Why Can't Wi-Fi Be More Like Star Trek?
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Ziff Davis - Opinion: This year, all of the big mobile operators are starkly aware that they're in a race. But "Star Trek" taught us never to make the mistake of assuming that people operate rationally.
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Several devices on the market will help you find a Wi-Fi network, but the same price doesn't mean the same performance. Product review by Daniel Terdiman.
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Researchers in China & rsquo;s forest begin to reap the benefits of WiFi. Also: NASA builds what it believes is the worlds fastest computer & hellip;. Sony releases new portable Playstation & hellip;. and more.
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The Story: Some technologies always seem to be ?just around the corner.? Seven years ago, there was a big flurry of interest in end-to-end Ethernet (aka metro Ethernet) as a brace of new ventures promised to cut through the complexities of wide area networking.[ Slideshow: 2007's top underreported tech stories ]                                                    They didn?t deliver. One big reason: building a new network that will reach into offices and homes costs beaucoup bucks. As IDC analyst Boyd Chastant puts it, ?Digging a whole in the ground never gets cheaper.?Laying fiber is still expensive, but now telcos ? including AT&amp;T, Verizon, and Qwest ? plus cable companies such as Optimum LightPath, Cox, and Time Warner that already have fiber in the ground are offering Ethernet services. LightPath, for example, boasts of 2,500 miles of fiber in the ground and says it has lit more than 2,000 buildings in its service area in the northeast.End-to-end Ethernet offers a very affordable way to connect LANs to a wide area network. After all, every router has an Ethernet interface, you don?t need much special hardware, and the technology is very familiar. So most IT staffers will have little trouble adapting, says Burton Group analyst Jeff Young. That is, if you can get it: Pricing depends on your need for speed, and not all of the providers offer it throughout their service areas.Raw bandwidth isn?t Ethernet?s big advantage. It?s not necessarily much faster than private lines. However, says Chastant, it is more scalable. Conventional private-line services offer speeds near the bottom (around 10Mbps) and the near top (around 10Gbps), but not much in the middle. End-to-end Ethernet solves that. And it can be tied to Internet access, bumping up access speeds appreciably.Availability is on the upswing too, says Boyd. In the past, carriers worried that end-to-end Ethernet service would cannibalize other data services. But now that demand has reached critical mass, that concern appears to have faded. Meanwhile, providers and equipment manufacturers are ironing out incompatibles and clarifying service definitions in the Metro Ethernet Forum, Chastant says.It looks like we?ve turned the corner and end-to-end Ethernet is right in front of us.The Bottom Line: If your carrier doesn?t provide end-to-end Ethernet, another provider likely does. It?s worth the trouble to look: End-to-end Ethernet will give you the performance you need and because it?s a familiar technology you won?t have to retrain or replace your IT staff.Complete list of 2007 underreported stories: 1.? Java is becoming the new Cobol 2.? Sun Microsystems is back in the game 3.? Hackers take aim at Mac OS X 4.? There are some threats you can worry less about 5.? Companies may have found a way around H-1B visa limits 6.? Open source?s new commercial strategy 7.? End-to-end Ethernet finally arrives 8.? Blade servers arrive for the masses 9.? BI is dead; long live BI 10. Balance of power shifts to software buyers
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Great innovations in wireless technologies have arrived in recent years, and their effect has yet to be realized. But those innovations may be hindered by thinking that an even better innovation is just around the corner.
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Nowhere is wireless network reliability, coverage and speed more important than in healthcare applications.  Columnist Craig Mathias says new-generation WLAN systems are up to the task.
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Years from now, your children will laugh about how you had to "stay in range" of a Wi-Fi signal to stay connected to the Internet when you were young. From Crave, CNet's new gadgets blog.
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The laws of physics make the promise of anywhere, anytime wireless hard to realize. Columnist Craig Mathias discusses ways to make wireless more reliable.
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SCIENTISTS have sounded the death knell for the plug and power lead. In a breakthrough that sounds like something out of Star Trek, they have discovered a way of 'beaming' power across a room into a light bulb, mobile phone orlaptop computer without wires or cables.
