Wireless USB on its way

Imagine you reached home with your smartphone full of important messages,
your pen drive full of files and your digicam crammed with pictures. Now sitting
at your computer table, what if you could access the content of all of these
devices and transfer them to your computer without taking them out from your
pockets or bag and without using wires?

If you could do that, you'd be using wireless USB, which could be the next
big thing for the personal area network (PAN). A couple of weeks back, Wipro
demonstrated a high definition video transfer between two laptops over the Ultra
Wide Band (UWB), a breakthrough which put it in a select band of companies and
inch it towards many technologies including those like wireless USB.

UWB is a short-range wireless protocol that promises to give great throughput
at short distances. It is faster and more secure than most wireless protocols.
So much so that both USB and Bluetooth groups are trying to merge their existing
technologies with UWB. You will be able to transfer heavy multimedia content
without much effort.

Explains Donald MacDonald, VP, Intel's Digital Home Group "In ultra
wide band, short pulses are transmitted over a wide spectrum. Because it
transmits on several channels at once, it leads to less interference. It also
makes it much easier to move content to mobile devices."

The Intel-backed WiMedia Alliance is readying to come out with UWB systems
that will work as physical layer replacements for (apart from USB) FireWire
(1394) and TCP/IP.

Sunil Rajguru

Bangalore (CyberMedia News)