home, whether it’s a set-top box in the living room, or the PlayStation in the bedroom, or a DVD player in another bedroom. That’s the message of WHDI.”

    The quest for wireless streaming of high-definition video has seen various contenders emerge.
    Among them is WirelessHD, centered on technology from SiBEAM Inc, of which Sony also forms part of the group to enable it to have “wider options”.

    Another hopeful is ultra-wideband, or UWB, which requires less compression than Wi-Fi but its range is more limited.
    WHDI is less exotic than either WirelessHD or UWB. It uses a radio band at 5 gigahertz that’s used by some Wi-Fi devices.

    Motorola has looked at competing technologies, but WHDI is the only group it has joined.
    The company plans to build the technology into its set-top boxes, but the first product is likely be a pair of adapters that talk wirelessly to one another. One could be attached to a set-top box, the other to a TV set.

  • European callers become more mobile as landlines increasingly shunned


    Almost a quarter of European households have given up fixed landlines for mobile phones and online calling, according to a European Union survey.
    The poll, carried out in November and December, found that 24 per cent of European households now eschew fixed landlines in favour of mobile phones, up from 22 per cent in a survey two years earlier.
    The Czech Republic, Finland and Lithuania had the lowest number of landlines in use across the 27-nation bloc.
    The results chime with the growing interest in the use of mobile VoIP services – either via GSM/GPRS wireless standards or through WiFi – and the widespread installation of internet calling software on smartphones.
    The EU survey – which questioned 26,730 people – also found that 22 per cent are now using their personal computers for phone calls or video chatting via programs such as Skype.
    That is a rise of 5 percentage points from the last poll.
    The survey said the bloc’s newer members, most of them in eastern Europe, were leading the trend in a shift to online calling.
    In Lithuania, 61 per cent of the households were using Internet phone services.

  • Samsung Instinct goes on sale 21 days before iPhone 3G

    The Samsung Instinct, touted as a worthy rival to the iPhone, has gone on sale in the US at a reduced price.
    Wireless phone network Sprint is offering the touchscreen handset for USD$129.99.
    The drop in price from the expected USD$ 199.99 is a move clearly intended to fuel rivalry with the new iPhone before it comes on the market next month.
    Sprint’s an unlimited data plan (at $69.99 per month) and two year contract agreement are similar to AT&T’s iPhone options.
    A worthy and elegant rival to the Apple handset, the Instinct measures 117 x 56 x 12.7mm and weighs 127 grams.
    It features GPS, EV-DO connectivity for high speed data transfers and a 3.1 inch TFT touchscreen display with 240 x 400 pixels.
    There’s a full HTML browser, Sprint Email, Sprint TV, Sprint Music Store, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, Microsoft’s Live Search, speaker-independent voice dialing, a 2 Megapixel camera with video, and expandable memory (up to 8GB).
    The handset is MMS-capable and its 1000 mAh battery can provide up to 5.75 hours of talk-time.
    The Instinct can be bought online, from Sprint’s official website or in all of the carrier’s US stores.

  • Wireless high definition transmitter removes clutter of cables


    Monster Cable has unveiled a transmitter that wirelessly sends HD video signals from a device such as a Blu-ray player to a high definition TV up to 10m away.
    The transmitter sends the video signal using ultra-wideband, or UWB, technology from Sigma Designs Inc.
    It will also upscale non-HD signals to high-def resolution before displaying on screen. A receiver plugs into a HDMI port on the back of the TV.
    To back up the short-range wireless capability, the boxes can also connect via coaxial cable to reach each other in different rooms, up to 110m away.
    Noel Lee, president of Monster Cable, which is better known for its expensive video and audio cables, said: “We had opportunities with lots of other systems that just didn’t have the quality of service.
    “Sigma is the first partner we found … that has a robust enough technology.”
    The Monster Digital Express HD boxes will be available in the US in October for $299.95 each.
    UWB is just one of several technologies being utilised for wireless HD connections, an area that has presented problems in maintaining a steady flow of wireless data at very high speeds.
    A consortium that includes Sony, Toshiba and Intel is promoting another wireless technology called WirelessHD, with transfer speeds that are even higher than UWB.