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Can Wi-Fi signals make you ill? Newshounds pore over the available literature, but miss something interesting about the claims
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Every year at CES time, we revisit the topic of when or whether the US will finally catch up with the rest of the world in mobile wireless broadband. Why do we keep butting up against the same roadblocks year after year?
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LAS VEGAS -- I'm surrounded by anywhere from 120,000 to 200,000 of the country's top minds in the computing and consumer-electronics industries, but I still couldn't find a decent WiFi connection in the convention center yesterday or Wednesday. I don't mean to whine, but, really, if we can put a man on the moon, can't we put one lousy reporter on the Internet for more than a few minutes?
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Blog: More bandwidth is always beneficial, but it is no longer a networking panacea.
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With a rash of muni Wi-Fi projects collapsing, companies and cities realize their initial approaches to providing ubiquitous, free network connectivity aren't working. The problem is Wi-Fi is too expensive to deploy, and there's not enough user demand.
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Think of it as Wi-Fi on steroids.  On its way to U.S. living rooms and maybe even automobiles is a  new type of high-speed wireless connection that promises  downloaded data rates of up to 1 gigabit per second -- roughly  18.5 times the speed of Wi-Fi -- to personal computers and  other devices.
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A startup says it can give subway riders wireless Internet access that&#39;s faster than most home broadband in the U.S.Tests at stations and on a special stretch of track in the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system around San Francisco showed that Wi-Fi Rail&#39;s patent-pending technology delivered more than 15Mbps of wireless throughput to riders and people waiting for trains, the company said. Wi-Fi Rail hopes to roll out such networks on rail systems around the world and charge commuters for access.Commuter rail, with thousands of daily riders, could represent a rich opportunity for public wireless Internet access. Wi-Fi hotspots in airports and coffee shops have drawn some paying users, but the hotspots are useful more for occasional than for regular use. And citywide public Wi-Fi networks, often planned out with local governments, have run into political and business problems.Wi-Fi Rail, founded in 2006 and based near Sacramento, would build two kinds of Wi-Fi networks: one in the cars and one around the tracks, said Michael Cromar, Wi-Fi Rail&#39;s CFO. Passengers would log in to access points on each car, and each car&#39;s network would lock on to one access point after another along the rail system. The trackside access points, in turn, would feed traffic onto fiber-optic lines. Roaming would be handled by the in-car network and be transparent to users, Cromar said.Even better than typical home broadband, the network can deliver its average 15Mbps speed both upstream and downstream, according to Wi-Fi Rail. Passengers would share that link, but in tests, there was no noticeable slowdown between one passenger and eight passengers using the network, Cromar said. The system worked with the trains moving at speeds as high as 65 miles per hour.The company tested its technology in both underground and above-ground parts of the BART system. Above ground, Wi-Fi Rail used standard outdoor access points with line-of-sight antennas to form a link from trains as they went by. In an underground test, the company used &quot;leaky&quot; coaxial cable, a technology some rail systems already use for exchanging operational data with cars, according to Cromar. The leaky cable is deliberately unshielded so signals traveling along it can be picked up all through a tunnel.In-car tests took place on a 2.6-mile BART test track last month, as well as on a stretch of tunnel in San Francisco. Another part of the test proved such a service can draw customers, Cromar said. Wi-Fi Rail set up regular access points in four underground stations in downtown San Francisco and let people waiting for trains register and use the network for free. Without any publicity, more than 6,400 people signed up in less than six months, he said.Although BART hosted the tests, it hasn&#39;t made a deal to have such a network deployed, Cromar said. But Wi-Fi Rail has talked with one interested transit system in the U.S. and is working with a partner to approach a rail system in another country, he said. The company said its technology is ready to go and could be used for anything that follows a predetermined path, including highways.
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Ken Mingis writes for Computerworld, âWith its latest Airport Extreme base station, Apple has done more than revamp the look of its popular wireless routerâ¦In addition to adopting 802.11n  â  a whole new standard in Wi-Fi that promises faster transfer speeds and better range  â  it is also making a foray into home storage networks.â